Customer Reviews

The Companions

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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."

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.

The Companions (2003) is a singleton SF novel. Sometime in the future, humanity has gone to the stars, but much of mankind still lives on Earth in mile-wide square Towers more than two hundred stories high. Each Tower is self-contained, yet associated with other such arcologies into a mega-city -- an Urb -- and all these Urbs are linked together by highspeed podways. Among the Towers are scattered several Sanctuaries wherein dwell the only surviving Terrestrial nonfood creatures, mostly pets and domestic species, but also other types of animals as well as plants.

A popular movement -- In God's Image - Humans First and Only (IGI-HFO) -- seeks to close these few havens for nonhuman life and to destroy all nonhumans therein, allegedly to provide resources for more humans. An ecological protection group, the arkists, has created Earth-like habitats on various worlds to preserve the remaining species. Animal activist groups are also opposing the iggy-huffos through lobbying and legal suits.

Of course the iggy-huffos don't oppose concs, sexual toys who dwell in millions -- or billions -- upon the Earth. Now they are turning up on the colony planets. Even though they are mobile, bisexual, somewhat intelligent, and resemble humanity, the concs inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen like plants, thus don't use up valuable air. Besides, they have no legal rights; concs can be abused and even killed without any authorities making a fuss.

Humans are not alone among the stars nor are they very important to the other races. Most intelligent species are joined in the Interstellar Coalition/Interstellar Confederation, in which humanity is a very junior member. Some of these species despise humanity, but others merely consider them acceptable-vermin.

Two human organizations investigate planets under contract for other IC races. The Exploration and Survey Corps does the initial analysis and later the Planetary Protection Institute does long-term, deep-level examination. The ESC clears a sterile area for their station and sends out remote instruments to complete their analysis; the PPI, however, lives within the environment and grows intimately aware of its nature.

In this novel, Jewel Delis works in the Alred Sanctuary, one of those that the iggy-huffos are trying to close. She is also a subleader in the arkist movement. Her brother is a noted linguist who has taken her with him to various alien worlds. Her major assignment for the arkists is to accompany him; the minor items she learns in casual conversation with aliens are sometimes of great importance to the arkists.

Of the aliens she has met, Jewel enjoyed the Phaina the most. These elder race women put great store in melding in with the environment. Moreover, they are acquainted with animals very similar to dogs. Since they seem to like Jewel, she gets to know them very well. But the officials in the human embassy are not so knowledgeable.

The PPI on Moss requests a linguist and Paul is offered the contract. He asks Jewel to come with him, but she insists that her dogs and their handlers go with her. Paul agrees if, and only if, the ESC concurs; unknown to him, Jewel works directly for General Manager Gainor Brandt of Earth Enterprises, the parent company of the ESC. Since Brandt is also an arkist and the arkists want the dogs to experience Moss, her demands are quickly approved.

Strangely enough, Jewel's liaison was lost a decade ago on Jungle, a sister planet to Moss in the Garr'ugh 290 system. He and ten other PPI associates just vanished as they were walking through the jungle; they were at the end of the line and were not even missed until the PPI group entered a clearing. Jewel found out about this loss when ESC Intelligence Division officers began hounding her for conspiracy in the disappearances. Later Jewel found out that her mother-in-law was behind this harassment, but Dame Cecelia really had only herself to blame for putting Witt on Jungle.

Others have plans for the Garr'ugh 290 system. The alien Derac issued the contract to ESC and PPI for certification of the system as eligible for sale and are irritated that the study has not already been completed; of course, the ESC is waiting for the PPI to finish their portion and the PPI is still not sure about native sapients. The alien Orskimi have planned for the Derac to attack the humans somewhere (maybe on Moss), thus precipitating an interstellar war. The Phain appear to be keeping an eye out for just such troubles.

Then again, all these plans do not take in account another group. The ESC had located several abandoned human spaceships on the nearby plateau. They reported their findings back to Earth and then did nothing else while awaiting completion of the PPI portion of the contract. When the PPI were stalled indefinitely, the ESC contingent decided to go on to the next contract. Since Jewel did not want them to depart the planet just yet, she indirectly initiated a brief survey of these ships to keep the ESC busy. Maybe there were human survivors still on the planet?

This novel also makes much of the human/dog remains and artwork found on Mars. Mattie Delis, Jewel's mother and a great audiovisual artist, found this site and made a very popular composition on it. Yet this location is the only place on Mars in which such remains have been found; furthermore, the site must be at least fifty thousand year old. Could humans have originated on Mars? Not likely, but no one can explain how humans and dogs could have gotten from Earth to Mars so as to leave such signs. Jewel's Phaina friend is strangely interested in Mattie's recording of this find.

This novel is constructed as a mystery, with prior telegraphing of later disclosures. Everything is cleverly foreshadowed, but still pops up as a surprise to the reader. One gets so involved in the crisis of the moment that the long awaited denouement of each enigma is a shock.

Highly recommended for Tepper fans and for anyone else who enjoys a good mystery with interesting characters and relevant problems.

-Arthur W. Jordin

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.

In the year 2700 (give or take), Earth is a wasteland of mile-high apartment towers, desalinazation plants, and algae processing facilities, populated by WAY too many people. The gap between the rich and poor is worse than ever, real food is non-existent and space colonization hasn't helped anything because of a law that every colonist who can no longer work (read: the elderly) must be returned to Earth. On top of all this, a religious group declaring that humans are the only species with a right to live has taken power and passed a law that all remaining companion animals must be destroyed because they use up too much air and water. Jewell Delis, a devoted preservationist who has spent years developing a bigger and better dog, manages to get herself and her charges shipped off to a recently discovered world, ostensibly to assist her linguist brother. And that's where the story really begins.

I liked _The Companions_, but not as much as I've liked others of Sheri Tepper's novels. This is not because of the story: reminiscent of _Grass_ and _After Long Silence_ in its themes, this was a hard book to put down. We find here the familiar "human only" club that appears (by other names) in Tepper's other books; also familiar are Tepper's playing with Planetary consciousness, languages that don't resemble languages we recognise and sentience in forms that are hard to acknowledge. Less prominent is is the theme of the existence of pure evil, but it's there. All this is woven into an agile plot populated by likable characters.

But I felt the story was rushed. There were a lot of subplots that I really wanted to hear more about and a lot of things that, I felt, didn't really get developed the way they deserved to. I think Tepper really limited herself by telling the bulk of the story in the first person -- a new technique for her -- because _The Companions_ didn't seem to have the scope of her novels where she's free to jump about more in time and space. The last third of the book seemed particularly cramped.

Where Tepper talks about relationships and communication, _The Companions_ is a great read. Where the major conflict comes in, it falls a little flat. But it's still a good choice for readers of speculative fiction.

This is Tepper's hardest-to-put-down book since her "Grass" era. I agree with some of the other reviewers' complaints--it is complicated to follow with so many alien species and so many Earthian factions to keep track of, and it does wrap up a little too quickly and neatly--but who cares? It is such an fascinating book with such interesting and compelling characters--those you like and those you despise, but all of whose ultimate fates you want to know about. A number of those characters are dogs, and dog-variants, and that's what I loved best about this book: it really explores the characters of and relationships between dogs and humans. I'm surprised no other reviewer has yet mentioned this part, because as far as I'm concerned, all the rest of the book is just very entertaining backdrop.

I really enjoyed this book, the characters were all strong I did not feel as if the story was rushed. As usual she creates a fascinating new world(s) and alien cultures for us to learn about.

Sometimes her plots can be heavy handed on the feminist/environmentalist side and even though again this is what this book is about it was not as heavy handed as Gibbons Decline or The Visitor. Both good reads but I think I enjoyed this book just a hair more for the interesting twists and turns of plot and the various characters without as much preachiness.

______________________________________________
This is Tepper's "doggy" book: lovely worldbuilding & clever,
nasty twists, but marred by incoherence, silliness, and Tepperian
sledgehammer overkill.

This is a deeply unpleasant future (if not quite so grim as the
Beautyverse), but there's room for hope.... The opening description of
Moss will remind you of GRASS, which is to say in the Jack Vance class
of baroque verbal worldbuilding.

Alas, she can't maintain the pace:

Tepper's gifts as a storyteller are great enough to obscure her faults,
one of which is a kind of incoherence. The amount of detail she provides
and that makes her scenes and characters live may also prevent readers
from noticing that she hasn't really explained how a particular piece of
technology works, or even given that many clues as to how it might work.
The various plot complications and inventive cultures, both human and
alien, are involving enough to keep most readers from wondering if the
author had any clear idea of where she was heading, or instead figured
that if she kept introducing new elements, eventually she'd find a way
to sort them all out. Her pacing is often off; there are scenes that end
too abruptly, particularly toward the end of the book, and others, such
as Jewel's halting conversations with genetically altered dogs, that run
on too long. Tepper also has a habit of withholding crucial bits of
information earlier in her story, only to reveal them later on. It isn't
that she doesn't play fair with readersăthe clues are all there, and the
surprises prepared forăit's just that important events seem needlessly
obscured or buried, which only adds to an overall sense of confusion.

Tepper is too much of a natural storyteller to disappoint her readers,
most of whom will find The Companions a smart, engaging and involving
space opera with some serious points to make. But with tighter writing
and a more focused authorial intelligence, this novel could have been
much more.[end quote]
--Pamela Sargent, who gave it a "B", in the best review I found online:
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue336/books2.html

THE COMPANIONS falls in the top half of Tepper's novels. It's not in the
same class as GRASS, BEAUTY, or even THE FRESCO, but second-rank Tepper
can still be pretty darn good. So, this isn't the place to start your
Tepper experience, and probably not for you if Tepper's tics annoy you,
but I enjoyed it. Mostly. Except for the rushed, mishmash ending....
which is best skipped over lightly, I think, rather than actually trying
to make sense of it.

I found the Superdog dialect pretty damn annoying, too, but this may be
a pet (ahem) peeve. Anyway, I would have preferred SuperCats {grin}.

Review copyright 2004 by Peter D. Tillman

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.

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.