This is the culmination of a desperate survival plan, millennia in the making...
When Margaret is six, she imagines herself a spy, a healer, a queen: and later at crisis points in her life, she feels as if parts of her have split off - the Margaret who followed her lover to Tercis and the Margaret who didn't; the one who's a healer; the one who's a spy.
Mankind's survival depends on all these Margarets - if only they can come together as one, with their powers intact...
Sheri S. Tepper (1929 - 2016)
Sheri S. Tepper was the author of several resoundingly acclaimed novels, including THE MARGARETS and GIBBON'S DECLINE AND FALL both shortlisted for the ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD, A PLAGUE OF ANGELS, SIDESHOW and BEAUTY, which was voted BEST FANTASY NOVEL OF THE YEAR by readers of LOCUS. She is one of the few writers to have titles in both the SF and Fantasy Masterworks lists. She died in 2016.