Шери С. Теппер - циклы книг | Бумажные издания

Come to the world of the River.

Come to a world distant in time and space, a world where the pace of life is counted by tides of the great River, but where, as in the river itself, there are swift dark currents flowing under a placid surface.

Meet Pamra Don--a young woman scarred by her mother's death, lured to a preist-hood where the truth must be hidden from the faithful. And meet Thrasne, a young boatman who trades from town to town, free from the iron control of the towers of the Awakeners, and the priests of the world of the River--free, that is, as long as he never speaks his mind. These two, by design and accident both, are about to discover many truths. And on the Northshore of the River, the truth can kill you.

The bizarre events that have been occurring across the United States--unexplained "oddities" tracked by Air Defense, mysterious disappearances, shocking deaths--seem to have no bearing on Benita Alvarez-Shipton's life. That is, until the soft-spoken thirty-six-year-old bookstore manager is approached by a pair of aliens asking her to transmit their message of peace to the powers that be in Washington. Suddenly an ordinary woman with a poor self-image and low self-esteem has been thrust into the limelight, as she leaves behind an Albuquerque home on the brink of foreclosure and a drunken bully of an abusive husband to undertake a mission of utmost importance to her planet and its peoples.

Her obligation does not end once the message is delivered, however, for the Pistach have offered their human hosts a spectacular opportunity for knowledge and enrichment. And Benita is to act as sole liaison between the two sentient races. The more she learns about the extraterrestrials who transformed her gray existence, the more her appreciation grows for their culture, their beliefs, and their art--especially the ancient and mystical Fresco that appears to dominate their collective lives. And the easier it becomes to shed the psychological and societal restraints that inhibited her own growth as an individual.

But alongside the promise is a dire, unspoken threat. Because the Pistach are not the only space-faring species making their presence known on Earth. There are others--cold, malevolent, hungry--who have now set their sights on Benita, and their accomplices may be as close as Capitol Hill. And the desperate race to save herself and two worlds could carry Benita Alvarez far from her home planet ... and light years away from anything she has ever been.

On the planet Jubal, human colonization has been restricted by massive crystalline "presences" which may or may not be sentient, but in order to protect them from destruction, they must be convinced to break their long silence. Reissue.

With the critically acclaimed novels The Gate to Women's Country, Raising the Stones, and the Hugo-nominated Grass, Sheri Tepper has established herself as one of the major science fiction writers of out Time. In Beauty, she broadens her territory even further, with a novel that evokes all the richness of fairy tale and fable. Drawing on the wellspring of tales such as "Sleeping Beauty," Beauty is a moving novel of love and loss, hope and despair, magic and nature. Set against a backdrop both enchanted and frightening, the story begins with a wicked aunt's curse that will afflict a young woman named Beauty on her sixteenth birthday. Though Beauty is able to sidestep tragedy, she soon finds herself embarked on an adventure of vast consequences. For it becomes clear that the enchanted places of this fantastic world--a place not unlike our own--are in danger and must be saved before it is too late.

What could be more innocuous than grass? Or more idyllic than a world covered with a wind-whipped ocean of verdant plains?
But the planet Grass conceals horrifying secrets within its endless pastures.
And as an incurable plague attacks all inhabited planets but this one, the prairie-like Grass begins to reveal these secrets - and nothing will ever be the same again ...