The Gate to Woman's Country

The story:
The world has changed. Now, the woman live in towns, thinly spread, and guarded by the garrisons, the men, the Warriors.

When a boy reaches his fifth year, he is sent to his father in the garrison, to stay there until his fifteenth year. Then he will have to choose between the world of the Warriors and the Women's Country.

He can stay with the Warriors, to become a Warrior himself, or he can return, through the Gate to the Women's Country, to become a Servitor; one who serves the women and the Council.

But the Warriors suspect that the women, or at least the Council, have secrets, and they want access to those secrets. And so, Stavia, daughter of the Council-woman Morgot, is drawn into a game of politics and violence and power.

Thoughts about the book:
This is a story about women and men, of war, and of power. As in most of her stories, Sheri Tepper tells of human nature. It could be called feminist literature, but through the way she tells the story, she avoids that.

Though I myself do not consider myself a feminist, I find this book one of her best.

Or perhaps because I do not consider myself a feminist. What the women in this society do, is not to try to compete with men in their own field. Instead, they have created a society with other values than strength and brute force.

About the author Sheri Tepper

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