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From: dim@cbuxc.UUCP (Dennis McKiernan)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Tepper and McKillip
Message-ID: <341@cbuxc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Sep-85 15:06:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbuxc.341
Posted: Wed Sep 18 15:06:13 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Sep-85 05:58:29 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Columbus Comp. Center
Lines: 63

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Sheri Tepper has a wonderful gift:
with a few sketches of her authorial pen
she draws an entire culture/civilization.
The world of the *True Game* is drawn so.
And I cannot but admire her "chasm"
civilization that Mavin visited in
book 2 of the Mavin Manyshaped saga.
God!  Bridgers, Maintainers, etc.;
giant roots reaching down past
the Lost Bridge, all the way to the
bottom; cutting roots on each side
just the right length to reach one another
and be grafted together to form a span;
she has a wonderful imagination!

But description alone is not sufficient to tell
a great tale (Isn't it interesting that
some of the pioneering SF stories were
nothing more than descriptions of the
strange, with little if any character
development).
Sheri also has the gift to show some
of the internal motive/drive/development
of her characters.

In recent discussions on the net,
several have pointed out that many
of their favorite authors are women.
Risking being called a male chauvanist,
I believe that women *in general* are better at
describing/understanding the internals
of a character, and of showing character growth,
whereas men are better at detailing action
and describing how-things-work.

Sheri delves into the inner workings of
her characters very well, and so does
Patrica McKillip.

McKillip in her Hed trilogy *and* in her Forgotten
Beasts of Eld manages to evoke the most haunting
scenes of solitude that I've ever read:
i.e., the protagonist in "Hed" shapechanged into
an elk-like creature and spent a winter in the
mountain valleys, and I could *taste* the
solitude of his existence (nought but the
vast silence of the empty wind);
and in "Eld" the sorceress spent long days
alone atop her mountain in the airy quiet.

Perhaps some day my characters will grow and
change to the same degree as theirs do...
it's not that my characters don't develop
throughout my tales (action is my forte), it's just that
Tepper and McKillip are so very good at what they do.

Perhaps my collegue Brust would care to comment.

Dennis L. McKiernan
ihnp4!cbuxc!dim
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