Rating: 
Summary: Read this.
Review: Looking for a fresh work of science fiction, I sat down with this book and was delighted. Inventive plot and great characters deliver somewhat wishful and compelling tale about how the human race might be saved from itself. In addition to the entertaining reading, Tepper successfully uses science fiction to provide interesting perspectives on abortion, tradition, and middle-East violence.
Rating:
Summary: Tepper does it once again
Review: Sheri Tepper has done it once again. She gets us thinking about many of the social issues facing us today while taking us somewhere we have never been before. I could not put the book down and I could not wait to see what happened next. I definately recommend it for any sci-fi reader.
Rating: 
Summary: Take that, you guys!
Review: This is mind-expanding political SF: what do you do with invading all-powerful space aliens when they actually have some good ideas for Earth? The simple, even-handed, idyllic Confederation is represented by the droll Pistach aliens, but is gradually revealed as more complex: no habitat lacks its predators, right? Nor will these aliens allow a nanny society that prevents vice and thereby would stop evolution dead. Tepper makes reference to current affairs by developing the theme that civilization advances by shedding jealous gods and religions in favor of Neighborliness. Tepper has a broad and sarcastic enough outlook to amuse or offend every reader at some point. She is far less subtle here than in some of her earlier books; this one is more like an entertainment or an enthusiastic brainstorming session. Tepper is clever and witty, turning pro-life males into gestation hosts, replacing educators with teachers, and making politicians personally pay for their failed programs. She gives women all the good parts and males the nasty, sniveling ones. The aliens are tree huggers and that's supposed to make us like their killings of unsympathetically drawn white males. The fresco, a cyclorama described early as the central religous icon and myth of the alien's faith, is a parody of Christian Stations of the Cross. The story is impish rather than the usual horrible alien encounter beloved by Hollywood. It's fun, but it's also cutting.
Rating:
Summary: Undiluted vitriol
Review: One of my favourite authors, Ms Tepper usually seems well-balanced in her writing, using solid arguments combined with off-the-wall science fiction to illustrate her humanist (I don't consider them feminist) views ... This book shows her to be well-balanced by having chips on both shoulders.
This is essentially an environmental treatise, echoing James Lovelock's Gaia theory, and a blueprint for future co-existance with all living creatures.
No-one is immune from her vitriol:- FBI, DEA, NRA, the law, Forestry, smoking, religion, alcohol, prisons, fertility clinics - all get a slating, and deservedly so.
However, unusually, this diatribe verges on the extreme, and the Alien solution she employs, while being vastly effective, almost seems like another oppressive regime.
I found this less convincing and more trite than her previous books (like 'Raising the Stones') which support the same goals; I felt that things happened too easily, the results too assured and altogether too slick. It struck me as being 'McCaffrey-esque' in the way some of the scenarios are staged.
Still a worthwile read - especially for the Ugly Plague - don't you wish you could serve justice up in a similar way?!
Rating:
Summary: ms tepper is back in full form
Review: ms tepper has re-established herself as the author that makes you squirm. she confronts the reader head-on and forces her/him to think on these things. you may disagree, but her ideas are presented in such a straight-forward manner that you can rant and rave and talk out loud to yourself, and then get on with enjoying the story. there is no hidden agenda or subtle manipulation while trying to pretend objectivity. the author may exagerate some concepts to make the point or get the reader to think about it, but it is all out in the open. i disagree with her a lot, but she challenges me. i LOVE her work and this is one of her best.
Rating: 
Summary: Enough victimology!
Review: Nearly a complete waste of time. I recommend instead the Gor series by John Norman.
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful "first contact" sci-fi
Review: There are parts of this book that are sheer genius-- the aliens "fix" social problems on Earth with things that I really wish I had the power to do (in some ways & on some days). It took me a while, though, to get "in" to the book-- I'm not sure why, but it's not a page-turner the way, say, Into Women's Country (another Tepper book) was for me. But it's definitely a thought-provoker. What if aliens could come down and change us, whether we wanted them to or not? What if politicians really had to "perform" the rhetoric that they espouse? (Put their money where their mouth is)?
A good, entertaining, quick read, not too complex, a little simplistic perhaps at times but worthwhile. If a "4 stars" is a "B" on the A-F scale then my rating gives it about a B+.
Rating:
Summary: A painful read
Review: I am a big Tepper fan and so was even more disappointed in this book than if it had just been some random paperback I picked up in an airport. Wanting to put it down around page 100, I kept reading, thinking it had to get better sometime, but it just got worse and worse. Strangely, Tepper had the ability to make seemingly bizarre worlds and people seem completely realitic and believable, but when she tries to write about the "real" contemporary America, the results are stilted, dull, and don't ring true. I wish I hadn't read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Not worth the effort to read.
Review: I am new to this author, but the book looked sufficiently intriguing for me to pick up. That was a mistake. This idea has been done to death, and by far better story-tellers than Tepper. The anti-male slant it seemed to have (with the exception of a couple of characters) actually annoyed me to the point where I almost didn't finish it. Bad, non-funny, poetic justice-type jokes fill this book, and don't help it. For once I'd like a science fiction author in the 21st century to approach a heavy topic like aliens coming to Earth with a bit of seriousness and maturity, rather than with tongue-in-cheek, cutesy humor. This is the first and last book by this author I'll buy.
Rating:
Summary: Each new Tepper book is the best one ever
Review: I've never read a Sheri Tepper book that I didn't love from the first page, and The Fresco is no different. It makes me want to go buy them all and read them from the beginning, all over again. The best part of this book is her direct and very funny attack on the so-self-righteous male right-to-lifers who get hoist on their own petards with such perfect irony. Every social problem you can think of is addressed in this book and with such delightful and exquisite humor that it makes you want to read it over again as soon as you finish the last page.
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