Science fiction is a genre traditionally dominated by male fantasy and values, where Terminator-style machismo saves the universe. Sheri S. Tepper writes feminist science fiction. Exit Terminator, enter Sophy. Sophy was a standout in her college class, for all kinds of reasons from looks to brains to spiritual qualities; she was also reticent about her origins. It is only when she disappears that her former classmates begin to discover just how special she was. Woven into Tepper's cosmology is the matriarchal system that once held sway on earth before males usurped that power. It turns out the "Goddess" is alive.


From Publishers Weekly
Tepper (Shadow's End) ) can be characterized as a quirkily feminist writer whose novels often question whether humanity might be better off with a smaller, more docile male population. This theme, combined with the author's ambivalence about Catholicism, informs this fable of ethics, feminism and transcendence, which employs an intriguing concept involving an alternate branching of the evolutionary tree. Carolyn Crespin comes from a stultifying family that believes women should be seen and not heard. When she escapes to college in the early 1960s, she helps form the Decline and Fall Club, comprised of herself and six other women (including a devout nun, a radical lesbian artist and a brilliant scientist). They band together to protect one of their members, an exotic beauty named Sova, from unwanted male attention. During a 40-year gap in the narrative, conservatism and misogyny increase, a focused evil grows and Sova mysteriously disappears. The tale resumes at the dawning of the Millennium, when terrorist bag ladies are on the rise and sexual desire is on the wane. Now, Carolyn and her friends must defeat an embodiment of violence and ultra-patriarchal masculinity or see women reduced to the level of walking wombs. As always, Tepper creates excellent female characters transported by a swiftly flowing plot. Her proposed solutions for the world's problems, however, may leave male readers wondering why they should settle for being little more than ambulatory sperm banks. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Seven women friends form the Decline and Fall Club in college in the 1950s and meet every year until Sophy disappears in 1998. The remaining six search for her in 2000, believing Sophy has the answers to the world's declining interest in sex and rise in suicides and the sinister plot of a misogynous cabal bent on world domination. Tepper (Shadow's End, LJ 11/15/94) deftly interweaves the six women's lives with a history of the organized persecution of women since the downfall of goddesses. This feminist approach to millennial hysteria is highly recommended for sf and women's fiction collections. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Gerald Jonas
For years now, male science fiction writers have been turning out futuristic tales of wish fulfillment ... Gibbon's Decline and Fall... is part of the feminist backlash.


From Booklist
Tepper uses the approaching millennium as inspiration for a yarn about the impact of women's inequality on the speculative collapse of civilization. In 1959 seven young college women have in common gripes against male-dominated society that prompt them to form the Decline and Fall Club, dedicated to eradicating misogynist practices. Among their number are aspiring lawyer Carolyn and the enigmatic and beautiful foreigner Sophy, whose past and origins remain vague. Now the year 2000 looms. Sophy is mysteriously missing, and Carolyn comes out of retirement to defend a mother accused of killing her child against a misogynist prosecutor named Jagger. Behind Jagger is the American Alliance, a powerful organization that may be responsible for an alarming rise in suicides and a corresponding decline in population growth. Fortunately, Sophy and her mystery will reunite the Decline and Fall Club to act on their original ideals of protecting women and thereby civilization. Tepper indulges too much conspiracy hokum to make this book as good as her earlier successes, yet her many devotees and fans of the growing subgenre of feminist sf won't be disappointed. Carl Hays


From Kirkus Reviews
In 1959, seven young women at college become such fast friends that they form the Decline and Fall Club, swearing an oath never to ``decline and fall,'' to remain true to their principles and each other, and to meet every year. Forty years later, six of the DFC- -lawyer Carolyn, doctor Ophy, researcher Jessamine, sculptor Faye, Mother Superior Agnes, and wealthy socialite Bettiann--arrange to meet. The seventh--beautiful, charismatic, enigmatic Sophy--died, or at least vanished, two years before, but each of the others has been visited by a psychic presence she believes to have been Sophy. These are dark days for women everywhere: An unholy (and exclusively male) Alliance drawn from the major religions, cultists, survivalists, fascists, terrorists, and crackpots intends to enslave all females, reducing them to brood mares and domestic drudges, then wipe out much of the human race. Carolyn, meanwhile, agrees to defend young, wretched, abused Lolly (made pregnant by gang rape, she allowed her baby to die through fear and ignorance) against murder charges brought by hateful DA Jake Jagger (an Alliance bigwig). Just then, it emerges that everybody everywhere has lost both the capacity and the desire for sex--good news for oppressed women, bad news for the Alliance and its mysterious, demonic leader. The DFC, terrified of Jagger and his vicious, highly placed friends, decides to search for Sophy: Alive or dead, can she help them defy the Alliance? While undeniably talented, Tepper (A Plague of Angels, 1993, etc.) often struggles for control--but not here. Imagine The Women's Room invaded by Big Brother: A provocative, devastating, enthralling, consciousness-raiser. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
A wave of fundamentalism is sweeping across the globe as the millennium approaches, and a power-hungry presidential candidate sees his ticket to success in making an example out of a teenage girl who abandoned her infant in a Dumpster. Taking the girl's case is Carolyn Crespin, a former attorney, who left her job for a quiet family life. Now she must call upon five friends from college, who took a vow to always stand together. But their success might depend on the assistance of Sophy, the enigmatic sixth friend, whom they all believed dead.


From the Publisher
With each new novel, Sheri Tepper's devoted following has grown, as more and more readers discover this remarkable talent. Her richly imagined future worlds are filled with unforgettable characters, exotic backdrops, and epic adventures. In Gibbons Decline And Fall, she outdoes herself, proving yet again why Analog dubs her "one of the greats of human literature."In 1959, a group of six young women meet as college freshmen, forming a bond that will last a lifetime. One of them possesses a dazzling and unearthly beauty, but Sophy, as they call her, is always mysterious about her background. When she is threatened one night they rally to her aid, and then and there they swear a pact to stay friends forever.Fast forward to the year 2000, when strange events are unfolding around the world. A ruthless politician is amassing a terrifying, fanatic power base. The suicide rate has gone through the roof. And the global birth rate has suddenly plummeted to nearly zero. Something evil is threatening the world, and only these six extraordinary women can stop it. But Sophy has been missing for years, and they soon realize that unlocking the secret to her disappearance will be the key to the survival of humanity.


From the Inside Flap
A wave of fundamentalism is sweeping across the globe as the millennium approaches, and a power-hungry  presidential candidate sees his ticket to success in making an example out of a teenage girl who abandoned her infant in a Dumpster. Taking the girl's case is Carolyn Crespin, a former attorney, who left her job for a quiet family life. Now she must call upon five friends from college, who took a vow to always stand together. But their success might depend on the assistance of Sophy, the enigmatic sixth friend, whom they all believed dead.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Aunts had caught Carolyn, dragged her to the side of the boat, figuratively speaking, and were forcibly attempting to Crespinize her, while she, Carolyn, twisted on the hook in desperation.

"I don't think it's proper," she murmured politely, hiding panic, hoping the idea of propriety would make them pause.  Fond hope.  Hope betrayed.

"Albert is perfectly reliable," said Aunt Clotilde with a dreadful clatter of large, too-white teeth.

As, oh, indeed he was.  Perfectly reliable.  Perfectly self-satisfied. Perfectly capable of taking any ordinary weekend and turning it into the Worst Experience of One's Life.  Carolyn, gritting her teeth, stared through the screens of the summer porch at the stretching blue of Long Island Sound and focused on the radio sounds in the background: "Mr.  Sandman," being sung by who?  Whom.  Mr. Sandman.  Send me a dream.  Not Albert.

Aunt Atrena, who always spoke immediately after Aunt Clotilde, did so now in a tone that said, Pay Attention, Child.  "Albert thought it would be a treat for you, before you start college.  You know he would never do anything to embarrass you."

Aside from the embarrassment attendant upon being seen with him, that was probably true.  And since she knew no one in Washington, D.C., chances are she could go down there for the weekend, take the tour through the FBI building (a signal honor, according to Albert, not allowed to Just Anyone), see the Smithsonian, go to the opening of whatever show it was at the National Museum, and be returned home unscathed.

"He will be so hurt if you don't go," said Aunt Livia, whose function it was to have the Last Word.

"Yes, Carolyn.  He would be hurt," said Mama.

Which clinched it.  What Mama meant was, if Carolyn didn't accept Albert's invitation, Mama would be hurt.  The aunts would eat her alive.  Albert and the aunts, including Albert's mama, Aunt Fan, had decided that Albert and Carolyn were to be a Crespin couple.  Albert Crespin was Crespin through and through--a highly inbred member of the clan, Aunt Fan a kind of cousin to Albert's daddy and all that--unlike Carolyn, who was a Crespin only on her father's side, her father having inexplicably married outside his ilk, then unforgivably up and died before he could inculcate proper Crespin values into his only child. Though that wasn't supposed to matter, for Albert was Crespin enough for the two of them.

"Of course, Mama, Aunties, if you wish," Carolyn said, smiling sweetly.  It was what one said as a last resort.  It solved problems.  It quieted tempers.  It got Carolyn off the hook, at least temporarily, though she had a sick pain in her stomach that did not feel transitory.

Aunts Clotilde, Atrena, and Livia exchanged superior glances.  There, the faces said.  One has only to be Firm With The Child.  Mama was looking into her lap, her lower lip quivering ever so slightly.  She was frightened of the aunts; she was well and truly hooked and gaffed.  Carolyn's father had left an annuity for his widow, an annuity that could be stretched to cover clothing and salary for Mama's maid and Carolyn's education and a few small charities, but it wouldn't stretch to such necessities as housing and heat and lights and taxes, so Mama and Carolyn either lived with the family or they didn't live.  Unless Mama got married again.

Which, though Mama was quite young and lovely, she would never do.  Clotilde, Atrena, and Livia believed that Mama's remarriage would be Unfaithful to Dear Roger's Memory.  They'd won that one long ago.

And now that the matter of Albert and Carolyn was settled, they gathered up their needlework and went off to settle someone else's fate.  Mama, with a grateful caress across Carolyn's shoulder, went in the other direction, toward the bathroom.  She often spent hours in the tub, breathing moist perfumed vapors, safe in the only sanctum the aunts would not invade.

Carolyn was left alone on the summer porch, once shaded by huge old elms.  She remembered summer-dusk games under the elms, herself leaning against a great tree, eyes hidden in her hands, slowly counting: twenty-nine...fifty-six...ninety-five...one hundred.  Ready or not, here I come!  Here I come seeking something that has no name, something hidden, something wonderful.  Here I come, with no idea where it is but needing so...so much to find it.  It was only her cousins, hiding out there, so why had she felt that she might find the other thing?  Even now, when dusk came and she heard the voices of children playing, she remembered that feeling of mysterious anticipation.  Marvel, just around the corner.  Wonder, hidden in shadows, if she could only find it.

Everything had changed since then.  All the elms were gone now.  Once-shaded houses stood full in the glare of the August sun, as she herself now stood, no longer protected by leafy childhood, alone in the baking heat and burning light of Crespin conformity.

The Crespin men went into banking and law.  Crespin women did not work outside the home except for certain charities, and they did not join many of those.  If one joined groups, one might have to associate with persons one had not picked as acquaintances.  One did, of course, practice one's religion devoutly, and one did entertain one's husband's business associates, but that was a different matter, akin to diplomacy.  To prepare for that, one studied languages, one learned about opera and art, one even boned up on whatever esoterica a distinguished visitor was said to be interested in.  In this Crespins were rather like royalty.  Noblesse oblige, as a matter of course, but no damned familiarity allowed.

Crespin women, though not always pretty, were uniformly fashionable though not faddish, slender though not bony, aristocratic to a fault.  They went to good Catholic prep schools, after which they might spend a year or so perfecting French or German on the Continent, under proper supervision, before attending college.  At home they learned the Crespin vocabulary as they learned the catechism, and for the same reason.  Salvation was dependent upon knowing What the Family Meant.  There were patronizing words to remind inferiors of their proper place, there was inconsequential chitchat to keep strangers at a distance, there were courteous words for religious occasions and implacable phrases for inculcating Crespin consciousness in the young.

Carolyn did not fit.  She made friends with the maids, she discussed anything at all with people she met on the train, she argued with Father O'Brien about the catechism, and had so far remained stocky, untidy, ungraceful, willful, un-Crespinized.

"But, my dear child," Aunt Clotilde had said on a former occasion "Crespin women do not Work Outside the Home.  They certainly do not go into the professions."

"Crespin women do not go into anything but becoming interfering, arrogant old tyrants, so far as I can see."

Carolyn's mama, shocked: "Carolyn, apologize to your aunt at once!"

"Mother, I am sorry, but it's you and me I'm sorry for.  You weren't born a Crespin, and I'm evidently a throwback or something.  I don't want to be a Crespin woman!  I want to be a lawyer."  Was it just that Father had been a lawyer?  Or was it a longing for the real, the true, the eternal, rather than whatever the Crespins were?

Though she was fifteen at the time of that outburst, she had been Sent To Her Room.  It was typical of Crespin culture that single women even in their twenties might be Sent To Their Rooms, and wives at any age likewise, though with a quiet word whispered into an ear.  "My dear, you're overwrought.  My dear, go lie down for a bit."  It did no good to rebel.  The custom predated the Victorian age and had all the power of tradition.  Women, when in public, were always groomed, poised, gracious, and socially adept, and Carolyn would conform or else.  There were inevitabilities at work; in the end the aunts would have their way.  They were the spinners of history, the passers on of tradition, those who trimmed and chopped away all spontaneity.  Even the temporary freedom offered by college, the exposure to ordinary people, was part of the plan.

As for Albert, he was an American hero in the postlarval stage, a lawyer with the FBI.  Albert was devout; he worked indefatigably with the Knights of Columbus.  Albert had Served in Korea, albeit (strings had been pulled) in the office of the judge advocate.  Until the time a few years back when Senator Joe McCarthy had gone down in flames, Albert had been one of the senator's more ardent supporters.  Even now Albert saw himself as standing between America and all those who would sully her purity.

On the night of Carolyn's graduation from St. Mary's, Albert had taken her out to dinner and told her all about their plans, his and hers: They would be engaged when she graduated from college and married six months later, to allow time for the various prenuptial festivities that the aunts would arrange.  It was too soon for a ring, but he presented her with an eighteen-karat charm bracelet, announcing in a patronizing tone that he would add pretty charms over the next four years.  Carolyn supposed it was a kind of option plan.  One charm bought him a Carolyn foot, another paid for a leg, another gained him the left tit.  By the time they were married, she'd be all paid for, the last charm claiming the necessary part for the wedding night.

So, all right, she'd go to Washington and be shown where Albert worked.  One thing the aunts were right about.  She was safe with Albert.  Albert had never provoked in her the tiniest throb of lust.  His kisses were chaste, his embraces perfunctory, and she might as well be out with Father O'Brien.  As a matter of fact, Father O'Brien, for all his years and his cassock, had more of a twinkle than Albert did.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The year is 2000. America is changing, swept up in a tide of fundamentalism that is overwhelming the world. Suicide cults and paranoid militias are on the rise, mobs of hooded men drive young women from the streets, and a new plague is taking root around the world, threatening the future of humanity. The right-wing American Alliance is marshaling its forces to close an iron grip on the United States, grooming swaggering prosecutor Jake Jagger as an eventual presidential candidate. Jagger's first stepping-stone to power is a fifteen-year-old girl, Lolly Ashaler. Terrified and uncomprehending, the illiterate Lolly left her newborn baby in a Dumpster - and Jagger wants to see her condemned to death for her crime. Carolyn Crespin has retired from her law practice, ready to devote herself to family and farm life. The last person she wants to face in a courtroom again is Jagger, who once dealt her a devastating defeat. But she can't say no to this case. She begins to gather her own forces, the five women whose friendship has sustained her in the decades since they met at college - and the oddly present spirit of their group's one missing member, the ever-mysterious Sophy, who committed suicide three years ago. As the case progresses, Carolyn begins to understand just how far Jagger is willing to go to win. And on her own side, the questions are mounting: Is Sophy truly dead? And is her spirit guiding Carolyn and her friends to something benevolent, or demonic? Is the plague touching their lives really an illness... or a cure?

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Tepper (Shadow's End) ) can be characterized as a quirkily feminist writer whose novels often question whether humanity might be better off with a smaller, more docile male population. This theme, combined with the author's ambivalence about Catholicism, informs this fable of ethics, feminism and transcendence, which employs an intriguing concept involving an alternate branching of the evolutionary tree. Carolyn Crespin comes from a stultifying family that believes women should be seen and not heard. When she escapes to college in the early 1960s, she helps form the Decline and Fall Club, comprised of herself and six other women (including a devout nun, a radical lesbian artist and a brilliant scientist). They band together to protect one of their members, an exotic beauty named Sova, from unwanted male attention. During a 40-year gap in the narrative, conservatism and misogyny increase, a focused evil grows and Sova mysteriously disappears. The tale resumes at the dawning of the Millennium, when terrorist bag ladies are on the rise and sexual desire is on the wane. Now, Carolyn and her friends must defeat an embodiment of violence and ultra-patriarchal masculinity or see women reduced to the level of walking wombs. As always, Tepper creates excellent female characters transported by a swiftly flowing plot. Her proposed solutions for the world's problems, however, may leave male readers wondering why they should settle for being little more than ambulatory sperm banks. (July)

Library Journal

Seven women friends form the Decline and Fall Club in college in the 1950s and meet every year until Sophy disappears in 1998. The remaining six search for her in 2000, believing Sophy has the answers to the world's declining interest in sex and rise in suicides and the sinister plot of a misogynous cabal bent on world domination. Tepper (Shadow's End, LJ 11/15/94) deftly interweaves the six women's lives with a history of the organized persecution of women since the downfall of goddesses. This feminist approach to millennial hysteria is highly recommended for sf and women's fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/1/96.]

BookList - Carl Hays