Xulai and Abasio venture from village to village looking for other people and for sentient creatures who might want to have children like their own two babies--genetically altered, water-dwelling children--for the future of the planet (never directly named, but obviously Earth). As punishment from its beleaguered planetary spirit, it is destined to be covered in water within the next 200 years.
Fish Tails, Sheri S. Tepper's 35th novel, brings together characters from 11 of her previous works into a science fiction tale with a staggering breadth of vision. The two protagonists are from 1993's A Plague of Angels and 2010's The Waters Rising (the latter of which is more or less a direct prequel to the current volume, as it deals with the same ecological disaster). They gradually win more allies in their goal to populate the planet with a new, modified human race but soon become involved with a galactic civil servant who has an elaborate do-gooder scheme that may turn their plans upside down.
Tepper takes many opportunities to offer social commentary on how we should live: a smaller population that's more in tune with the environment, less reliant on leaders who may be hiding their lack of knowledge behind seemingly wise yet cryptic oracular proclamations, and willing to treat women as human beings rather than baby-raising objects. Despite the spirited tone, Fish Tails has much to say about what kind of people we'll need to be as a species in order to stave off ecological and social disaster. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor