The Waters Rising [Paperback]

Sheri S. Tepper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2, 2011

A dreadful, awesome killing power is resurrected from the past . . .
Powers are invoked and curses are being laid . . .
Great waters are rising and changing the world . . .

Long ago was the “Big Kill,” horrible, apocalyptic events that destroyed nearly every living thing on earth. Since then the last of humankind has scattered into widespread small kingdoms separated by superstition, war, and fear. And now, while facing a natural catastrophe that threatens to drown a world, an ancient evil resurfaces and may prevent any chance of survival.

With the future of humankind at stake, a small band of disparate charac­ters—a lonely child, a loyal servant, a mysterious wanderer, and a most unusual horse—sets out on a journey fraught with peril and wonder . . . a sacred mission that leaves no room for failure. . . .

Deeply original in scope and vision, The Waters Rising is a daring and remarkable work of speculative fiction—a tour de force from one of the most revered writers of our time.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Earth of this futuristic fable is still scarred by the "Big Kill," the disastrous crescendo of our civilization that all but obliterated terrestrial life. Now a new threat has appeared in the form of rising sea levels, a process that appears unbounded by such petty concerns as a plausible source for all that water. Xulai, initially an unimportant and expendable young girl, encounters a specter from the days of Big Kill, an entity bent on preventing Xulai from realizing her potential role in the salvation of humanity. "Ecofeminist" Tepper (The Margarets) balances pointed criticisms of our era with a calamity that appears to owe far more to Genesis than to science, but the writing is slick and carefully crafted, Xulai has plenty of pluck, and her companions possess a nearly ideal mixture of virtues, flaws, and enthusiasm for redemptive sacrifice.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Years after apocalyptic events killed most of the earth’s people, humankind has regained some level of society in widespread kingdoms, but both the ocean waters and the forces of evil are rising again. Abasio, an itinerant merchant and tinker, comes to the aid of Xulai, a frightened little girl assigned a terrifying errand by her dying princess-guardian, an errand that will bring the pair into opposition with the evil Alicia, Duchess of Altamont, and ultimately send them on a dangerous quest across the continent and over the seas to Xulai’s home country. There’s more than first meets the eye to Abasio, Xulai, and Alicia, and the stakes rise as their true roles in the world are slowly revealed. Tepper has developed a dependable following with works that have an epic fantasy feel but that ultimately reveal logically consistent scientific trappings. This work is no exception, a successful blend of dying-earth fantasy and wicked-witch fable. Here the transition from fantasy adventure fable to environment and genetics thought-piece is less gracefully managed, but the novel ultimately succeeds on both levels. While set in the same world as 1993’s A Plague of Angels, this title can be read alone with no difficulty. --Neil Hollands --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Harper Voyager; Reprint edition (August 2, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061958859
• ISBN-13: 978-0061958854
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #350,850 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars We've been here before, October 18, 2010

By 

Claire de Trafford - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Waters Rising: A Novel (Hardcover)

Maybe it's because I am a long time Tepper fan, and own everything she has written that I've given this a 3; I can certainly understand why other reviewers have been more generous, but to me this book is a little repetitive on themes that Tepper has already covered. I also felt a little offended that she was writing off a world that she created in the (superior) Plague of Angels using a theme she introduced in Singer from the Sea. I would recommend that readers seek these out first before reading this. I'm totally behind Tepper's themes of environmental damage, the issues with religion and a patriarchal society, but I just couldn't really warm to this book as a whole - Abasio really only as a walk on role and doesn't need to be there at all, the baddies never really threaten, and the plot wrap up just didn't quite work for me. There are good points to it - Tepper's work is always well written with interesting characters - but it felt a little like treading old ground. Read this certainly, but seek out her other books which are superior.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I Love Sheri Tepper, and I hated this book, February 16, 2011

By 

Chazzma78 (Maine, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Waters Rising: A Novel (Hardcover)

I know one star is harsh, but this book was truly awful, and I say that as a die-hard Tepper fan. This book started off promising enough, but overall reads like a very rough first draft. I'm frankly amazed that there is an editor out there that allowed this to go to print. At first I thought that the overwrought and extensive explanations of geographical minutiae might serve some later purpose, but they were really just taking up space. The book isn't sure what it really wants to be about, and veers this way and that, without any semblance of focus. Toward the end of the book, Tepper seems to suddenly remember the plot she probably had in mind the whole time, so she shabbily patches up some loose ends, slaps together some long, detailed monologues by characters to take the place of potentially interesting scenes and interaction, and calls it a book. I give this one star because I know that Tepper has the talent to make this idea into a great book, and she really dropped the ball. The writing is downright bad in some places, and there is basically no structure to the story at all. I literally forced myself to finish it, hoping that it might somehow redeem itself in the end. Don't waste your time- read one of her other fine books instead.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Plodding, December 28, 2010

By 

Kelly (Fantasy Literature) (Columbia, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Waters Rising: A Novel (Hardcover)

Full disclosure: I did not finish _The Waters Rising_. I spent about a month trying to read it, and found it hard to concentrate on it for more than a few pages. I gave up when I realized I was now a month behind on everything else I wanted to read, and that the bookmark I'd placed in _The Waters Rising_ never seemed to move, no matter how much time I spent with the book. I'd never read a Sheri S. Tepper novel before, though I've read the first few pages of Beauty (Spectra special editions) and am intrigued. I think I'll try to forget about _The Waters Rising_, give _Beauty_ a try, and let that be my introduction to Tepper.

The concept is an interesting one. The novel is set in the Earth of the future. We've made a mess of the planet by means of technology, and now there is a further calamity that is flooding areas that escaped the earlier disasters. The male lead, Abasio, comes upon a castle in what we know as the Pacific Northwest and meets the female lead, Xulai, a child who has been selected for a dangerous task.

Unfortunately, the book plods. Part of the problem is that much of the dialogue is stilted and infodump-heavy; it's not uncommon in _The Waters Rising_ to find characters expounding to each other about the geography of the setting. Some of the problem may relate to my own literary preferences. It's rare that I can become engrossed in a book that relies so heavily on traveling-across-the-landscape-with-enemies-in-pursuit as a structure. I think I'm supposed to be gleaning an ecological message from the book; instead I feel like I'm reading an account of a D&D campaign (or maybe Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World, which reminded me of, well, a D&D campaign.)

Then there's the disturbing romance between Abasio and Xulai. A minor spoiler: Xulai is not as young as she looks. However, Abasio becomes strongly attracted to her when he still thinks she's a precocious seven-year-old. This is icky, and it's made even more icky by the fact that Xulai is Tingawan (Chinese), because of the history of fetishization and infantilization of Asian women. Abasio is supposed to be the hero and instead comes off as really skeevy.

I got about halfway through _The Waters Rising_ and threw in the towel. I've decided that this book and I were simply not meant for each other