Grass

Lavish Praise for Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
“A rigorously constructed parable about necessary (and unnecessary) trade-offs between independence and interdependence. Richly imagined action scenes … alternate with lively dialogue that wrestles with fundamental questions of good and evil. Ms. Tepper is as successful in bringing to life intelligent aliens as she is in creating believable human characters…. Marjorie Yrarier is one of the most interesting and likable heroines in modern science fiction.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Grass, new novel by the remarkable Sheri S. Tepper, is so good you may want to lend it to friends who don’t like science fiction. The title suggests a kinder, gentler Dune, and there is a structural parallel between the two books…. We meet brave men and women, traitors, tradesmen, hypocrites, healers and monsters—plausible and terrifying monsters—and all are deftly drawn…. Among Tepper’s achievements is a moral dialectic that, for once, is truly informed and entertaining…. A writer who can box with God need not genuflect before microbiology.”
—Washington Post Book World
“Tepper delves into the nature of truth and religion, creating some strong characters in her compelling story.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Grass confirms it: Tepper has developed into one of the best novelists in the field, with the humane intelligence of classic Le Guin plus her own signature skill at creating exotic ecosystems quite distinct from Earth and humanity…. In a year graced with wonderful novels … Grass deserves to sweep the top awards. It’s that good.”
—Locus
“The power and sweep of this remarkable author are in full voice in her superb new book… a fascinating puzzle… full of nuance and subtlety. Justly deserving of all the encomiums of praise heaped upon her, Ms. Tepper leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind that she is truly one of the great voices in speculative fiction.”
—Rave Reviews


Applause for Sheri S. Tepper’s previous novels
The Gate to Women’s Country
“It’s grand … one of the most involving, serious, and deeply felt studies of the relations between the sexes that I have ever read—and then some.”
—Marion Zimmer Bradley
“Manages to explore seriously the relationship of the sexes in the context of a well-rounded story, without the use of stereotypes, falling into none of the traps that swallow most such books, forsaking bitter feminism for a successful humanistic approach.”
—Dean R. Koontz
“Lively, thought-provoking … [Tepper] takes the mental risks that are the lifeblood of science fiction and all imaginative narrative.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin, Los Angeles Times
After Long Silence
“Magnificent … I give [Sheri S. Tepper] full marks for a tremendously exciting and inventive novel, with excellent characterization and a taut plot. Particularly clever is the communications gap between species … Absolutely fascinating.”
—Anne McCaffrey
“Impressive…. [Tepper’s] protagonists are appealing, rounded characters who inhabit an intriguing, romantic world readers should enjoy visiting.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[Tepper] has the gift of detail, so that she imbues with grand immediacy her world…. Kept me reading well past my normal bedtime.”
—Analog


Bantam Spectra Books by Sheri S. Tepper
Ask your bookseller for the ones you have missed.
BEAUTY
THE GATE TO WOMEN’S COUNTRY
GRASS
SIDESHOW
A PLAGUE OF ANGELS
SHADOW’S END
GIBBON’S DECLINE AND FALL


Contets
Cover
Other Books by this Author
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
About the Author
Copyright


A voice says, “Cry!”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
All flesh is grass.…
Isaiah 40–6


Grass!
Millions of square miles of it; numberless wind-whipped tsunamis of grass, a thousand sun-lulled caribbeans of grass, a hundred rippling oceans, every ripple a gleam of scarlet or amber, emerald or turquoise, multicolored as rainbows, the colors shivering over the prairies in stripes and blotches, the grasses—some high, some low, some feathered, some straight—making their own geography as they grow. There are grass hills where the great plumes tower in masses the height of ten tall men; grass valleys where the turf is like moss, soft under the feet, where maidens pillow their heads thinking of their lovers, where husbands lie down and think of their mistresses; grass groves where old men and women sit quiet at the end of the day, dreaming of things that might have been, perhaps once were. Commoners all, of course. No aristocrat would sit in the wild grass to dream. Aristocrats have gardens for that, if they dream at all.
Grass. Ruby ridges, blood-colored highlands, wine-shaded glades. Sapphire seas of grass with dark islands of grass bearing great plumy green trees which are grass again. Interminable meadows of silver hay where the great grazing beasts move in slanted lines like mowing machines, leaving the stubble behind them to spring up again in trackless wildernesses of rippling argent.
Orange highlands burning against the sunsets. Apricot ranges glowing in the dawns. Seed plumes sparkling like sequin stars. Blossom heads like the fragile lace old women take out of trunks to show their granddaughters.
“Lace made by nuns in the long-ago time.”
“What are nuns, Grandma?”
Here, there, wide-scattered across the limitless veldts, are the villages, walled about to keep the grass at bay, with small, thick-walled houses, each with its stout doors and heavy shutters. The minuscule fields and tiny orchards are full of homely crops and familiar fruits, while outside the walls the grass hovers like some enormous planet-wide bird, ready to swoop across the wall and eat it all, every apple and every turnip and every old woman at the well, too, along with her grandchildren.
“This is a parsnip, child. From long ago.”
“When was long ago, Grandma?”
Here, there, as wide-scattered as the villages, the estancias of the aristocrats: bon Damfels’ place, bon Maukerden’s place, all the places of the other bons, tall thatched houses set in gardens of grass among grass fountains and grass courtyards, with their own high walls—these pierced with gates for the hunters to go out of and for the hunters to return through again. Those who return.
And here, there, nosing among the grass roots, will come the hounds, muzzles wrinkling, ears dangling, one foot before another in a slow pace to find it, the inevitable it, the nighttime horror,