New Scientist recommends Sheri S. Tepper’s science fiction novel Grass

I have a penchant for old sci-fi with trashy covers so terrible they are brilliant. My dream is that someone creates a wallpaper of them so I can use it to paper my downstairs bathroom.

In the meantime, I recently came across a book in a charity shop I ended up loving: Sheri S. Tepper’s Grass. This was published in 1989; the edition I found (pictured above) is from the 1990s, and has a pleasingly weird jacket.

It also turned out to be a great read, of the dense, “messagey”, 1980s sci-fi sort. It’s set in a far future in which humanity has settled many planets. A plague might wipe them out, unless they discover why the inhabitants of a world called Grass, covered in multicoloured prairie, are immune.

The Grassians are insular and weirdly obsessed with hunting the planet’s alien “foxen”. The secrets of the hunt are enjoyably disturbing, and Tepper’s world-building is superb. I’m going to track down her other works – especially ones with standout covers.