Rating: 
Summary: Another very good book by Sheri S Tepper
Review: "Gibbon's decline and fall" looks at relationships between women, and between men and women, at the nature of 20th century society, and at the nature of "good" and "evil". It is well-thought out and carefully written book, while at the same time being passionate and alive.Although the novel clearly takes a particular point of view, it does so without being strident or didactic. Instead, Ms Tepper woos her readers with gentle wit, well-crafted prose, and intelligent, believable characters who will draw you into their world (which is in many ways our own). Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: POWERFUL
Review: A Powerful story...thought provoking and insightful as to what many women deal with on a daily basis...an earlier review of this novel stated it "was ridiculous " to concieve of an allience between Catholicism and Islam...funny this morning I heard the Pope is planning a trip to Bagdad. Highly recomended
Rating: 
Summary: Dissapointing!
Review: As a Tepper fan I was really dissapointed in this latest offering. It strives to explore globally important issues, but is ultimately hampered by a messy plot and some unbelievably bad characters. Tepper seems to have forsaken good characterisation and plotting for the sake of pushing her moral message. Unfortunately, by the time I reached the end of the book, I did not really care anymore what it was.
Rating: 
Summary: Very intense, strong; improves as it goes along
Review: Black, sinister, distressing, intense: the first half of this story is like that; possible in the world as we know it, though improbable -- not as a fantasy world like True Game. Multiple characters, multiple parallel but connected story lines. However, after the first half, the story suddenly becomes all so more compelling and fantastic. This is a brutally strong story; persist with it if, as I, you find the first half somewhat less than desired -- it changes dramatically.
Rating: 
Summary: even I find it hard to believe
Review: Even with the events in Afganistan these past few years, I find the basic permise of this particular Tepper novel hard to buy. I don't think women are so stupid nor so weak as to let their lives be controled. Nor do I think that it requires aliens to show us the way, let alone when the author herself doesn't conclude the tale! I was greatly disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Gave up on page 135
Review: Features male characters and institutions so one-dimensionally evil and trite that they continually get in the way of the mediocre narrative. Honestly, I have my own suspicions about governments, Catholicism, Islam, and old-boy-networks, but Tepper exploits these so incompetently that the result is unbelievably tedious, and unbelievable, too.
Rating:
Summary: Missing the Mark
Review: First, let's get this straight. I love Tepper. I do NOT consider her a "feminist" author, but a humanist one. Gibbon, however, is notable for a lot of male-bashing. The biggest problem with the book, however, is not its broadly-drawn male characters; it is not the rather fanciful idea that fundamentalists of all natures could get together to remove women's rights. No, the biggest problem with the book is that she has fallen into a trap that has distinguished other writers of sci-fi. (Notably, John D. MacDonald in both "Ballroom of the Skies" and "Wine of the Dreamers" and perhaps Tim Powers' "Dinner at Deviant's") The trap is to create an "outside" entity...an alien, and place at least part of the blame for humanity's inhumanity on the alien.
I don't have any problems with the unlikely friendships. I fully understand a 15-year-old rape victim unable to fathom that what she birthed was really a baby. I love the idea of the Saurian race, particularly as I am a big fan of the whole idea of parthenogenesis in the first place.
But to place even a part of the blame for our behavior on an "alien" is to provide an excuse for our behavior. Tepper herself, in one of her other books, states that we have problems believing that others are truly evil, because each of us knows, deep down, that we ourselves have the capacity for evil. Everyone was once someone's son or daughter...no matter how evil they may have become, it is a sorry person indeed that has no one to mourn him/her.
OK, sci-fi authors, let's quit looking outside ourselves for the source of evil. Time to look inside.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible.
Review: God - I'd heard good things about Tepper's work, and this was a *big* disappointment. The characters were one-dimensional, the plot absurd and trivialising (the Catholic Church is in an evil plot with Islam to keep women down! - yeah, right), and the writing clunky. I gave up after 100 pages of this dribble, I have to admit.
Rating:
Summary: Scary SF from one of THE masters!
Review: Here's one that even though it's seven years old still reads like it is "ripped from today's headlines." Carolyn Crespin and her friends created the "decline and Fall" club when at college in the 1950's to protect each other. Now it's 2000 and one of their members has disappeared and it seems to be tied to a tide of fundamentalism that is sweeping America. All of Tepper's hallmarks are present: evil machinations of politicians...opression of women--only this time it is made all the more frightening because it seems to occur in our time rather than some far flung future. Not her best work (See Raising the Stones (1984) or The Companions (2003) for her best) but scary and well worth it!
Rating:
Summary: Scary SF from one of THE masters!
Review: Here's one that even though it's seven years old still reads like it is "ripped from today's headlines." Carolyn Crespin and her friends created the "decline and Fall" club when at college in the 1950's to protect each other. Now it's 2000 and one of their members has disappeared and it seems to be tied to a tide of fundamentalism that is sweeping America. All of Tepper's hallmarks are present: evil machinations of politicians...opression of women--only this time it is made all the more frightening because it seems to occur in our time rather than some far flung future. Not her best work (See Raising the Stones (1984) or The Companions (2003) for her best) but scary and well worth it!
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