The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper

The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper

I’d been a huge fan of Tepper’s ever since I read Beauty, which was one of the most amazing fairy-tale retellings I’d ever read.

Since then, I’ve read only this book and Grass, and I am so amazed by her ability to weave such complex worlds in her books.

In The Margarets, humans on Earth have exhausted Earth’s natural resources with overpopulation and indifference, to the point that the intergalactic government have decided that something has to be done to control the population, or some other entities will decide to destroy all humans instead, to preserve Earth.

Humans try to negotiate with the other beings, but the only resource they have an abundance of are people, so they export their children out as bondslaves.

Margaret is one of them… Or should I say, she is seven of them. Margaret was the only human child living on one of the colonies, and to keep loneliness away, she created six imaginary companions, who are all aspects of herself. As she grows up, one by one, these companions are separated from her.

They go on to live different lives in different planets around the galaxy, but it is crucial to the human race that the Margarets find one another again.

As I’ve said, I love Tepper’s complex worlds, she gives so much details of the background, the places, and all the different inhabitants of the planets. I also love her characters; all the Margarets, so different yet so similar, and the other colorful characters, including the vile but so interesting K’Famirs.

Because her stories are so complex, it’s sometimes hard to dive into them, but once you’re in, you’re completely engrossed, and they’re always worth it.