"Grass!
Millions of square miles of it; numberless wind-whipped tsunamis of grass, a thousand sun-lulled caribbeans of grass, a hundred rippling oceans, every ripple a gleam of scarlet or amber, emerald or turquoise, multicolored as rainbows, the colors shivering over the praries in stripes and blotches, the grasses - some high, some low, some feathered, some straight - making their own geography as they grow. There are grass hills where the great plumes tower in masses the height of ten tall men; grass valleys where the turn is like moss, soft under the feet, where maidens pillow their heads thinking of their lovers, where husbands lie down and think of their mistresses; grass groves where old men and women sit quiet at the end of the day, dreaming of things that might have been, perhaps once were.
Grass. Ruby ridges, blood-colored highlands, wine-shaded glades. Sapphire seas of grass with dark islands of grass bearing great plumy green trees which are grass again. Interminable meadows of silver hay where the great grazing beasts move in slanted lines like mowing machines, leaving the stubble behind them to spring up again in trackless wildernesses of rippling argent.
Orange highlands burning against the sunsets. Apricot ranges glowing in the dawns. Seed plumes sparkling like sequin stars. Blossom heads like the fragile lace old women take out of trunks to show their granddaughters."
from Grass by Sheri S. Tepper.
Best impression of Grass I could get using Fractint and PhotoShop.
I have seen numerous homepages for cult works like Frank Herbert's Dune and J.R.R.Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, but nowhere have I found a page dedicated to this excellent book.
Maybe this is because it doesn't have the same following that the other books have, and so there is little material around to make a homepage. However, the opportunity that Grass and it's inhabitants leaves for artwork seems too good to miss. Unfortunately I am not an artist myself, but I shall try some sketches of the mounts and the hounds. In the meantime, I would very much like to hear from anyone out there who have taken enough of an interest in Grass to produce any text or artwork. Having just read the book for the second time, I intend to start working on a breakdown of the characters and the plot, so as to better understand and appreciate the universe in which the book is set, and the way the story develops.
Depending on the success of the sketches and the breakdown, in any input
from others, and with the any ideas that the other two books I intend to
read, Raising the Stones and Slideshow, may bring, a homepage
may appear here soon. Any pictures, text, related URLs or ideas would be
greatly appreciated. My direct email address is pclark@cs.bris.ac.uk.