Gibbon's Decline and Fall

Sheri S. Tepper

Sheri Stewart Tepper was an American writer of science fiction, horror and mystery novels. She is primarily known for her feminist science fiction, which explored themes of sociology, gender and equality, as well as theology and ecology. Often referred to as an eco-feminist of science fiction literature, Tepper personally preferred the label eco-humanist. Some of her novels fall into the category of climate fiction, in which the changing environment of a planet affects the life of its colonists in the form of a mystery to be solved; examples include Grass (1989), Beauty (1991), A Plague of Angels (1993), The Family Tree (1997), Six Moon Dance (1998), and Singer from the Sea (1999). Though the majority of her works operate in a world of fantastical imagery and metaphor, at the heart of her writing is real-world injustice and pain. She employed several pen names during her lifetime, including A. J. Orde, E. E. Horlak, and B. J. Oliphant.