Marianne, the Magus, and the Manticore

Marianne #1

by Sheri S. Tepper

Marianne leaves the magical kingdom of Alphenlicht to become a student in America, but her bitter half-brother sends a powerful Manticore to hunt her down

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Divination

193 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Sheri Stewart Tepper was a prolific American author of science fiction, horror and mystery novels; she was 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 Gene Tepper. She operated a guest ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

She wrote under several pseudonyms, including A.J. Orde, E.E. Horlak, and B.J. Oliphant. Her early work was published under the name Sheri S. Eberhart.

Reviews

[Dorian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read and reread this book in my college years, largely for the settings, which are beautifully drawn. Marianne's refurbishment-in-process flat; the big country house of the weekend party; Madame's world of embassy, émigrés, visas and quotas; Marianne's world with the library, the manticore, the posters... Each setting has its own mood, its own feel - I could recognise any one of them were I to meet it in real life.

But twenty years ago I felt, and I still feel on rereading now, that this book doesn't quite live up to its potential. And yet it's hard to say just where it fails. Should more be done with Madame's world, for instance? But it's intrinsically an in-between place; to do more with it would upset the balance of the book. Less of the real-world parts, maybe? But then later parts of the plot would make less sense, without that necessary background and build-up.

One place where it really does fall down is the climax, when Marianne, in a sudden access of power, gains her freedom with no apparent effort in about 5 seconds flat. After the build-up, and given what she's fighting against, that's really rather a let-down.

On the plus side, besides the wonderful settings, the book has strong, well-drawn characters, and a surprisingly subtle plot.

[Julie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm rereading this book yet again and feeling just the way that I did in my original review below.

============

When Marianne's parents died, leaving control of their fortune to her feared older brother, she struggled to make her way as a student in America - and her old home began to seem as unreal as a fairy tale, her childhood there as distant as a dream. Until the Magus came to claim her, and the Black Madame to destroy her, and the Manticore to hunt her down through the streets of another world - for there is magic in Marianne's blood, and magic in her soul. And in a battle fought in an everchanging world of warped time and wicked magic, it is the souls of Marianne and her family that are the ultimate prizes.

This description doesn't give a true feel for how fresh and original the storyline is.

I'd give this three and a half stars, actually, except that the author's imagination is so wonderful. This 1985 book, which I bought when new and have reread several times, betrays a style that is still working itself out and several awkward writing habits. On the other hand, this is before Tepper fell prey to sharing her (evidently) personal feelings about men so there is a strong male character who is nuanced in his actions and thoughts. Most of all, the border worlds that Marianne gets "banished" to are simply amazing. I love this series despite its flaws.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was okay. I had some trouble getting into the writing and all the descriptions. I suppose it's one of those where I liked the bones of the story more than the actual story. I have the second one out from the library and will probably read it.

[Suzanne Thackston · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd forgotten I'd read this one until I saw it pop on a friend's to-read. I was well into my Tepper addiction by the time I read this, one of her early works, and it would probably have fared better if I'd tried it before she was off and running on her more sophisticated projects. I don't remember much of it at all, which is why it's only got a middling score, although I remember liking it. I need to revisit and give a more comprehensive update.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've just re-read this story for about the tenth time. I discovered Tepper through her later trilogy 'The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped' so I knew I'd be interested in Marianne. I bought my copy just as my workplace changed and I acquired a new boss, who affected me very much in the same way as Marianne's half-brother affects her. Marianne's journey, her discovery of her own inner strength, and the accuracy with which Tepper describes societal and family constraints on women was a huge source of comfort and support to me as I adjusted to and eventually escaped the work situation. I've always wished for a good film adaptation, as one of the things that keeps me coming back 30 some years later is the beautiful settings. If they can do it for The Wheel of Time, then surely it should be do-able for Marianne?

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite series from one of my favourite authors. This series is a delight and I own three versions of it! It’s more optimistic and gentle than some of the later books, more like the Mavin series (also one of my favs) than say Decline and Fall or Family Tree. I can’t say how many times I’ve read this and I love it every time.

[Shelly_lr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a split personality. The first half of it (and the whole book is only 170 pages total) is rich and complex and enthralling, the story of a young woman who has been abused and held under the thumb of her much older stepbrother since the deaths of their parents years before. The story is told from her point of view in a prose that's jagged and disjointed but slowly becomes clearer as she gains some control over her life and mind with the help of a distant kinsman from a small country in Europe.

She learns from this kinsman that magic is a very real thing and that there are people out there who wish to harm her with it, and in fact have been doing so for years. She decides to fight back even though she has no idea how and ends up in a battle in fantasy worlds of hers in her opponent's making. These aren't for the most part physical battles but rather mental ones as the worlds she is trapped in represent facets of her and other's lives. There's a lot of symbolism in this book.

What I loved: The prose, especially in the first half of the book. Here's a short paragraph where she's out to dinner with a man she's attracted to despite all her defenses against it:

"Marianne had not expected the wine, was not guarded against it, did not notice as it flowed around the controls she had set upon herself, washed away the little dikes and walls of the resolutions she had made, let her forget it was to have been an evening of politeness only, without future, without overtones. She felt herself beginning to glitter, did nothing at all to stop it, simply let it go on as though she were twelve once more, at the dinner table with Cloud-haired Mama and Papa and their guests, full of happy questions and reasonably polite behavior, ready to be charmed and charming."

And after dinner:

They finished the meal with inconsequential talk, together with more wine, with brandy. They had been at the table for almost four hours when they left, coming out into a chilly, clear evening with a gibbous moon rising about the bay to send long, broken ladders of light across the water.

'I am at the middle of the whole world,' Marianne hummed. 'See how all the lights come to me.'

They stood at the center of the radiating lights, Town lights on the point stretching to the north and east, Island lights from small, cluster prominences to the east and south, the light of the moon.

'If you can pull yourself out of the center of things,' he said tenderly, 'I'll take you home.'

I just loved the way the words flowed and how she created magical places with them. Some weren't so pleasant but instead chillingly effective.

I also liked the two main characters. Marianne was different from a typical fantasy heroine in that she was wounded mentally at the beginning of the book but not in some facile way that some writers often use to describe a woman who's been hurt. You could genuinely feel her brittleness and the mental defense mechanisms she used. I also liked that the male lead saw that there were boundaries and even though he didn't know why they were there, he kept them without pushing her.

What I didn't like so much: Oddly, once Marianne was thrown into fantasy worlds the magic didn't seem to be there anymore in the writing. Maybe that was on purpose, because the places she was thrown into were the equivalent of a stereotypical dreary Russian novel. It also became harder for me to follow what was going on because things became a bit cryptic at this point. These are worlds where things don't necessarily make much sense, and while they're wildly imaginative they can be hard to follow.

I was also disappointed in the ending. I know that there are two sequels but things seemed to get resolved a little too quickly and then jumped into a new section of the story which ended on a cliffhanger to pull you into the next book.

One thing that may put a lot of people off this book is that it's out of print and has been for almost 30 years, and used copies are very expensive. You'll want to find this in the library. There are electronic copies floating around out there. I have no idea if they're legit.

But I do recommend this to people who like Eva Ibbotson's adult novels. The whole feel of the book very much reminded me of her writing, especially in the first half.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well that was an amusing bit of nostalgia. I remember reading it for the first time in the mid/late 80s (the public library in my central Illinois town had a great genre fiction selection - I'd swing by the teen side to pick up Sweet Valley Highs then over to the adult for bits of fantasy like this) and I must have remembered liking it enough to buy it later (I don't know how much later but I was surprised to see there are three volumes in the series, I only have the first two).

Anyway, I assume in my youth that I liked the romantic overtones... which this time around just made me chuckle. That main guy was so full of himself (yes, he did just order for her at that fancy-pants restaurant! At least he commented on it, but not that it stopped him from doing so) but at least not in an incredibly odious way. The majority of the repulsive male qualities were given to the character's rapey, abusive half-brother. I didn't remember the details but I definitely remembered the oppressive sense of terror all his actions caused the main character. So I guess that was well done?

What stood out for me this time around were the glories of a pre-cellphone/internet world. Heck, the lil' European country at the center of the story barely had roads and cars let alone a working telephone network. Some of the terms used surprised me - the main character used the word thingy (!!!) [I still love using that word >_<], carbuncle, and more! Fun! There were other vocabulary words I didn't know but I forgot to mark the page for the one word I had no idea. LOL, no, I'm not re-re-re-reading it to find it!.

And, of course, the main character working in a library and having her own world set in a library was pretty awesome. I mean, university libraries 1980s style equal pure fun and provided my favorite bit, "At the confluence of three sidewalks, the library notice board was always good for one or two order points. The bulletin board was always rigorously correct; there were only current items upon it; matters of more than passing interest were decorously sleeved in plastic, even behind the sheltering glass, to avoid the appearance of having been handled or read. Marianne sometimes envisioned a crew of compulsive, tenured gnomes arriving each night to update the library bulletin board. Though she had worked at the library for five years, she had never seen anyone prepare anything for the board or post it there. She preferred her own concept of the possible truth and did not ask about it." [p. 10] heheheheheh!

The book might actually be more at a 3 star quality but I'm giving it 4 for the extra bit of magic provided by nostalgia.

[Brian Paterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some readers might find this to be heavy and atmospheric stuff. I first acquired this second hand over two decades ago. On the re-read just now, I was astonished. I’d forgotten the extent to which Marianne was a survivor, and that she acted with such agency in the course of leaving her abuser. Still, today, I don't usually read third person POV stories- for me, tech-giant surveillance has spoiled forever that school of aloof disembodied observation. I recall though that I enjoyed the novel before the internet, and persevered. Thankfully this novel avoids becoming a tracking cookie peepshow. The story begins in a room, as a sympathetic introduction to Marianne’s safe space and introduces the mental formulas she uses to cope with present and past abuse. Tepper sets up the confrontation patiently- during a weekend in the country the author foreshadows early and discreetly the manner of the manticore’s eventual demise. The climactic denouement is abrupt when it comes and possibly takes survivor agency to a whole new level. So, did an abused woman just seize control of reality?

[Cliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was odd. I found myself drawn into it, much as most of Sheri Tepper's works do. But the rather jarring shifts between worlds/realities were not just disconcerting, but completely unexpected. But, I fell in love with her short trilogy format so I feel I need to reserve judgment until I finish this one.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found a copy of this book years ago in a secondhand store. I have looked for the next two in series since then with no luck. Recently discovered the omnibus volume so happy to reread this book and now to move on to the sequels.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I enjoyed this fantasy, the book didn't live up to my expectations based upon Tepper's later books.

[Rachèl Gerrits · Rating 3 out of 5]

An early book by Tepper. Not quite up to her later ones, which are superb. But an interesting story.

[Chris Fellows · Rating 5 out of 5]

Were the Angel of the Lord to appear and say to me: ‘The wrath of the Lord waxes great against the works of American fantasy authors of the second half of the 20th century, and before a night has passed and a day it is His will that they be destroyed utterly, and expunged from the memory of Mankind, as though they had never been,’ then, perhaps I might say, at first: ‘Bully for You, Lord.’ But then I think I would reconsider, and I would say: ‘Please, might the Marianne books be spared?’ And were the Angel of the Lord, being rational and analytical in manner - as angels are - to ask me to justify my presumption in making such a request, what would I say?

I would then be struck dumb, for I cannot justify my presumption. I cannot justify such a request. I can emote, that is all. I have been sitting here for a few minutes already with ill-formed thoughts cascading through my head trying to figure out what I would say. Perhaps after a few minutes I might be able to say: ‘I am not in love with Marianne, O Angel of the Lord, but I would love to be Marianne. If I could be any character in the works of these fantasy authors of which you speak, Angel of the Lord, how could I chose to be anyone but Marianne, who is so plucky, and so bookish, and so wanting in cant and artifice, and so much the archetype- for I would have had plenty of time to think of big words like ‘archetype’ to throw in- of the Handmaiden of the Lord? Marianne is the type of every hopeful battler on the side of the Culture of Life in a World Gone MadTM, don’t you see, Angel of the Lord? Somehow she is different from all those other fantasy heroines. I can get inside her head. I don’t imagine scenes in books like I used to when I was young, Angel of the Lord, now that I am grown, but I can see so clearly the faces hungry for justice pressed outside the windows of the library, and Buttercup’s room lined with little drawers.’

[Elsiekate · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is something i wrote about all three of the marianne books:

they are very different from tepper's other books. in the first book, we meet marianne who has a troubled relationship with her stepbrother and is drawn into the political conflict between two small countries nestled between the then USSR, turkey, and iraq--she has a magical role to play and magic is being used against her to prevent her from playing it. in the second, she goes back and tries to alter history so that the things that go wrong the first time cannot go wrong again. in the third, she is drawn into another world and asked to solve an international crisis.

they are small, thin books. tepper does not get on a soapbox but she does do a clever job of painting the ways we can influence women and tell them who they are and what lives are available to them. i love marianne, who keeps score between order and chaos and seeks to make her dilapidated home beautiful. i love her suitor. the villains are truly villainous. the third book has this sequence that takes place in this other world that could be excerpted into a novella completely independently and never miss a beat. (the buttercup chapters, for those of you that have read the books.)

tepper is a good writer, even if her political interludes get on your nerves--she builds societies, and worlds well but also characters. marianne is one of her great characters. other sf writers tell a good yarn, but i always discover new things to love when i reread these books.

[V. Briceland · Rating 5 out of 5]

As might be intuited by their playful alliterative titles, Sheri S. Tepper's trilogy of Marianne books—Marianne, the Magus, and the Manticore, followed by Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods and Marianne, the Matchbox, and the Malachite Mouse—are light-hearted caprices. Written early in her career, they're also the shortest of Tepper's output.

Yet they're not slight in content. Tepper's heroine becomes trapped in a series of alternate, fantasy universes, each with their own oddball and inexorable set of rules from which she must puzzle her way out. Imagination as a wild creative force, and specifically the concept of being trapped in worlds created by the imagination of others, is a conceit that Tepper explores again to deeper and more tragic effect in her later novel, Beauty. But in these short works Marianne's determination to prevail is charming and humorous . . . and sometimes her determination to reshape history in her favor is even a little frightening.

If the third book in the trilogy is a little less compelling than its predecessors, it's simply because the antagonist of the piece never appears until near the book's very end, and it's difficult to take him as much of a threat compared to the terrifying Madame of the first two entries. Still, all three books are among Tepper's most whimsical, and can easily be consumed in an afternoon or two.

[Buffy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unusual book. The entire second half is dizzying in its unreality and the instability of the truth of everything that happens. I really liked that. The male / female dynamics are very dated and explore their problems in a way that feels ancient now.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

My heartfelt thanks to the House of SF (a now closed Ottawa bookstore) for recommending this to me many years ago. There are three short novels in this series, this one being the first. Track these down and enjoy, they are unlike anything I have ever read.
If I can steal the House of SF's description, "Wonderfully weird fantasy".

[Mallory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Initially, I was a bit unsure about this book, but as time went on, I got a firmer grasp on the plot, characters, and setting. I'm not entirely sure what I expected going in, and I don't think it matched my expectations, but it's still a good book.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE this series of books. I first read them as a kid, and re-read them a few years ago. They were still awesome.

[Milena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book - and this trilogy, it's what hooked me into Tepper in the first place.

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chimera to the rescue

[Keith Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

2023 re-read

[MB (What she read) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this a loooooong time ago and was finally able to find it to re-read.

[Arlene Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

For awhile Tepper was my absolute favorite author on earth.