|
Loading... The Margarets (2007)by Sheri S. Tepper
None.  comixminx | Apr 5, 2013 |  My guess is that in another mood, another season, I might not have been so patient with this Tepper set in the future and in which humans are fatally flawed, having no unified 'soul' memory (having annoyed a 'vile' race into cursing them thus, somehow). They won't stop breeding and have ruined Earth, and are spreading to other planets....... If they don't shape up, it has been decided to eradicate them..... Another ancient race, indebted for a rather far-fetched reason, decides to see if they can save them. Margaret Bain, must be split into seven...... What often makes me nervous with Tepper is a tendency to 'either/or' and to 'if only' and a bossiness, a confidence that she has the answers in the form of pronouncements, about human behavior, men and women, justice, and so on. Some of the comments are tossed out there along the lines of (paraphrased) men made up blood and honor societies so the ones who wouldn't change had to go live in Walled-off blood and honor societies, and they were mostly men. It's simplistic and I understand The Margarets is targeted toward a YA audience rather than an adult one..... which bothered me..... Nonetheless, it's Tepper and she's interesting and entertaining and such a good basic storytellerl..... I didn't quit. *** (  )1  sibyx | Jan 29, 2013 | The good: worthy theme (overpopulation), a nifty central concept of seven different versions of the central protagonist "splitting off" at crucial points in her life, and interesting use of various motifs. The bad: as didactic as anythings she's ever written, too many fairly hollow characters (who I feel I've encountered in any number of the author's books), and pretty much all of the weight of the book is in the very long set-up. So, all in all, it has the feeling of a slightly paint-by-numbers Tepper. ( ) salimbol | Jan 9, 2012 | Set in a dystopian future where mankind has completely filled the Earth, destroying virtually all other life on the planet, Margaret’s consciousness splits off at critical moments in her life to create 7 parallel Margarets all living completely separate lives. The entire Earth is at breaking point. We desperately need to trade with alien cultures to obtain raw materials such as water – and the only thing we have in abundance is people. So one of the Margarets is sold as a slave, others leave Earth to become settlers, workers and translators on other planets. Eventually they must come together to solve the riddle, with help from various mysterious friends, in order to reach the mythical Keeper and request a boon which will save all of mankind. I loved this book! The story is quite difficult to follow and it can feel disjointed as the narrative jumps from one Margaret to another – so it is not for the faint-hearted! But it contains powerful messages about law and justice, slavery, environmental destruction and the nature of good and evil, all woven into a compelling story line and set in richly imagined alien worlds. One of Tepper’s best! (  ) hashford | Nov 19, 2011 | A mixture between sort of "hard" SF and mysterious spiritual stuff. Several storylines make it quite intriguing. (  ) paulmorriss | Oct 14, 2011 |
 If you're looking for a hard science fiction novel with realistic political intrigues, The Margarets probably won't work for you. But if you're willing to suspend disbelief and enter the echoing realms of the psyche along with spaceships to distant planets, you'll find this novel supremely satisfying. As ever Tepper is unafraid to ask the hard questions about human nature, and to propose radical solutions to it. And she manages to bring magic into a story whose human characters feel as real as people you meet every day on this insane planet whose future is anything but certain.
References to this work on external resources.
|
 Google Books — Loading...Popular coversRatingAverage: (3.81)
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wikipedia in English (2)
1
There's a review here that won't spoil you in advance unless you read it at the same time as you're reading the book. One aspect of it works rather like a traditional tale, where you're given a seemingly-impossible thing that has to be done, and it turns out that there is a way to do it - very neat when it clicked for me. (