Лучшие книги Шери С. Теппер

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 ...

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.

When the human settlers arrived on Hobbs Land, the native intelligent species, the Owlbrit, were already almost extinct. Before the last one died, a few years later, the humans had learned a little of their language, their ideas and their religion. It seemed the natural thing for the settlers to maintain the last Owlbrit temple, with the strange statue that was its God. When that God died - disintegrating overnight - it seemed equally natural to start preparing its replacement.
Maire Manone came to Hobbs Land to escape the harsh patriarchal religion of Voorstod, but Voorstod hasn't forgotten her - or forgiven her. But the men who arrive on Hobbs Land to find and return Maire to her homeland haven't taken Hobbs Land's God into account ...

The long-awaited and much-demanded sequel to A PLAGUE OF ANGELS, continuing the story of Abasio, once a farmboy, now, so Blue, his talking horse, is happy to inform people, a man who goes hither and thither helping orphans in this world where renascent mythical beasts and fairy tale 'archetypes' now live.

. . . And when he comes across little Xulai from Tingawan, one of the Ten Thousand Islands, far away over the Western Sea, she informs him that she too is an orphan, and implores his help carrying out the last request of the Princess Xu-i-lok, who has been dying since the day she married Duke Justinian, who refused the royal order to marry Alicia, the Prince's sister.

Xulai is Princess Xu-i-lok's Soul Carrier, and the task she must complete means visiting the scary forest in the dead of night - but it is the only thing that will bring the princess a measure of peace. Abasio, helper of orphans, promises though she must do this alone, he will be near, to aid her if necessary . . . and it is, for there are dark things abroad . . .

And Xulai's job is not yet done, for with the princess now dead, the grieving Duke is left a widower - and Alicia, Duchess Altamont, still wishes to marry him. It's not just the man she wants, but his lands too . . . and her plans do not bode well for anyone except her . . .

Three planets have been recently discovered in deep space, and prosaically named to reflect their respective environments. Jungle, lush and foreboding, swallowed up an eleven-member exploratory team more than a decade earlier, while hot, harsh, and dusty Stone turned out to be phenomenally rich in rare ore, the most profitable new world to be found in a century. But it is the third, Moss, that could well prove to be the most enigmatic . . . and dangerous.

Enlisted by the Planetary Protection Institute -- an organization founded to assess new worlds for potential development and profit -- famed linguist Paul Delis has come to Moss to determine whether the strange multicolored shapes of dancing light observed on the planet's surface are evidence of intelligent life. With Delis is his half sister, Jewel, the wife of one of the explorers lost on Jungle. Working together, they are to determine the true nature of the “Mossen” and decipher the strange "language" that accompanies the phenomenon.

Yet the great mysteries of this bucolic world -- three-quarters covered in wind-sculpted, ever-shifting moss -- don't end with the inexplicable illuminations; there is the puzzle of the rusting remains of a lost fleet of Earth ships, moldering on a distant plateau. Perhaps the biggest question mark is Jewel Delis herself and her mission here at the far reaches of the galaxy. Leaving an overpopulated homeworld that is rapidly becoming depleted of the raw materials needed for human survival, Jewel is a member of a radical underground group opposing a recent government edict that will eliminate all of the planet's “nonessential” living inhabitants. And it is here, at the universe's unexplored edge, where the fate of endangered creatures may ultimately be decided -- though it will mean defying ruthless and unforgiving ruling powers to repair humankind's disintegrating relationship with the beasts of the Earth.

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.

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.