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The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper
Voyager Books
315 Pages
ISBN: 0-00-648270-8
Set in a dark future, in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust, society is in the hands of women. Men live in garrisons and wage war with each other, they are not allowed to involve the women or children in their feuds, but they are jealous of the knowledge that the women have. There is one way the men can become like the women, come through the gate to Women's country and live as a servant, and they can have all the knowledge they want.
But what warrior would want to do that? The men who go through the gate are ostracized by the warriors, they can't be real men if they don't want to fight. Gradually more and more men are going through the gate at fifteen, the age when they have to decide whether or not they want to remain as warriors. The warriors wonder why more and more of their number are returning to women's country, but only the women and servants know why and they're not telling.
This is an imaginative, unusual story and I was hooked from the very first page. Told from both the women's and men's point of views, it is a very interesting take on the battle between the sexes, and how things need to change if humanity is to survive without destroying the world again.
Reviewed by Annette Gisby, author of Silent Screams