The bons of Grass (I assume the name is taken from the ‘von’ found in many names of German nobility) have developed a culture bases on hunting. I suspect more than a few readers would be tempted to put the book down in that stage. That does mean that the first part of the novel I rather slow and the relevance of a lot of that material is not directly clear to the reader.
Tepper takes her time to set all of it up properly.
The social structure of Grass and how it clashes with that of the rest of the galaxy is an important part of the story and not something than can be unraveled in a few pages. Tepper needs will over 500 and there is a reason for that. There are plenty of science fiction novels that explore the mysteries of an unknown planet and manage to do so in 200 pages. Grass is a pretty hard novel to get into. Reluctantly, the bons allow an embassy on the planet to look into the matter. For some reason, the population on Grass appears to be immune. The ‘bons’ as these families are known would rather be left alone but when a plague strikes humanity for which no cure can be found, eyes turn to Grass anyway. Despite its position at a galactic crossroad, the planet has remained something of a backwater, governed by a small group of families descended from various noble families in Europe. Most of its surface is covered with numerous species of a genus that resembles the grasses of old Earth. One of the colonized planets is named Grass. Many planets have been colonized but under the influence of humanity’s main religion the expansion has stopped for the moment. In a far future, overpopulation and environmental degradation have forced humanity into space. The novel didn’t quite turn out to be what I was expecting but it is a very good read nonetheless. I have absolutely no experience with Tepper’s writing but the premise looked interesting so this novel was a logical place to start. Tepper is a prolific writer in various genres and this novel is one of the few written by a woman that made the Gollancz science fiction Masterworks series when they were still being numbered. Tepper’s novel Grass to be my first read.
After the reading challenge for 2013 was announced I picked Sheri S. I would be surprised if I could still manage to read the twelve required but I can at least read some of them. I haven’t had time to research and acquire the book I need for it and have mostly been reading stuff that was already on the to read stack this year. Until now that has been a dismal failure. I was hoping to find the time to take part in the WWend Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge this year.
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