Subject: Review: A Plague of Angels (Sheri S Tepper)

From: [email-masked] (Ethan A Merritt)
Date: 29 Nov 1994 04:16:22 GMT

A Plague of Angels (Sheri S Tepper)
		      review by Ethan A Merritt

Sheri S. Tepper's 1993 book, _A Plague of Angels_, is now out in paperback.
I'm sad to report that it's not one of her better books, but
nevertheless it's a gripping story.  It kept me engrossed on a recent
cross-country flight, though I doubt I've had made it through in one
sitting under other circumstances.

_A Plague of Angels_ is full of leftover images and themes from earlier Tepper
novels, particularly the Jinian trilogy.  Tepper's strongest point is usually
her ability to raise hard moral questions in the context of a fast-paced 
adventure story.  In both the Jinian trilogy and in _Plague of Angels_ one such
question is whether there is any real solution to the destruction of a world
by man's rapaciousness. Tepper's style is to depict the execution an
extreme solution to the problem at hand, but she largely refrains from
editorializing on the rightness or wrongness of the draconian course
chosen.  It is up to the reader to work through the moral implications.

Sometimes, as in _The Gate to Woman's Country_, this treatment succeeds
admirably.   Unfortunately neither the story of Jinian nor
_Angels_ succeeds that well.   Both suffer from a lot of baggage which gets in
the way of both the story line and the exposition of the moral dilemma. In
the case of the Jinian books the baggage came from having to retain at
least some consistency with the previous six books of the series, which had
suffered all the usual weaknesses of a a writer's first efforts.  
In the case of _A Plague of Angels_ the problem is that Tepper sets the story
in a not-too-distant future Western USA.  It's hard to tell whether the
setting is post-holocaust or just post-draconian-social-manipulation.
It's certainly after the introduction of mcuh weidness into the landscape.
In any event, apparently the bulk of the population has retreated to the
"edges", glittering suburban utopias ringing cities which have utterly
decayed both physically and morally.  Maybe.  The weakest part of the 
whole book is that although we see two very brief glimpses of inhabitants
of the edges, for the most part they are totally ignored in the book.
It's as if the bulk of the population has so turned it's back on the world
that they might as well not exist.  You'd think that given the theme of
the book that would make them "part of the problem" rather than 
"part of the solution", but apparently not.

Anyhow, we don't see any of the edgers.  What we do see is a social
landscape of "archetypal villages" inhabited by stock fairytale bit
parts: the Oracle, the Hero, the Faithful Sidekick, the Starving Artist,
etc, etc.  The villages are scattered amongst more normal
farmland filled with rather boring farmers, and less normal wilderness
filled with mythological monsters from giants and ogres to griffons
and wyverns.  Such a settings would normally play to Tepper's strengths.
She tends to write rather stereotyped characters anyway, so making them
archetypal waifs or farmers would if anything increase their believability.
But I kept thinking - wait a minute, this is supposed to be not-too-distant
future California?  You just couldn't get there from here.

To the south is a totally distinct society, a sort of ecotopia run by
librarians. And let's see.  And have I mentioned yet that there's an enclave
made up of refugee scientists trying to rebuild a space shuttle? It seems
there are these four "families" called the Berkli, the Mitty,  the Ellel
(that's Lawrence Livermore for you non-Californians), and the Anders (I
didn't catch that reference - anyone else recognize it?) In fact I'll
risk a leading hint and mention that virtually _every_ name in the book 
encodes an archetype or stereotype.

Through this mixed up landscape of myth and high tech relics wanders
Abasio, a naive farmboy who succumbed to the lure of the illusory good
life in the corrupt cities, and a mysterious archetypal Orphan. Abasio
is being pursued by a hit squad from the city; the mysterious Orphan is
being pursued by even more mysterious nuclear powered androids.  The
chase is non-stop and certainly carries the plot along nicely.  
It just doesn't carry much believability along with it.

Rating:  Good book to take on a cross-continental airplane flight.
Make sure your sense of disbelief is very well suspended (pretend it all
takes place long ago in a galazy far away).  Not as good as _After Long
Silence_ or _Gate to Woman's Country_, but better than _Sideshow_.

%T A Plague of Angels
%A Sheri S. Tepper
%I Bantom
%D 1993
%G ISBN 0-553-56873-6