Ratings3
Average rating2.7
In Fish Tails, two of Sheri S. Tepper's beloved characters--Abasio and Xulai (A Plague of Angels and The Waters Rising)--and their children travel from village to village scattered across the sparsely populated land of Tingawa. They are searching for others who might be interested in adopting their sea-dwelling lifestyle. Along their journey they encounter strange visitors from the far off world of Lom, characters from Tepper's nine-book True Game series of novels--Mavin Manyshaped, Jinian Star-eye, and Silkhands the Healer--all of whom have been gathered up by an interfering, time-traveling, rule-breaking do-gooder to do one last good deed on earth before its metamorphosis is complete. For the waters are rising and will soon engulf the entire planet, transforming it utterly and irrevocably.
Featured Series
3 primary booksPlague of Angels is a 3-book series with 3 released primary works first released in 1993 with contributions by Sheri S. Tepper.
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1.5 stars - Metaphorosis Reviews
With the world slowly flooding, Abasio, his wife Xulai, and their two amphibian children travel the world promoting preparation for eventual submersion. They encounter both enemies and friends from unexpected places - including another Tepper series.
Fish Tails comes with an Author's Note, to be read after digesting the 600+ pages of the book. It's a mildly interesting Note, in that it clearly delineates the sequence and links between the True Game and Plague of Angels series. What surprised me most about the Note, though, is what it doesn't do, which is to give any indication at all that this book was written by someone other than Sheri Tepper. By page 300, I'd have put money on that idea.
I'm a big fan of Tepper's work. She's heavy-handed with her philosophy, and monotonous in her politics, but I agree with a lot of what she says, and the rest is at least interesting. Her books are low on humor, but intelligent. She's such a good writer that, despite their drawbacks, the books are usually very good - The Revenants and the Awakener series are exceptions. Sadly, the entire Plague of Angels series has been another exception, and this book tops (bottoms?) the lot.
First, this is one of Tepper's most unabashedly message-driven books. For the uninitiated, here's a primer on the Tepperian outlook:
Plague of Angels
raison d'etre
The Gate to Women's Country
A Plague of Angels
Plague
Fish Tails
new
True Game