The Gate to Women's Country: A Novel
"Lively, thought-provoking . . . the plot is ingenious, packing a wallop of a surprise . . . Tepper knows how to write a well-made, on-moving story with strong characters. . . . She takes the mental risks that are the lifeblood of science fiction and all imaginative narrative."--Ursula K. LeGuin, Los Angeles Times Since the flames died three hundred years ago, human civilization has evolved into a dual society: Women's Country, where walled towns enclose what's left of past civilization, nurtured by women and a few nonviolent men; and the adjacent garrisons where warrior men live--the lost brothers, sons, and lovers of those in Women's Country. Two societies. Two competing dreams. Two ways of life, kept apart by walls stronger than stone. And yet there is a gate between them. . . . "Tepper not only keeps us reading . . . she provokes a new look at the old issues."--The Washington Post "Tepper's cast of both ordinary and extraordinary people play out a powerful drama whose significance goes beyond sex to deal with the toughest problem of all, the challenge of surmounting humanity's most dangerous flaws so we can survive--despite ourselves."--Locus
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Community Reviews
This book may have been hailed as a utopia when it was written but is very much a dystopia. The attitudes in it are very dated particularly in it's use of eugenics to erase "gay syndrome". Ms Tepper, I truly hate to break this to you but that rigorously segregated of a society has TONS on same sex sex going on on BOTH sides of the wall. No amount of hormones before birth is going to wave away the natural biological urge to do the deed. (I point to prisons as an example).
The book has a very long set up before the plot gets rolling and then everything is solved rather quickly and almost magically because she couldn't wait to get to the shoe drop revelations of the last 20 or so pages. There needed to be less focus on the women's annual play and more focus on the characters, their feelings and what was going on in the world.
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