Subject: Review: Beaker's Dozen by Nancy Kress

From: "Aaron M. Renn" <[email-masked]>
Date: 08 Sep 1999 21:36:07 -0400

Beaker's Dozen by Nancy Kress
	Review Copyright (c) 1999 Aaron M. Renn

Conclusion: Recommended

I really don't follow short fiction all that much, but I do pick up the
occasional anthology and this was one of them.  And an impressive one at
that.  Nancy Kress is clearly someone with writing talent and short
fiction seems especially suited to her abilities.  Virtually all of the
stories in this volume, from the Hugo winner "Beggars in Spain" to
"Dancing on Air" are first rate.

The title is taken from the fact that most of the stories deal with
biotechnology in some way.  Usually the way is that there is some terrible
side effect.  Kress seems to have an exceptionally negative view of
technology and its effect on our future.  Perhaps she merely intends these
as cautionary tales, but there do seem to be quite a few anti-technology,
neo-luddite types around these days and I suspect that Kress has some
sympathy with their way of thinking.  Looking back from 1999, technology
has been almost uniformly beneficial to humanity.  With technology's
record to date, I can't see why there is so much doom and gloom about the
future on the part of so many people.  There are dangers from technology,
but they are more subtle than Kress' simple unforseen side effects.  I
don't want to go off on a tangent about this here, but for those
interested in exploring some of these issues, I highly recommend Steve
Talbott's NETFUTURE newsletter, available on the web at
http://www.ora.com/people/staff/stevet/netfuture/.  I don't agree with
Talbott on a lot of things, but his worries are a lot more complex and
reasoned than Kress'.  Of course it's not really fair to compare a theme
from an SF short story to a non-fiction newsletter, but I'm going to do it
anyway.

Despite my disagreement with Kress' dystopian view of the future of
biotech, I still loved these stories.  This is one of the best short
fiction collections I've ever read.  It's a shame this one isn't available
in mass market paperback, though.  Especially since Tor already had it out
in hardcover for a year.

%A Kress, Nancy
%T Beaker's Dozen
%I Tor
%D 1999-08 (original publication 1998-08)
%G ISBN 0-312-86843-X
%P 352 pp.
%0 trade paperback, US$13.95

Reviewed on 1999-09-03

-- 
Aaron M. Renn ([email-masked]) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/