Customer Reviews
Another great morality tale for the '90s - By: Steve Benner, 21 Aug 2008 
Sheri S. Tepper's "A Plague of Angels" dates from 1993 & it continues the theme that first emerged in this author's writings in 1984, with "The True Game", & developed through that book's second set of prequels, "The Jinian Chronicles", & that has continued in recent years with books such as "The Visitor". All of these feature an imagined distant future in which mankind (or what is left of it) leads an unsettling, often strange existence, manipulated or controlled by some alien/planetary über-power. The interventions of these agents of some higher authority have usuallly been precipitated or enabled by the actions (usuallly mis-deeds) of long-dead previous generations of Man (the race) & whilst we are usuallly led towards a recognition of our own times, many of the sins, particularly of men (the gender) are equallly recognisable as pertaining in almost alll ages. As a result, Tepper's writings are often branded (one might almost say dismissed) as fallling within the genre of feminist science fiction. Which sadly is often to miss the point.
"A Plague of Angels" is set in a land which is clearly the remains of southwest/central North America many years after some global catastrophe has rearranged continental coast-lines, altered climates, & thrown the remnants of civilisation back into some Dark Age. The bulk of humanity supposedly departed for some distant & unknown future among the stars many generations previously; what remains of city life is now contained either within heavily-secured high-tech Edger enclaves, or else given over entirely to drug-fuelled power-struggles between various warring Ganger groups, whose daily street battles are broadcast routinely to public entertainment screens as some kind of obscene game-show. Outside of the cities, scattered farmers do their best to eek out an existence from the land, providing produce for the cities, whilst a network of Archetypal Villages preserve the full range of human archetypes, such as Oracle, Orphan & Hero, the latter gainfully employed ridding the land of the myriad mythical beasts & monsters which have mysteriously returned to Earth to menace the population. Add in the extra threat to the remaining human population of widespread & rampant sexuallly transmitted immune deficiency diseases, plus the machinations of a handful of in-bred groups inhabiting a mysterious fortress known as the Place of Power & squabbling over plans to complete & fly a shuttle to the ruins of a former Moon-based mining colony & you will get some idea of the extraordinary range & complexity of notions that Sheri Tepper routinely throws into her books.
Given the complexity & variety of the mix along the way, coupled with her propensity for misdirecting the reader at almost every turn, it is scarcely surprising that many accuse Tepper of spoiling her books with seemingly unsatisfying endings. And certainly if you like endings where everything is neatly wrapped up & brought to a solid conclusion, then Tepper will almost invariably leave you disappointed at the end. For if her books teach anything it is that life rarely provides nice neat endings. The world turns endlessly; times change; crises come & eventuallly pass; some people survive them, others do not. But maybe, just maybe, if we alll acted a little differently, they wouldn't arise at alll.
good world-building, messy ending - By: Maria Álvarez Folgado, 25 Jan 2004 
I very much enjoyed the first half of this book, that is, I loved learning about the world that Tepper created & was thrilled to know about the different characters & their relations. I didn't like the main character, though, the Orphan, because I never got to feel her from the "inside"; I just saw her through the other characters' motivations to relate to her,and I never reallly felt what drove her to act as she did.Nevertheless, the most unsatisfactory part of this novel was its ending; it is as if the author got tired of the story & decided to end it no matter how, leaving the readers with too many questions.
