Customer Reviews

The Family Tree

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In THE FAMILY TREE, author Sheri Tepper has combined an engaging mix of mystery, science fiction and fantasy to tell the story of Dora Henry, a police detective with several issues at hand.

First, she must deal with the consequences of leaving her inattentive husband after several years of unhappy marriage. Second, the murders of three scientists and their mysterious connections to each other. But, foremost is a strange weed in her yard that puts her husband in the hospital and seems to be the precursor to incredible instant forests that grow up almost overnight, taking over suburbs and returning them to the wild.

Alternating with this is an Arabian Nights-like adventure of an orphaned storytelling teenager turned slave to a Sultan. She is Opal-Ears and, disguised as a boy, is sent with the Sultan's son on a mysterious journey in search of a key that will stop The End of Everything. Along the way, several others join the travelers (in typical quest fashion) as we learn more about the cultures along Opal-Ears's route.

Tepper throws in a number of surprises throughout the second half that will amuse the reader (including a few seeming jabs at a popular family film from a couple of years back) while environmentalist and feminist issues are unobtrusively discussed.

If good characterization, strong female leads and a plot that keeps you guessing are what you like, this will more than satisfy you.

I've been a fan of Sheri S. Tepper's ever since I ran across her excellent /Sideshow/ in high school. I've admired her ability to seamlessly construct her books, artfully balancing exposition, wonderful prose, world building, characterization, and plot to make a point without being preachy. All this explains why I had high hopes when I began /The Family Tree./

Unfortunately, my hopes and expectations were quickly let down. /The Family Tree/ is a pageturner, but of the worst kind - I found the sections set in the far future so annoying and cloyingly cute that I read on as quickly as possible, desperate to find out about the weird goings-on in the present day. The sections set in the present are engaging, but curiously flat. Where did Tepper's enormous skill at characterization go? Dora and Abby are likable characters, but not very rounded. They're too pleasant and nice to be truly interesting in their own right.

I read this book right after rereading Tepper's /Grass/ (a Hugo finalist for Best Novel) and the contrast was striking. /Grass/ was filled with fascinated, flawed characters that had real moral dilemmas and issues to work out. /The Family Tree/ is populated with likable but dull archetypical characters. /Grass/ has wonderfully evocative prose that brings its worlds alive. /The Family Tree/, in an effort to keep the identity of the citizens of the far future secret, is rather skimpy on descriptive prose, and the whole is suffused with a sort of not-very-good-young-adults book feeling. /Grass/ had a multitude of themes, including independence/interdependence, the impact of custom, and the relationship between God and humanity - complex themes, stated subtly. /The Family Tree/'s message - we're ruining the Earth by overpopulation and waste, and animals have a right to an unspoiled planet as well - has already been done (very well in Tepper's /Beauty/) and is so baldly stated that it makes me cringe. Instead of leading us through ideas like /Grass/ did, /The Family Tree/ hits us over the head with preachiness.

I would be more disposed to look on this book kindly if it were a debut. The plot is ingenious and often surprising, and it manages to link together many fascinating ideas. Unfortunately, the plot also feels gimmicky - I felt distinctly tricked when the identity of the far future people was revealed.

In sum, /The Family Tree/ is a somewhat entertaining read, but we deserve more from one of SF's finest novelists. Do yourself a favor and hunt down a copy of /Grass/ or /Beauty/ instead.

After having eagerly anticipated reading this book, I found that the wait was worth it - as I think it will be for any fan of Ms. Tepper's work. Having read the previous reviews, I think I can see the point of those who were disappointed, but I cannot agree. What I enjoyed most about this book is probably the same aspect that drove them crazy. I refer to the pace and predictability of the plot unfolding. I found the lack of the gut-wrenching tension strangely satisfying, which is not to say that I didn't care about the characters or their predicaments. Rather it was that you felt comfortable to let them handle things and curious about how they would do it. It seemed to me that Ms. Tepper created a true partnership with the reader and I felt as though I could trust her to guide the story with out any angst on my part. Or maybe it's just that everything happened just the way I would have wanted it too - noone being annoyingly stupid or making obviously dumb mistakes.

All that aside I just thoroughly enjoyed the story itself and the characters and outcome. But this is not unusual for me as I find that I always love Sheri Tepper's books. If you do too, then you will like this one as well.

While I would not argue for "The Family Tree" being Tepper's most engrossing book, it must surely count as one of her most ambitious to date - if, that is, one measures such things in terms of complexity of plot, departure from comfortable suppositions and desire to undermine and overthrow most readers' pre-conceived ideas and assumptions! Sheri S. Tepper is, of course, a past master (I should perhaps rather say, mistress!) of such matters and she handles it here with consummate ease. I don't believe that anyone could make it to the end of this work without finding themselves both surprised and shocked at some stage of the journey. I also found that a deep personal re-evaluation was needed by the end too: something else that Tepper is always supreme at provoking. The book does perhaps require a little more effort than most of Tepper's other works (except, perhaps, "The Revenants"): mostly, I think, because of the greatly disparate nature of the two parallel story threads and lack of obvious connections between them. Also, I think that Tepper deliberately prevents the reader from acquiring too comfortable a toe-hold in either world, purposefully allowing one to assemble an entirely false set of assumptions about where, when and who... only to have her take great delight at demolishing those assumptions, time and time again.

Unfortunately, I think that the price that gets paid this time is that she also fails to make either world (or their coming together) entirely believable. If you're prepare to suspend belief, though...

My only complaint of this book is that there are some intriguing plot elements which felt never to come to anything - just why does she go to such lengths to ensure that Opalears is dressed as a boy, for example? But then, so much of this book comes to so much more than one is expecting that I'm perfectly happy to accept these as smoke screens! Or even to accept that I missed their resolution in the cataclysmic happens that occur around them.

Yes, Ms Tepper has done it again!

Sherri S. Tepper is the Grand Wizard of the literary surprise. She loves to take all your pre-conceptions and turn them sideways.

In *The Family Tree* she outdoes herself; about two-thirds of the way through the novel she pulls a magic trick of legendary proportions. I found myself exclaiming "Holy Cow! I didn't see THAT one coming!" She also doesn't cheat; all the clues are there. Anyone who gives away the secret should be taken out and shot at dawn, along with spoil-sports who give away the endings of *The Sixth Sense* and *The Crying Game*.

This is a wondrous multi-layered Science Fiction novel told by a gifted story-teller. It's a murder mystery, a fairy tale out of the Arabian Nights, a treatise on feminism, and a cautionary parable about the dangers of over-population and despoiling the environment.

I occassionally found myself puzzled during the first chapters, asking "Why are these people acting the way they do?" Never fear: all is explained, and a splendid time is had along the way.

Tepper would have to be one of the greatest storytellers going. I loved this book and the character twist halfway through was a gem. A second reading found the clues all there - but they were wonderfully subtle.

Her 'message' is loud and clear - but for me a little too 'loud and clear'. Increasingly Tepper is getting a tad heavy-handed in this department. However, she is not getting any younger and perhaps she feels in a hurry to make her points. As her points are ones that need to be made, I for one, can forgive her. Long life and keep writing Sheri! You always produce fantastic, magical journeys that are full of wonderful surprises. I recomend Tepper's books wholeheartedly.

I was very disappointed with this eco-thriller/time-travel/ post-apocalyptic novel by Sherri Tepper. I read the first 300 pages with interest, and I feel comfortable in acknowledging that Tepper has more talent than most of the current writers in the sf genre. Ultimately, however, the last 150 pages of "Family Tree" were a huge let-down, as characterization went flat, the plot devices became increasingly formulaic (and tortured), and the author's heavy-handed moralism overwhelmed her efforts at story-telling.

The novel starts out with several interesting elements: a sympathetic protagonist who emerges from a very deprived relational history; a contemporary social crisis deriving from the abrupt appearance of indestructible, fast-growing, semi-sentient trees; and an (initially) unrelated story line that takes place in a far future loosely resembling Richard Burton's "1001 Arabian Nights". Sadly, Tepper is unsuccessful in developing her protagonist, and the two basic plot lines become convoluted and crippled by overuse of stock sf devices, as well as by dramtically inadequate narrative development.

In the end, Tepper's novel comes across as thinly-veiled political tract material -- the sort of which Earth First and the Environmental Liberation Front would be proud. Even literary luminaries like Ayn Rand have a difficult time pulling off such blatant proselytization without fracturing their efforts at storytelling... and Sherri Tepper isn't Ayn Rand.

For those interested in reading wonderful stories that employ some of the same plot devices as in "Family Tree," novels such as Coontz's "Watchers" and Brin's "Startide Rising" are far more elegant examples of the genre -- and are also much more skillful in combining conservationist values with lucid storytelling. Ms. Tepper, I expected more from you.

This book certainly does pack surprises. The revelation of who Opalears and her group was surprised me, and so did the storyline, but overall it was a rather decent book, though I wish it could have gone on in a different direction, with the trees and Kore more explained and gone into depth. It could have been better-planned, but it was still a decent and thought-provoking read.

What made this story ultimately fail in the end was the dual storylines. It was as if Tepper decided to abandon the whole Kory/plants growing thing and concentrate on Opalears and Woput. It would be better if Opalears' story had been written in a separate book of its own and the whole Dora/plant thing should have been its own story.

This is one of my favorite books of all time. To preface that: I am a wildlife biologist and a writer of fantasy and non-fiction, and I love smart sci-fi fantasy, but I am bored or uninterested by much of what is out there; in other words, I'm picky. If you care even a bit about the environment, are sick of watching wildlife and nature destoyed by greed, AND you love a good mystery and a great, imperfect modern day heroine who is assisted by some surprising friends, this book is for you. It doesn't lecture, or present stereotypes, and when I got halfway through the book - where the big surprise is - I actually exclaimed out loud, and then started laughing like an idiot. Not many books have the power to do that, for me! HIGHLY recommended, a lot of fun, wish I'd written it myself.

Sheri Tepper would have to be my favourite multi-published author overall. A prolific writer, her imaginative and diverse books cover ethical, environmental, social and even metaphysical issues. These themes can address anything from race, feminist/sexist power plays, ethics, virtues and archetypes / symbols, consciousness,and many more!

Tepper shines in the realm of fantasy/sci-fi. Her books, to a large degree, are fairly predictable in that you know you will be drawn in and lose yourself totally in the worlds and their dramas that she so eloquently and vividly creates.

'The Family Tree' (1997) stands out to me as her most surprising work. It is almost on par with her "Marianne" trilogy, which I consider the pinnacle of her work (to date, I have read maybe 50-60% of her books.) 'The Family Tree'

'The Family Tree' is a startling book. The separate character's groups and locations (modern day earth, and another, totally different world) are initially confusing, but knowing Tepper has the ability to join loose threads, I perservered with curiosity as to HOW she would do this. This in itself makes this particular novel stand out from her other work. There sure is a huge surprise within it's pages, totally unpredictable and shocking in its whole repercussions. It causes one to pause, review the story line, see the pieces slotting in more coherantly, then continue reading with piqued curiosity.

Tepper's books often contain life wisdom, little pearls of "self-help" which leave me wishing I was brave enough to get a pen and mark them out. There were several in this book. Finishing "The Family Tree" leaves me awed at Tepper's uniqueness and "out of the box" thinking. She would be someone I would dearly love enjoying an armakfatidi concoction with, discussing geneticism and repercussions of "what if's..." I highly recommend this book for many reasons - the surprise twist, the concepts and ethical issues it raises, as well as a remarkably good storyline....