Rating: 
Summary: Poor variation on a theme
Review: I came to this book hoping for another tight yarn like The Mosaic, but I came away rather dissatisfied. Some authors can keep a sprawling plotline from getting unwieldy, but I don't think that is Tepper's forte. While I greatly enjoyed the many alien races, the last third of the book turned them all into mere caricatures, along with almost all of the characters. I longed for the believable character development of Mosaic, instead of the patchy bits of insight we get into why Jewell was so stunted by Paul's influence her whole life. Jewell remained merely a plot device for me, and she had the golden touch, which is pretty lazy on Tepper's part. The bad guys are irredeemably bad, bad by nature, and stupid besides, and the good guys have no depth either. But I suspect character depth would get in the way of the plot. Yes, there's a strong plot, but it is all rendered moot by the Deus Ex Machina of the Phain and Splendor setting all to rights in the last couple pages. Wish-fulfillment is fun, but it's awfully light fare when untempered by ambiguity. If God gave you three wishes, that wouldn't help you understand the causes for the problems you were fixing with a wave of your hand. Advice? For a more complete experience, read The Mosaic, or Family Tree, but use The Companions for mere escapism.
Rating: 
Summary: Unforgettable if a little confusing at times
Review: I just finished reading "The Companions." It was amazing! I do have to admit that I prefer "The Fresco" because of the truly entertaining way bad behaviors were abolished but I am glad I read this book! The human characters seem to be drawn either as black or white - no trouble deciding who is "good" and who is "bad."
The first half of the book had me almost ashamed to be human what with the overpopulation and complete disregard by most humans of other species and intelligences other than their own. It was a relief when the action on Moss began because the Earth portrayed sounds like a particularly nasty version of Hell.
The other reviews explain the plot so I won't go into that here. This is a book that will make you think carefully about human behavior, even as it is beating you over the head with environmentalist beliefs. If you have a cavalier attitude about other species, you won't like this book. If you love animals, you'll never forget it and will hug your furry friends a little tighter and appreciate them a lot more after reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: expand your mental horizons
Review: i know few writers who can match tepper's world building and social imagination, and none who are as capable of envisioning a future that isn't exactly like the present without succumbing to to the usual post-apocaliptic nonsense. as other reviewers have noted, this novel contains a lot of tepper's familiar themes. which is not a bad thing. i found _the cmpanions_ much more readable than _the visitor_, which i still haven't been able to finish, but not as much sheer fun as, say, _the family tree_ or_fresco_. still, not quite topnotch tepper is still much better than most of the rest of the stuff being published. her writing is superb, her imagination is beyond description, her characters are clearly drawn and realistic. some of her solutions to social problems are inspired (and occasionally hysterically funny), and don't i wish they were possible. i can't imagine a reader whose mind wouldn't be stretched by reading her. and the process would be thoroughly enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Not Tepper's Best, but Still Worth the Price!
Review: I'll admit up-front that I'm prejudiced. There are very few authors whose works I'll order in advance - in hard-back - without reading the reviews first. Sheri S. Tepper is one (she's in the rarified company of Neal Stephenson, Elizabeth Scarborough, Ursula LeGuin and Carl Hiaasen). These people not only make me think, but they keep me entertained for hours. Tepper's genius has always been to create believable Alien species, and to point out just how appalling a world-view that only takes account of human desires, and enforces rigid gender roles really is. Of course, anyone who thinks that White Human Christian Heterosexual Males are the pinnacle of Creation is going to be offended. Good. You *should* be! She doesn't disappoint here, but she's done it better in *Grass* and *The Family Tree*. And I want one of those dogs! For now, I'll have to settle for my affectionate, good-natured, gentle - but stupid - mixed-breed mutt
Rating:
Summary: Sheri Tepper returns to "Grass", only this time it's "Moss"
Review: In a novel reminiscent of her best-selling "Grass", author Tepper creates a complicated exobiology on a world "Moss" that has an abundance of perplexing denizens. At first, the explorers from the "PPI" or Planetary Protection, aren't even sure if what they are observing on Moss is an indigenous species. Rest assured, however, something is living there, and it may not be entirely friendly. Jewel and her half-brother, the slimy Paul, go off on an expedition to Moss. Jewel is happy to leave Earth, which is overcrowded and being threatened by a draconian leadership with the extinction of the sad remnants of non-Human species which take up too much valuable space. This novel is ambitious, complicated and darker in tone than "Grass" or "Family Tree" but is similar in ideology (ecological concerns, harmony with nature and all creatures.) The complexity of the system on Moss is like the complex interactions Tepper created in "Six Moon Dance" but with again, a darker tone. If you like imaginative science fiction that is not a re-hash of typical sci-fi generic themes, you will enjoy "The Companions" though it is not perhaps quite as good as "The Fresco", "Singer from the Sea" and "Six Moon Dance."
Rating:
Summary: Sheri Tepper returns to "Grass", only this time it's "Moss"
Review: In a novel reminiscent of her best-selling "Grass", author Tepper creates a complicated exobiology on a world "Moss" that has an abundance of perplexing denizens. At first, the explorers from the "PPI" or Planetary Protection, aren't even sure if what they are observing on Moss is an indigenous species. Rest assured, however, something is living there, and it may not be entirely friendly. Jewel and her half-brother, the slimy Paul, go off on an expedition to Moss. Jewel is happy to leave Earth, which is overcrowded and being threatened by a draconian leadership with the extinction of the sad remnants of non-Human species which take up too much valuable space. This novel is ambitious, complicated and darker in tone than "Grass" or "Family Tree" but is similar in ideology (ecological concerns, harmony with nature and all creatures.) The complexity of the system on Moss is like the complex interactions Tepper created in "Six Moon Dance" but with again, a darker tone. If you like imaginative science fiction that is not a re-hash of typical sci-fi generic themes, you will enjoy "The Companions" though it is not perhaps quite as good as "The Fresco", "Singer from the Sea" and "Six Moon Dance."
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking, suspenseful, mysterious...but...
Review: My favorite thing about this book? The way it took me by the shoulders and gave me a quick shake -- regarding dogs. It's hard to take them for granted once you fall into the main character's world. My least favorite thing about this book? The last half. It's zipping right along, then stumbles and becomes difficult to follow and, even given the setting, sort of implausible. I'd say that the content of the book is (perhaps as usual for Tepper?) better than the storytelling. I always find her books worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Tepper's best, but still worth reading
Review: Sheri Tepper's latest is a remarkably ambitious and complex story, perhaps too ambitious and complex. The story encompasses so many different locations, and different species, all with competing agendas, it was difficult to keep track of who was doing what to whom, and for what purpose. I had a little trouble remembering who some of the individual players were, and their various foibles and attributes.
I appreciated being introduced to each set of players one at a time. The back story was quite useful, and once we got to the action set on Moss, the plot moved along briskly. And along the way, Tepper paid homage to her customary icons: environmental responsibility, religious (in)tolerance, human rights, the interconnectedness of us all. However, the conclusion felt rushed, almost as if Tepper hurried her characters along to meet the publisher's deadline rather than their own destinies.
Still, it's an enjoyable read, full of lovely moments and beautiful sentences. The poem which opens the book ("The Litany Of Animals") is fun and melancholy at the same time. I wish Tepper had given us more of Jewel's mother's epic poem than the few bits and pieces sprinkled here and there throughout the text.
I remain one of Tepper's most fervent admirers. This is nice work, worth reading. It's just not her best.
Rating:
Summary: Tepper's Usually Fascinating Concepts, but Unusually Uneven
Review: The Companions begins with a lyrical description of the planet Moss, echoing the opening of Grass, my favorite of Tepper's books. Then it moves to a horrible description of a future Earth's towers, echoing the future Earth in Beauty, my second favorite. Sheri Tepper's usual graceful writing is here, along with her fascinating worlds, cultural observations, and environmental/feminist/socialist themes (being a feminist/environmentalist/semi-socialist myself, I like to see such good apology). I loved the whole concept of the Scent Mistress. And I loved all the dogs, who exhibit such impeccably doglike behavior. Unfortunately, while Tepper usually weaves her plots smoothly, The Companions has a more lumpy fabric. At times she seemed to contradict herself, and combining first-person narration with jumping around in time and place made for a confusing story. Also, one of my pet peeves: if you are going to use a naive narrator, don't let them get ahead of their story (for the ideal example of a naive narrator, read Huck Finn). Jewel keeps adding comments along the lines of "I would later learn how wrong we were." Here in Amazon reviews, I once read a wonderful comparison of Sheri Tepper to the painter Bev Doolittle. Along the lines of this metaphor, Jewel seems to be pointing out the hidden animals rather than letting us discover them for ourselves as the plotlines skein together.
Rating: 
Summary: Thought-provoking and beautifully written
Review: THE COMPANIONS was my first introduction to Tepper's writing - and wow, what a fantastic way to start! Sheri S. Tepper has written a gripping, powerful novel about our future. It deals with such themes as overpopulation, animal rights, and communication with other cultures. It also raises important questions about religious beliefs, such as: if man was created in God's image, aren't we superior to every other lifeform? And if so, don't we have the right to take the lives of those lesser lifeforms? Not a quick read by any means, this is one novel you'll want to take your time reading and savoring, and it's likely to stick with you for weeks afterward. The book is written in the first person point of view, which gives the reader a great deal of insight into the state of the Universe in the year 2712. Jewel Delis, the novel's heroine, is an arkist - a person who strives to preserve what little animal life is left on Earth. Encountering an immense amount of opposition, Jewel is forced to take the dogs she'd been working with for years away from Earth, or they would certainly be destroyed. The planet Moss seems to provide just the right place for a brief relocation until a more permanent solution can be found. But the planet itself has secrets. What are the colorful flame-like beings that dance in the clearings at night? What happened to almost 80 people who went for walks in the moss and never returned? And what are the bright flashes of light that make people disappear? An intriguing and thought provoking read, THE COMPANIONS is a wonderful example of a clever, richly developed science-fiction novel.
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