Six Moon Dance is up there with the best in modern sci-fi (Sheri S. Tepper in general)

Member Name: hashford

Product:	Sheri S. Tepper in general
Date:	27/06/06 (31 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Imaginative, complex, full of new ideas and thought provoking social commentary

Disadvantages: complexity may make the book hard to follow for some readers

This is my first Sherri S. Tepper, and I am impressed. This book does it all for me – strange aliens, different societies, complex and engaging story line, and social commentary (about the different roles and men and women adopt).

This book is very complex, with multiple story lines. We have:
• Mouche, the supernumerary boy who is sold off to a Consort house
• Ornery Bastable, the girl who runs away to be a sailor
• The Questioner, the ruthless implementer of “Haraldson’s edicts”
• Ellin, the dancer clone
• the inscrutable Quaggi, about whom very little is known
• 3 angry men – Ashes, Mooly and Machinist
• Marool Mantleby, the sex maniac
• the native Newholmians (who aren’t supposed to be there)
• the hags – D’Jevier and Onsofruct

All these characters have a part to play, they all have their own motivations and needs – and all these have to be explained before the story lines can start to come together. This has the effect of making the book difficult to follow for at least the first half. Having said that, all the story lines and characters and fascinating and Sherri Tepper is full of original ideas – which kept me completely hooked.

If I had a criticism at all it is that the complexity of story line meant that the author had to spend a lot of time introducing the characters and filling their background to give them colour and depth. To my mind, this was at the expense of pace and it also detracted from the social commentary – so that the end felt, not rushed exactly, but the pieces fell together a bit too neatly.

Summary: Overall a great read, which (to my mind) compares favourably with the best of modern sci-fi