Rating: 
Summary: Don't let this be the only Tepper book you read
Review: A charming story, lost in a spectacular overlay of polemic. Tepper's work is always drenched in her liberal (not *just* feminist) political and spritual values, but usually this does not hurt her stories, and often it augments them (the feminist thought exercise that laid the foundation for _Sideshow_ inspired one of the best first chapters I have ever read). Not so, in _The Fresco_ - a promising beginning is soon overwhelmed by an ongoing rant that stunts the story before it has a chance to mature. I don't think it's just because this story veers into political territory that I can't agree with (which it does) - Tepper's _The Family Tree_ remains one of my favorite novels, although I am appalled by its subtext of environmental extremism. My favorite aspect of Tepper's writing is her creativity and ability to describe mindblowing otherness, and in that arena this flight of fantasy never gets off the ground.
Rating: 
Summary: Hectoring the Choir
Review: I enjoy reading science fiction--particularly the "old-fashioned" novels that deal with contact with other planets and alien cultures. Mary Doria Russell's "The Sparrow" and Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars series are examples of excellence in this genre and I would put Sheri Tepper's best novel, "Grass" in this company. Since that time, however, her work has grown increasingly shrill and didactic--and she has ridden her hobby horses--planned parenthood, the almost universal oppression of women--as well as many of her other pet topics--right into the ground. For the first time, too, she has obviously taken current politics--President Clinton and his administration--as her model for the president and his enemies and added it to the mix and the result is, quite simply, excruciating. Her male characters in particular are mouthpieces that spout set pieces such as: "I"m merely anti-woman...Once female life expectancy exceeded that of men in the U.S...it was obvious that we were doing something wrong." It would be funny if Tepper weren't so utterly lacking in humor. So busy, too, is she in her shotgun blasts (a metaphor that she would loath, I know) against anything that she disagrees with that she doesn't even bother to fully develop the central thesis of her book. A bunch of aliens decide to intervene in earth's culture and change everything (including barcoding everyone's hands) that doesn't work--and that's O.K.? Sounds like cultural imperialism to me! Tepper doesn't even examine any downside to this--in fact, the earthlings (meaning Americans--they're the only ones who count in this novel) are so contented under this system that they even do something to help the wavering Pistach people along. Cartoonish violence and a sketchy background (Benita, the heroine, is supposedly working as a bookstore manager though we never see her there) only add to the general mishmash. Now, I definitely consider myself a liberal person (though alas, Ms. Tepper no doubt wouldn't concur as I probably wouldn't agree with everything that she has done or said in her life) and I felt that she was so one-noted and polemical that she would probably end up either alienating her readers (the majority of which probably agree with her) or having them no longer take her seriously as a novelist. Good writing and careful exploration of ideas have been abandoned for tract writing. To be honest, I kept on reading just to see how bad it could get, and now that I have, I won't need to read any more of her novels in the future.
Rating: 
Summary: Tepper is getting even more ham-handed.
Review: I'm used to Tepper's books being extremely "feminist", but even with that expectation, THE FRESCO is pretty darn ham-handed about it. She takes an otherwise lovely, interesting book, with a good lead like Benita, and bludgeons it with her agenda. All the male characters are Bad - drunken, petulant, childish, unbalanced, violent, irrational; in a nutshell, cardboard. Flat, black and white cardboard. To the point of parody.Apparently, throughout the known universe, men are known as uncontrollable animals and the gals regularly chuckle knowingly together over it. At least the Inkleozese seem to manage to be a female-centric culture without being total sheeple losers. The Pistach don't mind completely giving up their freedom for the "good of the group". I, however, manage to be a responsible adult without totally giving my life up to the will of the majority, thankyouverymuch. If you like Tepper's other works, this is a fine example and you should enjoy it. I did, with the agenda stuff mostly rankling afterwards (I was too caught up in the story during to be too bothered). The four stars are for someone who likes Tepper. If you *don't* like heavy-handed, menbadwomengoodandright fiction, then I'd say two stars and steer clear!
Rating:
Summary: Tepper is getting even more ham-handed.
Review: I'm used to Tepper's books being extremely"feminist", but even with that expectation, THE FRESCO ispretty darn ham-handed about it. She takes an otherwise lovely,interesting book, with a good lead like Benita, and bludgeons it withher agenda. All the male characters are Bad - drunken, petulant,childish, unbalanced, violent, irrational; in a nutshell,cardboard. Flat, black and white cardboard. To the point ofparody. Apparently, throughout the known universe, men are known asuncontrollable animals and the gals regularly chuckle knowinglytogether over it. At least the Inkleozese seem to manage to be afemale-centric culture without being total sheeple losers. The Pistachdon't mind completely giving up their freedom for the "good ofthe group". I, however, manage to be a responsible adult withouttotally giving my life up to the will of the majority,thankyouverymuch. If you like Tepper's other works, this is a fineexample and you should enjoy it. I did, with the agenda stuff mostlyrankling afterwards (I was too caught up in the story during to be toobothered). The four stars are for someone who likes Tepper. If you*don't* like heavy-handed, menbadwomengoodandright fiction, then I'dsay two stars and steer clear!
Rating:
Summary: An enjoyable new read for the Tepper faithful
Review: The Fresco will probably not take a place among my favorite Tepper novels. (I like Grass, Shadow's End, and Gibbon's Decline and Fall best.) Nevertheless, I did very little but read the book the Friday after Thanksgiving - it held my attention well, I wanted to find out what would happen to the characters, and I was at least mildly intrigued by several of the novel's driving ideas. The book "suffers" (if you're inclined to call it suffering - I think that I am not) the usual infusion of very blatant social and political philosophy. This is a strange thing for me to get used to (even after reading more than half a dozen Tepper novels); I tend to agree (often passionately) with the essential social and political ideas Tepper works with, but I often find myself uncomfortable with her very direct use of these ideas in fiction. Something about very explicit politics seems to limit the power of great fiction. (And I'm not discriminating here - much as I love John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Charles Dickens's Hard Times, the authors' forthright use of politics always diminishes the feeling I take away from these books.) Anyway, the usual ideas are present in The Fresco: a rather common woman becomes rather uncommon as she discoverers a greater sense of worth, or purpose, and so on. I really like this character, and I must say she is one of the reasons I did not take many breaks while reading the novel - she is not a terribly complex creation, but she is attractive, likable, and a generally useful protagonist. Hm - I should have planned this review before I started writing! I'll close with a general recommendation: if you enjoyed Gibbon's Decline and Fall, please read The Fresco. The two novels have much common ground, and they go well together. If you have not yet read Sheri S. Tepper, I would start with Grass or Shadow's End, both of which exist in a slightly less political "realm." I've never been able to pin down exactly what it is I like so much about Tepper's books, but I haven't missed one in many, many years. I'll look forward to the next!
Rating:
Summary: Tepper's worldview evolves...topicaL, contemporary
Review: After taking us to other planets and the far future in her past two novels and a far-future, wildly changed Earth in The Family Tree, Tepper takes up the thread of contemporary socio/political issues and contemplates, "What could be done to change society? The story background is right from today's headlines, as in Gibbon's Decline and Fall, but is overall much less grim. Of course, there always has to be something drastic to effect change and in this case it is alien intervention. A sometime battered spouse struggling to 'find herself' has an encounter right out of the X-Files, which takes her straight to Washington, DC! The aliens quickly begin meddling - finding a drastic solution to the Middle East crisis, for instance. Perhaps Tepper is getting less callous than in the past; at least this one doesn't involve killing anybody! Meanwhile, however, another faction of aliens has taken up with a "bad-guy" faction of humans -and this bunch wants to eat us for dinner! So there is, as usual, a threat of retribution if mankind does not repent of its sins (against women, ecology and so forth) but it will not come at the hands of our alien friends, who only want to help out - not that every reader will care for their brand of "help." The aliens, however, are more than plot devices; interspresed through the book is the private journal of one alien, addressed to one human, through which we learn facsinating insights about the alien biology, sociology and what drives them to intervene in other cultures. This is no Star Trek Prime Directive - it's about as opposite as you can get. At the book's climax everything revoles around the Fresco of the title, what it means to the aliens, and what it means to us. Tepper's pet obsessions with eco-feminism and the horror of male dominated religions oppressing women (eg purdah, genital mutilation) come across clearly as always, but here they are part of a much more detailed and specific political agenda, as implemented by the aliens - it's clear we are learning a lot of the author's political/social opinions here, with which the reader may or may not agree. And of course, alien intervention is a disturbing concept even when "for our own good," but the alternative is clearly worse. I tend to share Tepper's pessimism about our being able to solve our problems on our own, due to the political and economic obstacles one character outlines late in the book. The human characters are well-developed as always; the heroine Benita begins a journey of self-discovery when she meets the extraterrestrial envoys and becomes an interplanetary diplomat, her children are believable and even Bart, her alcoholic, abusive husband, is ultimately more an object of pity than a monster. Tepper is still Darwinian in that she believes the suicidal and self-destructive should be allowed to destruct ("let the non-survivors go" to quote from Family Tree) but she seems less callous overall in this book; there is room for kindness and compassion even for the most unfortunate. Still, some characters are rather cardboard - the (male of course) human villains. As for what she does with the pro-life fanatics...let's just say it's perhaps a trite feminist revenge fantasy, but one I giggled at anyway. Oh - and the Bug Eyed Monsters: Having read several earlier books where Tepper seemed to be saying "kill them all and let the Goddess sort them out," perhaps they represent a dark or angry side of the author. However, she is not presenting them as good guys, and this is important. Perhaps she does have hope that billions of humans *could* learn to live in peace with each other and with other species. I hope so - the novel does end on a note of hope rather than despair.
Rating:
Summary: Wish fulfillment
Review: I have been a fan of Sheri S. Tepper for a very long time. I first encountered her writing with the books of the True Game and have been reading her work with varying degrees of enthusiasm ever since.
To a large extent, one of the reasons that I like to read Tepper is that she provices a certain amount of wish fulfillment for the reader (like myself) who agrees with most of her political views. All of her books have an element of ignorance punished, women vindicated, and wrongs righted. The Fresco, in that sense, is only continuing in a theme that she has continued to evolve over the course of her writing career.
The problem that I had with the Fresco is that as much as I might support some of the solutions discussed (as noted elsewhere, the punishment visited on hypocritical pro-lifers is particularly funny) I could only experience the book as a guilty pleasure. The Fresco simply is not as nuanced or as layered as the best examples of Tepper prose. It is as though she had gotten tired of being oblique and wanted to make sure once and for all that her readers had gotten the message.
I am sure that long-time Tepper fans will enjoy this book. Benita and her family are really fabulous characters. Tepper is nearly peerless in her command of craft, and that skill is not diminished here. Similarly, if you know and agree with her world view, the heavy-handed nature of the politics will probably not bother you terribly much.
However, one of the things that I have liked about her work in the past is that you did not need to agree with all of her views to appreciate her writing. I do not think that this is the case here. People who have never read Sheri S. Tepper probably want to begin somewhere else to find a better example. I would recommend the Grass/Raising the Stones/Sideshow trilogy or even point people a number of years backwards to the Maven Manyshaped books of True Game.
Rating:
Summary: If it were any other author I'd give it 4 stars
Review: I ran across this author at my local library several years ago sort of by accident and I was immediately hooked. Every time I pick up one of her books, it's virtually impossible for me to put it down until it's over, including this one. Therefore, if I were comparing this book to most of the other science fiction books out there, I would give this book a good solid four star rating. It's as always well written, entertaining and engrossing enough to make you put off doing the laundry "just five more minutes". That being said, however, compared to the rest of her body of work that I've read, this was by far the worst, with possibly the exception of "Gibbons Decline and Fall" which was just slightly better than this one. In "The Fresco" she takes what are her ever present underlying themes of feminismn, environmentalism, and distrust of any kind of organized religion, and uses (compared to the rest of her work) a remarkably thin plot line and one dimensional characters to cram her viewpoints down your throat. When I finally put the book down, I felt like I'd been run over by a truck. Of course, I'm married to a wonderful man, pro-life, an Evangelical Christian and a Republican to boot! Go figure! I deeply admire her as an author and I also respect her viewpoints and the depth to which she is obviously impassioned for women's issues. All women are aware that there is a lot of injustice and horror in this world. However, if, like me, you're looking for a brilliantly written piece of science fiction instead of just a thinly veiled excuse to bash men and religion in any form that's not centered on worshipping a female diety, read some of her other works, especially "Grass". Her characters in that novel are much more complex, and do a better job at getting you to think about the plight of mankind for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: "Gibbon"-lite
Review: "The Fresco" is obviously an attempt by Tepper to rewrite "Gibbons Decline and Fall", to make it more palatable. As if pointing out our flaws through the eyes of a group of stuck-up aliens will make us more likely to slap our foreheads and go, "My god, she's right!" Fresco has more things to smile about than Decline, but the plot is even weaker. What's frustrating is that it could be very, very good, but Tepper gets too caught up in having the aliens that visit Earth to help us join the Intergalactic Alliance (or whatever) carp and bitch and nitpick every aspect of our collective society.
Basically, aliens come to Earth and pick a battered housewife from New Mexico as their spokesperson. These aliens are part of the above-mentioned Interplanetary Club, and they've come to invite us to join - assuming we can shape up our act to meet their standards, that is. They then proceed to "fix" us, without even asking whether we WANT to be part of their club.
The aliens' idea of home-improvement involves things like making Jerusalem disappear until everyone can play nicely with it, giving every woman in the Arab Muslim world a case of "ugly disease" so their men can't use the excuse that they're inciting lust, and giving the police nifty little drug-sniffing gadgets so they don't have to worry about inconveniences like due process and probable cause. Now, I'm the first one to admit that the current criminal justice system sucks, but I can think of a dozen things wrong with this scenario without even trying. And why are women being punished for men's perceptions of them? Wouldn't it be more appropriate for every Arab male to become impotent? Doesn't claiming that the problem could be solved by ugly women imply that there was some validity to the old ideas that women shouldn't be allowed in public because they incite so much lust?
Tepper comes up with only one clever alien-human interaction. If you're spiteful like me, you'll love the revenge she visits upon male right-to-lifers; I wish she had shown as much creativity and dark humor in the rest of the book as she does in these scenes.
So, do the aliens have a right to order us around? Are they really any better than us, or is "human nature" intrinsic everywhere? Unfortunately, these are questions Tepper never addresses, preferring instead to focus on what an ideal world it would be if we could only get rid of all the a-holes in it. She seems to be developing an obsession lately with "quick-fix" solutions, where either it turns out our dysfunctions aren't really our fault to begin with, or that someone can wave a magic wand and make them all go away. It's too bad, because I liked her far more insightful analyses of different hypothetical cultures in "The Gate to Women's Country" and "Singer From the Sea" much better.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing, then a really awful climax
Review: I thought the main character was different and sympathetic, but that the author was too heavy handed in her other characterizations. It really went quickly downhill in the climax, as the solution to the plot problem involves us suddenly believing that the super intelligent and powerful aliens are now as gullible as a bunch of 3rd graders.
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