Shadow's End

Cover

Shadow's End is a 1994 novel by Sheri S. Tepper.

Editions

• 1994: Spectra/Bantam Books

Reviews

Tepper's familiar themes weave through this novel: anti-fundamentalism, pro-environmentalism, pro-feminism. The setting is an interplanetary Alliance where the primary religion is Firstism, a doctrine that espouses the view that the universe is the preserve of humans. Most worlds are homo-formed: the plants and animals not immediately useful for human survival are replaced by a standard few that are. The world Dinadh alone has remained a kind of ecological preserve. Oddly, Dinadh is also untouched by a mysterious force that has wiped out human life on all the surrounding homo-formed worlds.

Dinadh has its own religion, a fundamentalism which severely circumscribes the life of women and banishes them for infractions over which they have no control. These banished women live as shadows on the edges of the villages of their people. Off-worlders come to Dinadh to try to discover what the malevolent mysterious force is and why Dinadh is untouched by it. One of the banished women allies herself with them and together they journey to the holiest place on the planet, where they become swept up in galactic events controlled by forces of unimaginable power.

As usual, Tepper manages weave disparate worlds, characters, and events into a rich narrative tapestry of cultural, historical, and sexual politics. A satisfying read. -- nl, 1/2001