While investigating the separate murders of three geneticists, police sergeant Dora Henry stumbles upon [creatures] from the future who have come 3000 years into their past to prevent the extinction of their species before a plague destroys most humans. Overnight, sentient weeds and trees begins taking over the suburbs and carrying off babies from families with more than two children. Tying together the Earth Goddess Kore and ecological scare tactics leaves this morality tale a little too preachy and strident. A disappointment from the author of the Hugo Award nominee Grass (LJ 9/15/89); recommended for larger fantasy collections only.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

This technically polished novel ingeniously combines elements from traditional quests, fables, and novels. A seemingly rhetorical question is posed in chapter 1: Why did sociable, smart Dora Henry marry cold, controlling Jared Gerber? But that question is the key to the book and to the parallel stories told by Sheri Tepper. The sets of characters unravel their separate puzzles until all become different aspects of the same web of events, shaking the reader's, and Dora's, perceptions to the core. Tepper's linguistic sleight-of-hand with metaphor and image is breathtaking; her storytelling is deft and funny; her characters are memorable and sympathetic. Topical, mythical, archetypal, and provocative, this is a book no fantasy or science fiction reader should miss. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

In Tepper's latest consciousness-raising venture (the splendid Gibbon's Decline and Fall, 1996, etc.), cop Dora Henry investigates three supposedly unrelated and apparently motiveless murders whose victims were all leading geneticists. Dora's husband, Jared, takes no sexual or other interest in her--viewing her as merely a live-in housekeeper. One day a strange weed springs up outside their house. Jared, who loathes disorder, tries to uproot it, but the weed resists and stings him nearly to death. In a matter of days, the weed multiplies into a forest blanketing the suburbs--and Dora finds she can talk with the trees! Encouraged, she leaves Jared and teams up with biologist Abilene McCord. Meanwhile, 3,000 years in the future, a peaceful, low-tech, multi-tribal civilization writhes in turmoil when a dreadful prophecy warns that all intelligent life faces extinction. So a diverse group of travelers--among them magician-polymath Prince Izakar, arrogant Prince Sahir, and harem slave and part-time narrator Nassif--seek the remote Hospice of St. Weel, where, according to the prophecy, some way of averting the catastrophe might be found. The intricate yet exquisitely controlled plot, impossible to summarize but involving time travel, plague, genetic experiments on animals, sorcery, a secret society, and the astonishing identity of the travelers themselves, reveals how, why, and what happens after Nassif and the princes materialize in Dora's newly forested backyard. Beautifully realized, full of delightful surprises and sparkling wit, this out-and-out charmer is unquestionably Tepper's best work so far. (First printing of 30,000) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.