Gibbon's Decline and Fall [Paperback]

‘The Women’s Room invaded by Big Brother. A provocative, devastating, enthralling consciousness raiser’
Kirkus Reviews

‘Visceral and arresting. Curl up with it’
FT

‘Opening as near-future realism, the novel metamorphoses into a mythical telling of the struggle between those who desire domination and the forces of balance and harmony. It entwines Native American folk legends with modern science fiction in a well told story of female anger’
New Scientist

‘Tepper can be characterized as a quirkily feminist writer… this fable of ethics, feminism and transcendence employs an intriguing concept involving an alternate branching of the evolutionary tree… As always, Tepper creates excellent female characters transported by a swiftly flowing plot’
PW

‘Tepper never forgets to give the reader a gripping story on which to hang the serious concerns that lie at the root of her books… It’s the breadth of it all, and how it all interrelates, that proves so absorbing… she shows how taking responsibility for one’s own life and actions can become a kind of butterfly effect’
Fantasy and Science Fiction

From the author of Grass and Shadow’s End, an astonishing science fiction novel featuring a group of women racing to avert apocalypse at the turn of the millennium.

Fast forward to the year 2000: a ruthless politician is amassing a terrifying, fanatic power base; the suicide rate has gone through the roof… and the global birthrate has plummeted to near zero. Something evil is threatening the world. Of the seven extraordinary women forming the Decline and Fall Club, six remain. The seventh, Sophy, disappeared three years before, her dazzling, unearthly beauty undiminished. Her friends come to see that unlocking the secret of Sophy’s disappearance will be the key to the survival of humanity.

A GROUP OF WOMEN RACE TO AVERT APOCALYPSE AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM.

In the year 2000 a ruthless politician is amassing a terrifying, fanatical power base. Suicide cults and paranoid militias are on the rise. Mobs of hooded men drive women from the streets. Something evil is threatening the world. Of the six founder members of the Decline and Fall Club, five remain. The sixth, Sophy, disappeared three years before, her dazzling beauty undiminished – and her early life still as mysterious as her apparent end. Her friends come to see that unlocking the secret to Sophy’s disappearance will be the key to the survival of humanity.

“By turns ferocious and lyrical, domestic and visionary, political and religious … 'Gibbon’s Decline and Fall' is a work of considerable passion and substance, about real issues and a real crisis of real millennial dimensions”
LOCUS

“A provocative, devastating, enthralling consciousness raiser”
KIRKUS REVIEWS

Sheri Tepper was born in Colorado. She worked for many years for non-profit-making organizations and was a writer of children’s fiction. She sold her first adult novel in 1982 and has written many highly acclaimed science fiction and fantasy novels since then. She has also written crime and horror. She now lives in New Mexico.