Gibbon's Decline and Fall [Paperback]

The book concerns itself with the perennial battle of the sexes but on a scale far greater than in any of Tepper's other books and with an atmosphere of such immediacy that it is far more discomforting and terrifying than in any of her other stories. And yet while the war is global, she portrays the battles as intimate, personal affairs, as indeed life usual is. As usual for Tepper, the book is peppered with the author's perspicacious observations of the way the world works, as well as countless instances of her wry and acerbic humour. It is nice to see Tepper for once giving us a greater insight into what drives her main protagonists than we usually get, though: a nice touch.

All of the classic Tepper hallmarks are there, of course. This tale is as potent and as gripping as anything she's ever written. Indeed it tightens its grip relentlessly right up to the very last moment. And it's amazing just how many things one doesn't see coming, even though she's left them out in plain view throughout. Great stuff - unless you're even the slightest bit depressed!

From a starting point of the mundane world of 1959, when seven women of very different personalities enter college and form a tight bond with each other, this book travels in quiet, incremental stages to a world that is frightening and strange but in all too many ways much too believable. For by the year 2000 (this book was written in 1996), bands of men roam the streets with whips, looking for any woman who is sinful enough to dress in skirts that expose their legs, and such attacks on women are carefully ignored by police, where the Pope allies with Islamic fundamentalists in calling for women's place in the world to be limited and totally subservient to men, and women's colleges are being bombed. For those who say "this could never happen", it should be kept in mind that societies' ideas about what is proper and moral can change, and change drastically, and not just towards a more liberal set of ideas. The return to Islamic fundamentalism in Iran happened quickly, and with the support of good portion of its populace. Still, it is a bit of stretch to imagine such a change in just the four years that Tepper's scenario envisions.

But she has a reason for having such changes happen so quickly - behind her story of normal men and women there is another force, the Alliance, headed by one of the richest men in the world. A man who seems bent on enslaving all the women of the world, with the resources to bend and influence a large number of men, who is planning on an apocalypse with only his chosen favored few as survivors. How the college band of women, now in late middle age, with careers, children, and for some, husbands, work towards unraveling the mystery of why the world is changing so fast forms the heart of the plot. From FBI files to biology laboratories, with murders and judge-buying, Tepper adds believable elements to her story, making the first three- quarters of this book a good read, even if you don't believe that all men are evil or that women have always been downtrodden. Her women characters are well drawn, most especially those of Carolyn Crespin, the main protagonist, Faye as a lesbian sculptor, and Agnes as a nun with doubts. Her male characters, those that we see, are not so good - either impossibly cold and power obsessed, or too acquiescent and thinly drawn.

But the tail end of this book was a let down, as Tepper spins off into not just the realm of plausible science fiction, but into religious fantasy. And in doing so, I think her message about how the sexes should relate to each other gets diluted, as blame for poor treatment of women can be shifted to hormonal drives and/or the influence of a supernatural being. I think this book would have been better if it had stayed within the world of today, and looked a little deeper into the social dynamics driving gender relationships, without call to external forces or scientific breakthroughs to either explain or change such behavior.

Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)