Customer Reviews

Six Moon Dance

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There are those who say that Sheri Tepper has only one story to tell and that she tells it over and over again in her books. There is a degree of truth to that statement. Certainly, in "Six Moon Dance", Tepper spins her usual futuristic speculative yarn of mankind threatening a wider planetary intelligence through ignorance and greed, in a world run by a matriarchal society rigorously controlled through the creation and manipulation of religious taboos. As usual, her tale is supercharged with gender issues and cultural curiosities, as she holds up her giant mirror for us all to gaze upon. No doubt many readers of her works will feel they've heard it all before...

With writing this good, though, I for one will forgive Tepper her constant recycling of ideas (and it has to be admitted that she draws on a good many ideas from her earlier books here). Indeed, I consider this to be her best book to date, featuring an involved and complex plot, crafted with Ms. Tepper's impeccable eye for detail, as well as her uniquely wry sense of humour and wit - to say nothing of her sense of the bizarre! All of the book's many strands fall beautifully into place, constantly luring the reader on, whilst continually keeping one guessing.

As always, there is the deep, dark secret - alluded to throughout but kept carefully concealed until the end. And naturally, there are the usual shocks and jolts for the reader along the way, too. Indeed, she manages to keep the surprises coming right through to the very last page, this time.

This book may make you mad, or it may make you weep, and even at times laugh, but ultimately its true worth is like that of the special pool it features: impossible to pass through without being altered forever. Highly recommended, whether you're an established Tepper fan or just looking for a cracking read.

I love most of Sheri Tepper's books. But I keep going back and re-reading this one over and over. It's just fascinating!

The plot involves a planet with some DEEP problems; earthquakes, mysterious monsters, a virus that kills 1 of about 2 girl babies at birth, and worst of all, a visit pending from the Questioner; a robotic device designed to make sure all sentient planets are in compliance with "human" rights laws. OR ELSE!

The society on Newholme is downright strange; men wear veils so their faces won't excite lust in women. Women are the dominant sex; they go for high bride prices and the birth of daughters is a cause for celebration. They make or break a family fortune. Every man gets to father his own genetic line, that is, if he can afford a wife. And so that women are not just chattel, when they are finished with their procreative contracts, they are free to hire consorts, or trained companions of the opposite sex. Consorts are fantasy men, who dance, know wines, duel gallantly (but mostly harmlessly) and accompany their patronesses to cultural events, plus give them the love and companionship missing in their contractual marriages. Married men are free to conduct business and need not spend the time to pleasure their wives. Everyone gets something they want.

But all is not totally peachy on Newholme and this forms a very inventive plot for a cast of very diverse and interesting characters. This is one fun and interesting book. I think it's one of the most inventive science fiction novels in years and it is fun to read. Don't miss it.

Things I liked about this book: the imaginative cultures and scenery; the way Ms. Tepper wove the plot together at the end; the Questioner character. Things I felt needed improvement: character development - I found it hard to care about the characters; plot-driven ‹ because the plot was so intricate I felt little time was given to character development; slow-start - I didn't "get into" the story until after about 250 pages. Overall, I'm glad I gave this book a chance because it got interesting mid-way through. I felt the characters had the potential to be more interesting but because there were so many of them and such an involved plot, I didn't feel like I got to know them. Would like to see more books with these characters in further adventures. I will probably give other of Ms. Tepper's books a shot to be fair.

A well written book with an engaging plot and some fine twists towards the end. Very evenly written, but not for the impatient. The author leaves multiple trails of breadcrumbs, all of which you must follow for the plot to fully blossom. After my first reading, I immediately turned back to page one and started over, to savor consistency and complexity that I could only taste briefly on the first reading.

Tepper provides a lot of information about the history of gender interactions and why we think the way we do, which I found quite believable and interesting. (but, being of an age where Women's Studies classes were not commonly available in college, I don't know whether this is WS101 or BS101) She occasionally slips into pedantry, as in her other books, but in this novel she does it by introducing too many superfluous characters, which, while moderately interesting on their own, ultimately exist only to pass on the information, rather than advance the story.

Despite this drawback, which is actually pretty minor since the characters themselves and their cultures can be pretty intriguing, I found this book engaging enough for me to go hunting for a hardback copy for my personal library. Approach it with some patience and you will find it rewarding.

A twist on Tepper's familiar theme that men are awful to women -- here, the women are in charge, and the men are (at least somewhat) oppressed. The male hero is appealing; I find it interesting that in general Tepper's heros are more interesting and likeable than her heroines, who seem to always be fighting their own self doubts along with whatever else assails them. This book reminds me of A.S.Byatt's _The Babel Tower_, which provides a more disturbing and literary treatment of some of the same themes. Also, tho I enjoyed this book I found Tepper's _The Singer from the Sea_ even more compelling and vivid.

Though I won't remember this novel as one of my favorite Tepper books, I enjoyed reading it, and I'm glad I saw it through to the end. The story seems confusing at times (though a single chapter late in the novel does clarify much of what previously had me confused), and the large number of difficult-to-pronounce proper nouns was a bit frustrating. But the story of the Timmys, the so-called "invisible people" - this is what I found compelling about the book. I think all sorts of meaningful links can be made to those "invisible people" in our own world. Factory workers in Haiti striving to produce plush "One-hundred and one Dalmations" dolls for subsistence-level pay...Workers in southeast Asia struggling to survive on the wage-slave payments they receive for sewing $150 pairs of sneakers...Our American (and more generally, our first-world) prosperity is built on the subservience of hundreds of millions of "invisible people." This is exactly the case in the novel - a planet's colonists are all aware of the Timmys, but - to a person - they are unwilling to admit that these invisible natives even exist.

Also very interesting is the novel's reliance on the compelling idea of the planetary life-form, the planetary consciousness. Tepper makes this idea work very effectively in Six Moon Dance (again, despite the confusing names), and her writing caused me to think again about the popular Gaia theory discussed here on our own planet.

All in all, definitely worth reading, though I would certainly place Gibbon's Decline and Fall, The Family Tree, Grass, and Shadow's End before it on my list of Tepper favorites.

After a less-than-superb detour into eco-fiction with "Family Tree" Sheri returns to her science fiction roots with "Six Moon Dance." It has a suitably complicated plot with interestingly interwined characters,a topsy-turvey social structure and plenty of Sheri's surprises. This novel will please longtime Tepper readers. I believe it's her best effort since "Grass."

SIX MOON DANCE could be a good story. Newholme, the new planet, is the place where men are homemakers and women are scarce. But, the good part, there are custom trained young male Consorts to cheer up the women in their expected boredom of marriage. What's more, there are indigens, invisible entities who do all of the grunt work. Then along comes the super woman, the Questioner, who is every Old Earth's daughter-in-law's nightmare--large, smart, computer brain, know-it-all, bossy and indestructible--and she is sent to investigate the planet's violent earthquakes and potentially violent rumors. Boy, oh boy, the final solution is a real doozy, you gotta read it--if you can get through the lumps of righteous preaching about the wrongs of our poor sick planet, Old Earth. Sherri, you are preaching to the gallery.

I found this book, which I picked up mainly on the basis on the interesting gender reversal idea alluded to in other books, to be oddly disappointing. Why? Well, for one, there are so many characters who are not always well-developed. It is hard to get involved with a story, when the myriads of half-developed characters get in the way. I was constantly referring to the introductory list of characters to identify who is what.

Having said that, I have to agree that there were some fantastic ideas and themes in this story, especially the concept of the invisible people, who are not quite what they seem - even at the beginning.

The sociology of the planet is extremely interesting, and I could wish that I had seen a "normal" family (normal for Newholme, that is) at work. We have references to the unusual families of Mouche and Calvy (two of the many interesting male characters) but those families are hardly typical, or are they?

Personally, I felt that there was so much going on in this novel that the author would have done better by expanding this novel into a group of books based on Newholme. I was not worried by the use of many familiar stock characters and plot devices in science fiction; after all, what really matters is what a good author does with the standard plot.

In conclusion, this is a good novel, and an enjoyable read on Sunday afternoon. It is not however a keeper, and I changed my mind about buying it (after having borrowed it from the library).

Tepper explores her favorite themes: ecology, gender discrimination, social engineering and *really* alien intelligence (she comes up with two winners here).

The plot is compelling, though it turns a bit unbelievable toward the end (I really CAN'T imagine a "-----" Liberation Movement). But it's a wonderful ride nonetheless.

I suspect it may be a "chick thing", since I'd *love* a "hunk" snd a crew of invisible servants, but second-rate Tepper usually tops most other SF writers' best efforts.