Six Moon Dance Book

The three-brained android inquisitor known as the Questioner is due at the colony world of Newholme, and everyone is planning to lie to her. Given her record of sterilising worlds she disapproves of, whether for their social systems, or the way they treat aliens, who can blame them? The first colonists, male supremacist skinheads, simply disappeared; half the girl babies born die; a social structure of generous dowries and male concubines reflects the power this has given the ruling Hags; little people no-one will admit to seeing do most of the housework; the earthquakes are getting worse than ever. And why has the Questioner felt obliged to bring two choreographers with her? Sheri Tepper's tale of ideas, sexism and high adventure poses endless mysteries, and we read in the delighted confidence that she will give us the solution to all of them. The book is full of fascinating characters--the virtuous boy Mouche, trained in all the male sexual arts, Ornery, the girl who ran away to sea and the sinister Miss Marool with her death goddess and her sinister erotic machines. The puzzles of this elegant plot work through as inexorably as justice--Tepper's grim certainties are wonderfully intelligent. --Roz KaveneyRead More