On Sheri S. Tepper and Satisfying Endings
Today I finished reading In This Way I Was Saved, and I am so tired of books without real endings. When all the scope and promise that came before just fizzles out into nothing, and you're left wondering, "This was it? What did I read all those pages for, then?"
So I am going to talk a little bit about why I like Sheri S. Tepper's novels. I know that a lot of people can't stand them, for various reasons, but I've read eight, and I love them. And the reason I love them is that I read my first one, Grass, soon after watching the SciFi miniseries The Lost Room and being horribly disappointed by how its absolutely captivating premise (the comb stops time for five seconds! the razor destroys anything made of glass! Tell me more!) petered out into a small, insignificant, boring, stupid ending that only mattered for three people and addressed none of the questions or plotlines that had been established for the larger world. (And thus I learned not to watch SciFi miniseries anymore. But I digress.)
And then I read Grass. And, for a wonder, the ending was exactly as big as it needed to be. It didn't throw away all the setup and development; it didn't run out of air. And then I read more books by the same author, and their endings were as big as they needed to be, too. How refreshing! How exciting!
And that is what I love about Tepper. When I notice that something seems kind of hinky about the ecosystem, it's not sloppy worldbuilding--there really is something hinky about the ecosystem. When I notice a basic error in an explanation of the genetics of sex-linked traits, it's not shoddy research--it's a plot point. When I expect an ending of some scale and scope appropriate to the world and storylines that have already been established, I get it. I'm not supposed to just pretend not to notice all the gaping holes that the author hasn't bothered to fix. And after all the other books and movies and shows where I am supposed to do that, it's just such a relief not to have to figure out how stupid I'm supposed to be this time. Tepper's novels reliably fulfill parts of the contract with the reader that I am not necessarily assured of getting elsewhere, and for that I will always love them. (I realize that eight books is not all or even most of her work, so it's entirely possible I may eventually run into books of hers that don't do this--but I will still always love the ones that do.)
A more general word about her books: They're generally described as feminist science fiction--which they indisputably are--but it seems to me they're concerned with even broader questions of justice. In Grass and several of the other novels, the treatment and status of aliens and animals is just as important as that of women. Collectively, they read to me like she's observed as general principles that bad things tend to happen when people don't get free choice, and that bad things also tend to happen when people do get free choice, and she sets up societies with different values for these variables--often societies in conflict with each other--and lets them go to see what the distribution of bad things looks like this time. (This may or may not seem like your idea of a good time, of course, but I will note that there's a distribution of good things, too. They're not unremittingly bleak; I don't like unremittingly bleak books.)
Grass also contains one of my favorite fictional depictions of God.
So, go! If all this sounds at all interesting to you, try a Tepper! You may like it!
So I am going to talk a little bit about why I like Sheri S. Tepper's novels. I know that a lot of people can't stand them, for various reasons, but I've read eight, and I love them. And the reason I love them is that I read my first one, Grass, soon after watching the SciFi miniseries The Lost Room and being horribly disappointed by how its absolutely captivating premise (the comb stops time for five seconds! the razor destroys anything made of glass! Tell me more!) petered out into a small, insignificant, boring, stupid ending that only mattered for three people and addressed none of the questions or plotlines that had been established for the larger world. (And thus I learned not to watch SciFi miniseries anymore. But I digress.)
And then I read Grass. And, for a wonder, the ending was exactly as big as it needed to be. It didn't throw away all the setup and development; it didn't run out of air. And then I read more books by the same author, and their endings were as big as they needed to be, too. How refreshing! How exciting!
And that is what I love about Tepper. When I notice that something seems kind of hinky about the ecosystem, it's not sloppy worldbuilding--there really is something hinky about the ecosystem. When I notice a basic error in an explanation of the genetics of sex-linked traits, it's not shoddy research--it's a plot point. When I expect an ending of some scale and scope appropriate to the world and storylines that have already been established, I get it. I'm not supposed to just pretend not to notice all the gaping holes that the author hasn't bothered to fix. And after all the other books and movies and shows where I am supposed to do that, it's just such a relief not to have to figure out how stupid I'm supposed to be this time. Tepper's novels reliably fulfill parts of the contract with the reader that I am not necessarily assured of getting elsewhere, and for that I will always love them. (I realize that eight books is not all or even most of her work, so it's entirely possible I may eventually run into books of hers that don't do this--but I will still always love the ones that do.)
A more general word about her books: They're generally described as feminist science fiction--which they indisputably are--but it seems to me they're concerned with even broader questions of justice. In Grass and several of the other novels, the treatment and status of aliens and animals is just as important as that of women. Collectively, they read to me like she's observed as general principles that bad things tend to happen when people don't get free choice, and that bad things also tend to happen when people do get free choice, and she sets up societies with different values for these variables--often societies in conflict with each other--and lets them go to see what the distribution of bad things looks like this time. (This may or may not seem like your idea of a good time, of course, but I will note that there's a distribution of good things, too. They're not unremittingly bleak; I don't like unremittingly bleak books.)
Grass also contains one of my favorite fictional depictions of God.
So, go! If all this sounds at all interesting to you, try a Tepper! You may like it!