Supremely imaginative, intriguingly peopled, always challenging and frequently astonishing—but overwrought, with mere...
Another sprawling, speculative yarn from Tepper (The Companions, 2003, etc.), this time nibbling at the boundaries between fantasy and science fiction.
Long ago, the malevolent alien Quaatar stole part of humanity’s birthright, rendering the race incapable of learning from past mistakes. So, in the far future, Earth is one vast, teeming city, forced to export its surplus population as bondservants, colonists or slaves. The Quaatar and their equally sadistic kindred races are plotting to exterminate humanity altogether, torturing human children as a means to create wormlike, parasitic ghyrms, which feed on pain and horror and suck the life-force out of their victims. To counter the Quaatar, the human Siblinghood, with their benevolent alien allies, have set up a scheme to produce a human who can mystically walk seven roads at once in order to evoke the godlike Keeper—who may or may not be disposed to restore what was taken from humanity. The key is Margaret Bain of Phobos and Earth, soon declared surplus population and forced into space—where, somehow, she becomes seven separate individuals, each with different talents. On planet Cantardene, for instance, Margaret becomes Ongamar, a ghyrm-ridden spy; on Hell (this planet’s a story in itself) she is Wilvia, a princess fleeing Quaatar assassins; on Chottem she’s psychic shaman Gretamara, while on Thairy she’s expert strategist Naumi, a male! Gradually, the Margarets intersect—but can they learn how to walk the seven roads before the Quaatar catch them?
Supremely imaginative, intriguingly peopled, always challenging and frequently astonishing—but overwrought, with mere complexity becoming an end in itself.Pub Date: June 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-117065-2
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2007
Well written, but does not really rise much above the rest of the teeming post-apocalyptic pack.
The first in a post-pandemic trilogy.
The midwife of the title is an obstetric nurse in San Francisco when an unknown disease strikes; it kills men but is more devastating to women. For women giving birth, it is a virtual death sentence for both mother and child. The nurse falls ill herself but ultimately wakes alone in a hospital bed, surrounded by bodies and her doctor boyfriend either dead himself or long gone. After an unpleasant year spent in a sparsely populated city sprinkled with male predators, she decides to move on in search of something better. Disguising herself as a man and taking many names to protect herself both physically and emotionally from anyone getting too close, she travels across the country, quietly offering birth control to the enslaved women she encounters and defending herself from scavengers and potential rapists. After a troubled interlude with a young Mormon couple fleeing their increasingly unstable community, she eventually finds her way to a small settlement on what remains of a military base, where she devotes herself to passing on her skills and attempting to deliver a surviving baby. Similarly to The Handmaid’s Tale and The Power, the book has a framing device set generations later in that same settlement, where the midwife’s journals are kept and she is venerated as a sacred figure. But confusingly, the story is not solely drawn from her journals; with no explanation, an omniscient narrator occasionally jumps in to reveal information that neither the midwife nor the future residents of the town could possibly know. While knowing the fates of the characters who pass out of the midwife’s life provides closure, it also undercuts the integrity of the story. The somewhat abrupt ending also feels somewhat unsatisfying; after a leisurely (if disturbing) account of the days and months of the midwife’s travels, the author suddenly packs years of her life into the last few pages.
Well written, but does not really rise much above the rest of the teeming post-apocalyptic pack.Pub Date: June 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-5039-3911-0
Page Count: 300
Publisher: 47North
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2019
First of a three-book series covering the world of remote tomorrows, the effectiveness of this first volume is curtailed by its attempt to cover more than a century in time with its many generations of characters. Psychohistorian Seldon senses the coming crash of the galactic empire, prepares a chosen corps of his best students to colonize a remote planet where war cannot impede his work. The story of this colony's survival and eventual command of the broken empire sustains the narrative which is- this time-better science than fiction.
Pub Date: Aug. 30, 1951
ISBN: 0553382578
Page Count: -
Publisher: Gnome Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1951
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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