SOLVED. Adult Science/ Speculative Fiction. Two concurrent but very different plot lines. 1) Female scientist works with animals enhancing their intelligence. 2) Intelligent animals who talk in a socially complex, political world. Read 2000-2005. [s]

[Mel]

In the contemporary plot line, the main character is a woman scientist working in lab with animals that have been surgically or genetically enhanced with intelligence and communication. She is very fond of them. She has a crazy family and is falling in love with someone but is afraid to commit due to repeating crazy family patterns. Lots about the family. The other plot line takes place in an undetermined time and world. The main characters are talking animals involved in intricate political plots. It is a technologically primitive world, socially maybe with kings and queens, serfs, battling tribes. Something like that. They have a certain unidentified species that is used as transportation like we have used horses.

SPOILER BELOW (Sorry I can't make html on my keyboard)
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In the first plot line, the scientist becomes aware of some impending apocalyptic event and lets the animals in the lab go free in hopes that they might survive. In the Other plot, there is a 1000 year anniversary discussed that some species are concerned with and other species know nothing about. It turns out that the animals being ridden are humans and the 1000 year anniversary is the period of atonement for destroying the earth in the time of the first plot line. At which point, at the end of the novel I think, they refuse then to be servants to the other animals.

Thanks!

[Sue]

Your second plot line sounds very like The Family Tree by Sheri S Tepper. However in the first plot line the main character is a police officer. She investigates the murder of some scientists, perhaps you have mixed the two up. I also recall her being in a loveless marrriage, but I think there is a new love interest for her.

[Kris]

Mel, what type of animals did the scientist experiment on?

[Mel]

I remember that the animals were not monkeys as one might expect. More like badgers or mink or weasels.

[Mel]

No, it's definitely not The Family Tree by Sherri Tepper, though that looks interesting! The apolalyptic event is a single event that concludes the plot line with the scientist. It's not a gradual phenomenon like in The Family Tree.

[Mel]

I still haven't found it. Any leads?

[SBC]

SPOILERS BELOW!

Gosh, the big reveal at the end sounds identical to the one in The Family Tree - I have a vivid memory of how the livestock humans in the future see Dora (who has somehow travelled forward in time) and it means the end of their years of slavery. The animals that have been riding them (and eating them) are horrified to realise they are intelligent, as the humans basically say 'we've done our penance' after 3000 years and walk out of the barns.

The Family Tree was first published in 1997, so do you think the book you read could have been derivative/a deliberate nod to Tepper? That could help with a search, maybe?

[Mel]

Interesting! I will try to get a copy of Family Tree. The timing seems right. Maybe search for Tepper fan fiction? Thanks.

[Mel]

BOOK FOUND! You are right. This is the book. I remembered it wrong. But this quote, I will always remember, lol.
“Nope. Not after I saw how your daddy had inherited the diddle gene. Diddle here, diddle there, never get anything done. The world’s got enough fool diddlers. Doesn’t need any more.”
Thank you, good job!

[Mel]

SOLVED
The Family Tree by Sheri Tepper

Thanks, y'all