Sheri S. Tepper

Sheri S. Tepper moved to northern New Mexico 20 years ago, when she fell in love with Rancho Jacona, outside Santa Fe, “a carbon copy of the small farm” in Colorado on which she’d grown up. Her first book King’s Blood Four (Ace, 1983) was published when Tepper was 53. She is now 81, and The Waters Rising (Eos, 2010)—which follows the perilous journeys of a small band of survivors of years of war, magic, and murderous mayhem that pushed humanity back into a lifestyle reminiscent of the Dark Ages—is her 48th published book. Though best known as a writer of science fiction and science fantasy, Tepper tells Patricia West-Barker that, under the names A. J. Orde, B. J. Oliphant, and E. E. Horiak, she has also written 13 mysteries set in Colorado and New Mexico.

Q:What drew you to writing science fiction and science fantasy?

That was what I read for some 40-odd years. Most adolescent fiction was really pretty dull, so I preferred fantasy to the real world. Later on, the daily problems of earning a living and raising a family required an escape, and that was my escape. In the real world, some problems seem insoluble. In the real world, some problems are insoluble: Israel and the West Bank, Haiti, global warming. In fantasy, problems are solved, magically. My favorite personal fantasy is that the extraterrestrials come through my bedroom window and tell me they like my books, [and that] they’d like to express their appreciation by doing me one favor. Each night I try to figure out what one thing they could do that would solve the most human problems. I know what it is, but I can’t tell you. It would make too many people angry.

Does The Waters Rising contain a warning about the direction of our present civilization?

Sure. All my books do. Someone asked me not too long ago how I saw myself as a writer, and I said I was a preacher. I’ve been labeled an eco-feminist, which is as good a label as any. I believe planting trees is a religious obligation far more significant than prayer. Moreover, I think God believes it’s very significant. After all, She started planting them.

Does the final chapter of The Waters Rising suggest how humanity might survive global warming?

Well, no, because Waters postulates a completely ocean-covered world. If I were going to describe us a thousand years from now with global warming, it would have to be an underground life, like termites, or the way it was described in a book I wrote years back, called Beauty. The conclusion is sort of a cliff-hanger. I’m now working on a sequel that ties the first books I ever wrote—The True Game, Jinian Footseer, and the Mavin Manyshaped series—together with A Plague of Angels (Bantam, 1993) and The Waters Rising.

What are the “ease machines” you refer to in The Waters Rising?

A dishwasher. A car or truck. A forklift … (Anything) that makes life easier. The people of The Waters Rising blamed their destructive past on ease machines. And, of course, they were right. Our obesity plague is one result of ease machines. Sitting in a comfortably padded seat working levers is a lot easier than digging out dirt, putting it in sacks, lugging the sacks up and down long ramps to dump somewhere else. In many parts of the world, that’s still how they do it.

Patricia West-Barker is publisher of TheZenchilada.com, a quarterly online magazine exploring the local and global conversations about the connections among food, art, culture, and place.

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