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The Companions
Three planets in deep space were named by their human discoverers to reflect their environments: lush and foreboding Jungle, which swallowed up an exploratory team; Stone, phenomenally rich in rare ore; and Moss, the most enigmatic -- and dangerous -- of the trio.
Joining her half-brother Paul, the famed linguist, on a two-person scientific expedition, Jewel Delis has com
...morePaperback, 560 pages
Published
August 31st 2004
by Eos
(first published 2003)
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I just finished reading this book. I decided last summer that it would be fun to read a Tepper novel a year, and this one was June 2008's selection.
I found The Companions more metaphorical than many of Tepper's other novels. In this science fiction novel...
er, only the setting is science fiction. It's actually a mystery...
er, well, it's not only a mystery and it's certainly not a procedural!
The ideology is very feminist
but it's style is epic!
Anyway! You get the idea - Tepper takes on a lot! It's...more
I found The Companions more metaphorical than many of Tepper's other novels. In this science fiction novel...
er, only the setting is science fiction. It's actually a mystery...
er, well, it's not only a mystery and it's certainly not a procedural!
The ideology is very feminist
but it's style is epic!
Anyway! You get the idea - Tepper takes on a lot! It's...more
Companions is the Sherri S. Tepper book which made me decide that she was a genius and is now my most favorite author of all time. It's a very complex book with several planets and many different species, from sentient dogs with human slaves to a living moss. The story combines feminist ideals with ecological concerns and a desperate attempt to transcend cultural differences as well as languages expressed in music and scent in order to save the universe.
SHERI S. TEPPER-- Author of many books inc...more
SHERI S. TEPPER-- Author of many books inc...more
Nov 12, 2012
Delicious Strawberry
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
sheri-s-tepper,
science-fiction
Anyone who is a seasoned reader of Tepper is familiar with her tendency to introduce crazy and/or contrived deus ex machinas near the end of her stories, and some of them were terrible (Family Tree, the Visitor), but this story actually made more sense. Like her other works, this delves into issues like religion, society, gender roles, slavery, and other important topics.
The setting is Earth in the future, where Mars and other planets have been colonized, but Earth itself is dealing with a sever...more
The setting is Earth in the future, where Mars and other planets have been colonized, but Earth itself is dealing with a sever...more
Those who dismiss Sheri S. Tepper's books as too strident in their feminist and ecological concerns need only take a look at the 2012 U.S. Republican presidential campaign for retort. It provides almost too many examples of the ways in male public discourse at the very highest levels that women—and their reproductive systems—are reduced to mere vessels, sluts, and handmaidens, almost as extremely as they are in Tepper's dystopian Gibbon's Decline and Fall. That Tepper always has axes to grind in...more
'The Companions' is a difficult one to rate. Tepper uses language beautifully, playfully, and her worlds are incredibly intricate and inventive. Her characters are dimensional and believable, their tribulations very relatable.
To a point.
I'm disappointed that in all the many works she built in this book, religions, genders, and gender roles are almost identical. Except with the Tharstians, who we only hear about and don't see directly.
Too, I felt the first 3/4 of the book was the strongest. Th...more
To a point.
I'm disappointed that in all the many works she built in this book, religions, genders, and gender roles are almost identical. Except with the Tharstians, who we only hear about and don't see directly.
Too, I felt the first 3/4 of the book was the strongest. Th...more
After a bit of a shaky and confusing start I have absolutely loved this imaginative sci-fi/space opera novel. It is an example of what I would describe as feminist sci-fi. Indeed on googling the topic I find that I am far from the first to make that observation! Two of my favourite other sci-fi novels "The Left Hand of Darkness", and "The Handmaids Tale" are other examples of the genre. Earth is over-crowded and breaking down as an ecological system for anything more than human-beings. At the sa...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Sep 24, 2012
Perrin Pring
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
sci-fi,
woman-authors
This was the first, and most likely the last, Tepper book I will read.
Let me summarize my thoughts on the Companions in bullet point form.
*The first 250 pages of this book were utterly depressing and made me want to stop reading entirely. Do you want to read about an over populated Earth with no animals or open spaces? Read the first 250 pages of this book. I appreciate the statement Tepper was making with the first 250 pages, but I felt as if she over did it. Every time I picked up the book I...more
Let me summarize my thoughts on the Companions in bullet point form.
*The first 250 pages of this book were utterly depressing and made me want to stop reading entirely. Do you want to read about an over populated Earth with no animals or open spaces? Read the first 250 pages of this book. I appreciate the statement Tepper was making with the first 250 pages, but I felt as if she over did it. Every time I picked up the book I...more
A newly discovered solar system becomes the crux of an interspecies conflict in this story that features imaginative world-building and beautiful writing but suffers from an unfocused plot. Readers will recoil at the chilling vision of a future Earth teeming with humans, where animals are widely considered to be a waste of limited resources. The main character works with the “arkists” to preserve Earth’s flora and fauna by buying up suitable interstellar real estate and transplanting ecosystems...more
Tepper is a difficult writer, and I have found her books difficult in the past, but The Companions is particularly difficult. Obscure and hard to follow, it got the second star because it did manage to keep me with it, even though I found it opaque. In a nutshell this is far future science fiction in which humans live in a space faring culture among many other races. Humans have made a mess of earth and are on their way to making a mess of their other worlds too. Jewel is an arkist,, a person de...more
I read this on someone's recommendation, and I will admit I was slightly biased against Tepper after being traumatized by The Gate to Women's Country. While I found this story engaging and interesting, I believe it suffered from the "10 pounds of crap in a 5 pound bag" problem.
The story is all over the map and spans multiple worlds, races, ideas, etc. and gets somewhat disjointed. About halfway through I wondered how the hell does this story get wrapped up in one book? She just keeps adding more...more
The story is all over the map and spans multiple worlds, races, ideas, etc. and gets somewhat disjointed. About halfway through I wondered how the hell does this story get wrapped up in one book? She just keeps adding more...more
Wow, this book is dense with themes, plots, and elaborately-crafted alien worlds, races and histories. Among other things, Tepper explores conservation, religious extremism, overpopulation, the evolution of language, and mankind's long love affair with dogs.
There's also a strong feminist slant--almost anti-male, though not overtly so. Virtually everything positive or productive that occurs is attributable to one of the many strong, resourceful, intelligent female characters; with one or two exce...more
There's also a strong feminist slant--almost anti-male, though not overtly so. Virtually everything positive or productive that occurs is attributable to one of the many strong, resourceful, intelligent female characters; with one or two exce...more
Sep 25, 2011
Jaime
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
adventure,
science-fiction
The Companions is total-Tepper. She puts everything she's got into it, but perhaps, just this once, it's too much. Complex and dense, the story is full-to-bursting with characters, species, and alien worlds that are endlessly novel but at some point it all stops being fascinating and just becomes something to get through. I hate saying this about any book by the author of The Gate To Women's Country or The Family Tree, but I grew weary. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood to be preached to, and we a...more
This book might have worked if it had been expanded into a series of 4 or more novels of the same length. As it stands, Tepper bit off more than she could chew, or at least relate convincingly in one book. Too bad, because it started off with promise, and I was hooked for the first 300 pages. However by the end the relationships ended up falling flat, failing to probe much psychology or show growth. All alien species: bugs, tentacled, lizard, whatever acted some variation of human. The war eleme...more
Nov 23, 2011
Oanh
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-and-speculative-fiction,
women-authors
Interesting ideas (very similar to ideas in Margarets about humanity and value - premised upon respecting nature and other species, whether alien or animal) and well drawn. Loved the Wilogs, but I'm a sucker for sentient ambivalently 'good', sort of violent plants. Disappointed in the ending - a thoroughly sentient world is okay; a near omnipotent universe and near omnipotent good alien just seems like a cop out when the complexities are otherwise so well done. And why close off options for futu...more
Jan 22, 2013
Kristin Lundgren
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction,
aliens
This is another winner by the engrossing Sheri Tepper. As with her other books it is very different from each other she has written, and different from mainstream SF. In this one, about 700 years from now, the Earth has been stripped of most vegetation and animals, and people live in 100 sq mile "urbs", consisted of ten tower blocks each way. There are people who live down near the bottom of these 200 story towers, and those who live at the top, in penthouses that were in trust for their familie...more
Apr 03, 2011
Angela
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
bookcrossed-or-otherwise-set-free,
2004
Sheri Tepper's latest is a remarkably ambitious and complex story, perhaps too ambitious and complex. The story encompasses so many different locations, and different species, all with competing agendas, it was difficult to keep track of who was doing what to whom, and for what purpose. I had a little trouble remembering who some of the individual players were, and their various foibles and attributes.
I appreciated being introduced to each set of players one at a time. The back story was quite u...more
I appreciated being introduced to each set of players one at a time. The back story was quite u...more
This is Tepper's Treasure Hunt book. She borrows from other authors and puts it all together in a book that doesn't quite fail and doesn't quite succeed.
First, who does she borrow from? Well, she definitely follows the David Brin "Uplift" concept for the main underpinning of the book. Brin does a much better job of building the concept of alien races planting, growing and tending younger races as they reach for the stars. Tepper's races are less developed than Brin's, but she definitely borrowed...more
First, who does she borrow from? Well, she definitely follows the David Brin "Uplift" concept for the main underpinning of the book. Brin does a much better job of building the concept of alien races planting, growing and tending younger races as they reach for the stars. Tepper's races are less developed than Brin's, but she definitely borrowed...more
A solid Tepper book. She has a tendency to describe events with a certain level of nonchalance in the beginning of her novels, only to twist them into different shapes by the end, and that technique -- that slow revelation of meaning and purpose -- appeals to me. It's like a game or a mystery with larger (social) implications.
I also like the way "Companions" and some of her other books force me to think about, if not explicitly judge, facets of my own life and culture. I suppose that's a functio...more
I also like the way "Companions" and some of her other books force me to think about, if not explicitly judge, facets of my own life and culture. I suppose that's a functio...more
Loved it.
Devoured it this past Summer on a chaise lounge in the sun on a a deck in Hawaii.
This was my first Tepper novel and I immediately grokked the feminist stance and anti-colonial background seeping from her characters and conflicts.
As an animal person I fully identified with the plot and female protagonist who evolves into an animal activist of sorts.
This book was a good intro to Tepper and inspired me to pursue more of her work.
Devoured it this past Summer on a chaise lounge in the sun on a a deck in Hawaii.
This was my first Tepper novel and I immediately grokked the feminist stance and anti-colonial background seeping from her characters and conflicts.
As an animal person I fully identified with the plot and female protagonist who evolves into an animal activist of sorts.
This book was a good intro to Tepper and inspired me to pursue more of her work.
I have so liked many Tepper books, and this one raced along well enough. It has an interesting premise, with intelligent, speaking dogs, but the writing just didn't hold up for me this time. Not sure why. But I felt vindicated in my opinion when I picked up the next book I was going to read, by Barbara Kingsolver, and immediately saw the difference. Could it be the mood I was in? Sure.
This book was decent, but it's not the one I would recommend to a first time Sheri Tepper reader. Tepper always deals with gender/feminism and eco-issues (i.e. humans destroying their world/worlds), themes which I appreciate. The first half of the book (on Earth) was very promising, as it played to what I like about Tepper: the development of a charismatic lead character who cares about the world, which has been built in an interesting (if not always unique) way.
However, in The Companions Teppe...more
However, in The Companions Teppe...more
I started this book with high expectations and I'm sorry to say they didn't all come true. Altough I liked the story and the worlds described, sometimes it was just very confusing. Long sentences, a lot of chapters "outside" of the story and a lot of storylines made it sometimes hard to understand the story at all. I did enjoy the writer's ability to make the planets and species come to life before my eyes.
I also liked the message the book seemed to give: be careful of our planet because otherw...more
I also liked the message the book seemed to give: be careful of our planet because otherw...more
Interesting story, obscure in the way Tepper's books can be. The main character was likable, the story a bit confused and the ending felt a bit rushed. Overall, a pleasant read, but not something that would be on the "must read" list.
For some reason this novel began to feel like a rehash of the same material from some of her earlier works. Similar, very important, environmental and sociopolitical material was dealt with, but it just didn't feel as gripping or as interesting as what I've become accustomed to from Tepper. Perhaps part of the problem was that Tepper wove in this theme of dogs with the ability to speak and aliens that had taken the shape of dogs. I'm just not a dog person. Many of the alien cultures that Tepper...more
As always Tepper's books take me out of my comfort zone. Causing me to rethink ideas as well as values. Took a while to get into the story but one I did I was nabbed.
A while ago, I read and reviewed Sheri Tepper's "The Margarets". Had I known, I would have read "The Companions" first because this book, written only a few years earlier than "The Margarets", treats the same themes using different characters but very similar plots with fascinating details like the centrality of Mars to the story. Almost as though Tepper, not satisfied with "The Companions" returned to the same concerns with the later novel. Both are good reads but I read them close together in...more
This book introduced a concept of language to me that stays with me and after 9 years I still find myself entertaining the idea of it again.
A long, convoluted, and ultimately pleasing tale ... Thanks, Kimball, for the gift!!
I put it down...and i doubt i will ever pick it back up.
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Sheri Stewart Tepper is a prolific American author of science fiction, horror and mystery novels; she is particularly known as a feminist science fiction writer, often with an ecofeminist slant.
Born near Littleton, Colorado, for most of her career (1962-1986) she worked for Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood, where she eventually became Executive Director. She has two children and is married to Gen...more
More about Sheri S. Tepper...
Born near Littleton, Colorado, for most of her career (1962-1986) she worked for Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood, where she eventually became Executive Director. She has two children and is married to Gen...more
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