Content levels
Trigger warnings
Positive tags
Heroine archetypes
Protagonist archetypes
Themes
Synopsis
The Margarets marks the long-awaited return of one of the most respected authors in the sf community; a writer who has earned accolades and the admiration of every true aficionado of bold, brilliant, risk-taking speculative fiction. Sheri S. Tepper dazzles yet again with a powerful tale of ingenious survival and strange destiny.The only human child living in a human work colony on the Martian satellite Phobos, little Margaret Bain has devised a system for keeping the suffocating demons of boredom and loneliness at bay: She invents six imaginary companions, each an extension of her own personality, to play with. When the unproductive Phobos project is shut down, and after Margaret is forced to return to Earth with her parents, the child's other selves are lost to her. But they are not gone. Left behind, each one flourishes—refining its own persona, acquiring its own history—before ultimately dispersing to far-flung destinations throughout the universe.On a near-barren homeworld denuded by thoughtless-ness and chemistry, Margaret grows to adulthood and marries, despite the seemingly utter hopelessness of humanity's future. The Earth is so impoverished that its inhabitants must import water and other basic necessities of life—trading the only viable product the planet has left to offer . . . slaves. The time will come when Margaret must leave this world as well, expelled as part of a desperate survival plan millennia in the making—an astonishing scheme that will require her to gather together the many Margarets who are now scattered throughout the galaxy. The creator of the Margarets must now bring all her selves home . . . or watch her race perish.
Is The Margarets appropriate for my child?
Suitable for most readers 16 and up.
Complex adult science fiction dealing with slavery, environmental collapse, and profound isolation. A young girl creates multiple personalities that become real and must reunite them across the galaxy to save humanity from extinction.
What to know going in
This book has moderate violence, mild sexual content, and mild language. Content notes include child harm, slavery, and abandonment (see the full list above).
Who'll love this
A lonely girl on Mars creates imaginary friends who become real and scatter across the galaxy, and she must find them all to save Earth.