Rating: 
Summary: Good, but I've been here before
Review: A Plague of Angels is definitely a well-written, engaging story. The combination of science fiction and fantasy elements is effectively done, and the characters are entertaining even though rarely fully-developed. The book's weaknesses would have been easily forgivable if the premise had been as new to me as it was to some of the other reviewers, but for me, it was not breaking new ground.In the early '80s, I read two books by James Kahn, "World Enough and Time", and "Time's Dark Laughter". These works similarly follow a post-technological world moving back into the realm of myth and legend, but do so far more effectively. It is possible that the main difference is that my standards have changed over the last 20 years, but I sincerely believe that those earlier works were far better developed than "A Plague of Angels." If you are familiar with Kahn's work, you may be disappointed by this book, but still, it is an enjoyable read.
Rating: 
Summary: AVOID THIS BOOK
Review: Greetings earthlings. We are your masters now
Rating: 
Summary: Great Fun
Review: I don't give out 5-star ratings very often. I believe that such works as Hamlet, The Lord of the Rings, and Frankenstein are comparable 5's. However, I have no hesitation whatsoever that this book is a 4. I read it and loved every page. I laughed more for this than for a Discworld novel. I feared for the central character and cheered her successes. This is a very successful novel as science fiction, social commentary, and humor. I have reccommended it to many friends, and my copy is dog-eared from many reads.
Rating:
Summary: Is ethnic cleansing okay when the good guys do it?
Review: I have to think that other readers besides me were a little disturbed by this book's seemingly easy acceptance of "final solution" thinking. A well-constructed narrative, intriguing concepts and bad, bad, bad guys are not a good enough justification for fascism, whether we're talking about actual history or speculative fiction. Strong, wise leaders who need to cleanse society (even a really rotten one) for the elites? Norman Spinrad's Iron Dream looked at this kind of seductive thinking a generation ago -- read your SF history! Try some LeGuin in either her cultural or political mode, Emma Bull's wonderful War for the Oaks, or even the recent Lisle/ Bradley "Rift" books as antidotes to this stuff. Or go to the Salon e-zine to see David Brin's thoughtful rant about similar issues in the Phantom Menace. Good sf/fantasy is not incompatible with democracy!
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent surprise
Review: I just finished some very difficult and technical reading for work and wanted to buy a "paint by numbers" fantasy novel, and the cover picture (guy, girl, horse, dragon, castle) convinced me that this book would fit that description. Instead, it turned out to be full of new and unusual concepts and plots and was just a blast to read. I wish more authors would invest their works with such ingenuity.
Rating:
Summary: A great Science Fairy Tale!
Review: I love this book, and the way everything that seem so weird and strange fits together. There's a reason and an explanation for everything that happens and this is gradually revealed as you read this novel. It's hard to talk about it without giving the plot away so I'm just goint to tell you that I bought it in hardcover when it was first published, something I rarely do. I usually wait for the paperback, but as a fan of both epic fantasy and thought-provoking science fiction I was really anxious to read this particular genre-bending story, and I can tell you it was worth every penny!
Rating:
Summary: Starts out clunky but picks up as it goes along
Review: I read a couple of her other books, "Grass" and "Beauty," and enjoyed them VERY much. This one wasn't as good, but still ok. The beginning was tedious for me. I don't like reading about gang members who live in putrescent urban conditions and speak like retards. I also don't like futuristic novels where everything has gone wrong and gloomy. Moreover, the character development was not too good, at least at the start. Fortunately, the whole book was not like that. While things started out being fairly confusing, they started hanging together better as I went along. I kind of had to force myself to stick with it, mostly because I liked her other books, but I was glad by the time I finished. The ending, which I won't reveal, was extremely creative and transformative.
Rating:
Summary: Starts out clunky but picks up as it goes along
Review: I read a couple of her other books, "Grass" and "Beauty," and enjoyed them VERY much. This one wasn't as good, but still ok. The beginning was tedious for me. I don't like reading about gang members who live in putrescent urban conditions and speak like retards. I also don't like futuristic novels where everything has gone wrong and gloomy. Moreover, the character development was not too good, at least at the start. Fortunately, the whole book was not like that. While things started out being fairly confusing, they started hanging together better as I went along. I kind of had to force myself to stick with it, mostly because I liked her other books, but I was glad by the time I finished. The ending, which I won't reveal, was extremely creative and transformative.
Rating:
Summary: not worth it
Review: I read this a while ago, and was thoroughly unimpressed. The plot is disjointed, the characterization nonexistent, the prose style clunky, and the book's attitude on gender relations is irritating and simplistic. Perhpas she had some interesting ideas in there, however, strangely enough (perhaps due to the clunky prose style) they all came off as shallow and undeveloped. Maybe some of her other work is better, but I wouldn't know, as I've never picked up another Tepper book since.
Rating:
Summary: not worth it
Review: I very much enjoyed the first half of this book, that is, I loved learning about the world that Tepper created and was thrilled to know about the different characters and their relations. I didn't like the main character, though, the Orphan, because I never got to feel her from the "inside"; I just saw her through the other characters' motivations to relate to her,and I never really felt what drove her to act as she did.Nevertheless, the most unsatisfactory part of this novel was its ending; it is as if the author got tired of the story and decided to end it no matter how, leaving the readers with too many questions.
| 
