From /tmp/sf.4146 Tue Aug 9 01:42:45 1994 Xref: liuida rec.arts.sf.reviews:483 rec.arts.books:76865 alt.books.reviews:2444 Path: liuida!sunic!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!wupost!udel!news.sprintlink.net!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: Evelyn.Chimelis.Leeper@att.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books,alt.books.reviews Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: THE ALIENS OF EARTH by Nancy Kress Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: <9402141600.ZM5080@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Date: 15 Feb 94 01:28:06 GMT Lines: 48 THE ALIENS OF EARTH by Nancy Kress Arkham House, ISBN 0-87054-166-8, 1993, 327pp, US$20.95. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1994 Evelyn C. Leeper This book of eighteen stories is Nancy Kress's second collection. (The first, TRINITY AND OTHER STORIES, was published in 1985 by Bluejay and is out of print.) This one includes the two Hugo-nominated stories "And Wild for to Hold" and "The Mountain to Mohammed." (They were both nominated for Best Novelette for 1990, and when "The Mountain to Mohammed" won, Kress was presented with a button that read, "I lost the Hugo to Nancy Kress.") All but one of the stories in THE ALIENS OF EARTH share one common element: they take place on Earth (hence the title). Beyond that they range from horror ("To Scale" and "Philippa's Hands") to fantasy ("Spillage") to straight science fiction ("People Like Us" and "The Mountain to Mohammed"). Though no medical training is listed in Kress's biographical data, many of her stories deal with disease and the medical profession: "Inertia" has the victims of a disfiguring plague in a quarantine camp; "The Mountain to Mohammed" deals with the allocation of medical care in the future "Cannibals" looks at the dying-off of an alien species; "In Memoriam" examines a new treatment for the elderly. Time travel and parallel worlds are also common themes ("The Price of Oranges" and "And Wild for to Hold"). "The Battle of Long Island" combines the two, being a story of parallel worlds told in the setting of a battlefield hospital. My personal favorite is "The Price of Oranges," but all the stories are excellent examples of how we are the "aliens of earth." I recommend this collection. (Note: Kress's BEGGARS IN SPAIN has just been released in paperback by AvoNova. I recommend that as well.) %B The Aliens of Earth %A Nancy Kress %C New York %D 1993 %I Arkham House %O hardback, US$20.95 %G ISBN 0-87054-166-8 %P 327pp -- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | ecl@mtgpfs1.att.com / Evelyn.Leeper@att.com "Remember, high-tech means breaks down next week, while cutting edge means breaks down this afternoon. -Bruce Sterling From /tmp/sf.4146 Tue Aug 9 02:07:02 1994 Path: liuida!sunic!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!postmodern.com!not-for-mail From: aaron@amisk.cs.ualberta.ca (Aaron V. Humphrey) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Prograde Reviews--Nancy Kress:Beggars In Spain Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 8 Jun 1994 19:15:39 GMT Organization: The Anna Amabiaca Fan Club Lines: 59 Sender: mcb@postmodern.com (Michael C. Berch) Approved: mcb@postmodern.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: <2t3mj5$gtn@scapa.cs.ualberta.ca> Reply-To: aaron@amisk.cs.ualberta.ca NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu Originator: mcb@remarque.berkeley.edu Nancy Kress: Beggars In Spain A Prograde Review by Aaron V. Humphrey How many times have you thought to yourself, "I could get so much more done if only I didn't have to sleep"? In _Beggars In Spain_, genetic manipulation has made it possible to make this adjustment in unborn children, removing the need to sleep and any detrimental effects of prolonged wakefulness; in addition, they become virtually immortal. The Sleepless soon get a tremendous advantage over their Sleeper competitors, and prejudice begins to spring up. The book focuses mostly on Leisha Camden, one of the first Sleepless. She is born with a twin sister Alice who, unmodified and unplanned-for, is a mere Sleeper. She becomes one of the few Sleepless who does not retreat into the haven of Sanctuary, and remains in occasional contact with Sleeper society. The recurring theme of the book asks the question, "How much do the more capable owe the less capable?" The majority of Sleepless decide that they owe nothing to the Sleepers who are capable of so much less; Leisha, who disagrees, remains with the "Beggars". The subrace of Supers, an even more intelligent engineered offshoot of the Sleepless, begin to disagree with the rest of the Sleepless. Everything comes to a head when Sanctuary, an orbiting satellite, declares itself independent from the United States... This is a great book -- it has engaging characters, a gripping plot (in fact, several gripping plots for the various sections of the book), extrapolation of concepts that is the hallmark of grand SF, and it asks some pointed questions. About the only annoying thing about the book is that it takes some concentration to keep track of what is referred to by "Sleepers" vs. "Sleepless". The words are just too similar, and one has to stop and parse them every time they come up, to remember which is which. But that's extremely minor. Out of the four Hugo-nominated novels I've read so far, this is definitely the top. %A Kress, Nancy %T Beggars In Spain %I Avon %C New York %D April 1993 %G ISBN 0-688-12189-6 %P 438 pp %O Hardcover -- --Alfvaen (Editor of Communique) Current Album--The Beatles:Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Current Book--Michelle Sagara:Lady of Mercy "It's a one-time thing. It just happens a lot." --Suzanne Vega From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Dec 12 10:35:35 1994 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!agate!darkstar.UCSC.EDU!news.hal.COM!decwrl!netcomsv!netcom.com!postmodern.com!not-for-mail From: ecl@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper) Subject: Review of BEGGARS AND CHOOSERS by Nancy Kress Message-ID: <9412081018.ZM1120@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: mcb@postmodern.com (Michael C. Berch) Organization: The Internet Date: Sun, 11 Dec 1994 07:07:46 GMT Approved: mcb@postmodern.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Lines: 59 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:697 rec.arts.books:104951 BEGGARS AND CHOOSERS by Nancy Kress Tor, ISBN 0-312-85749-7, 1994, 316pp, $22.95 A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1994 Evelyn C. Leeper Last year Nancy Kress expanded her Hugo-award-winning novella "Beggars in Spain" to a novel. Now she's written a sequel, and while some may say this is too much of a good thing, on the whole BEGGARS AND CHOOSERS works. At the beginning of the 22nd Century, there are three groups of people in the world: the Sleepless, the genetically enhanced ("donkeys"), and the rest ("Livers"). And Kress follows three characters, one from each of the groups, to tell her story, which is a story of the widening distance between the haves and the have-nots. And lest you think this merely a problem of some maybe future, Kress makes sure you see it in current terms as well: "... the United States had always seemed to me like some powerful innocent beast, lushly beautiful, with the cranial capacity of a narrow-headed deer. Look how it stretches its sleek muscles in the sunlight. Looks how it bounds high. Look how it runs gracefully straight into the path of the oncoming train." Not surprisingly, Kress's future has its own set of oncoming trains that people are running straight into. The donkeys stay in power by paying taxes back to the livers, in the form of goods and services. And of course, this system is not stable, and we see the inevitable break-down unfold, as well as attempts by the Sleepless to introduce new scientific marvels, which may save mankind--or destroy it. If Kress's sociology is right on target, her biology is less convincing--at least to me. Kress makes her characters confront the consequences of their actions, but while I found the basic idea of the central scientific development believable, how it used is less believable, and results in an ending that is on the one hand not completely convincing and on the other not a final ending. I would not be surprised to see another book next year (BEGGARS WOULD RIDE, maybe?). BEGGARS AND CHOOSERS is not a perfect novel, and the ending is somewhat disappointing, but overall I would still recommend it. %A Kress, Nancy %T Beggars and Choosers %I Tor %C New York %D November 1994 %G ISBN 0-312-85749-7 %P 316pp %O hardcover, $22.95 %S Beggars %V 2 -- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | Evelyn.Leeper@att.com There's always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong. -- H.L. Mencken From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Mar 3 16:10:13 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: "Mariann T. Woodward" Newsgroups: alt.books.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Beggars in Spain Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 02 Mar 1999 17:51:25 -0500 Organization: Beat That! Creations Lines: 95 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se alt.books.reviews:50598 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2270 Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress Review Copyright 1999 Mariann T. Woodward What would you do if you never needed to sleep? If you never got tired? How many of us say, when overwhelmed with life and its activities, "If only I had an extra so-many hours...?" For Leisha Camden, the question begets an obvious answer: Apply oneself to become the best and brightest in everything. Such is the premise of Nancy Kress' novel, BEGGARS IN SPAIN. In this imaginary world, genetic manipulation has spawned considerable interest in creating the perfect child. From physical characteristics such as hair and eye color to mental characteristics such as intelligence or giftedness in a particular academic area, expectant parents pay for a custom-made child. One such family, the Camdens, opt to pursue a secretive, highly experimental and ethically debated characteristic for their unborn daughter: sleeplessness. The goal, as Roger sees it, it to produce a perfect individual with literally all the time in the world to read, write, study, learn, and apply herself to be the best she can be. Leisha is the result of her father's determination and her mother's reluctance, but so is her fraternal twin, another girl. Alice is not a sleepless like her sister; she is a normal, reasonably healthy child, yet she struggles for her family's acceptance. As their mother grows increasingly unstable, the twins quickly learn that only Leisha is deemed special in their father's eyes. Despite Leisha's assertions that her sister could and would be just as special, but in a different way, Alice is, after all, just a sleeper. In Leisha's light, Alice simply fades away into darkness. As childhood disappears and Leisha becomes an adult with numerous dysfunctional relationships with friends, lovers, and family, so begins the trouble for other people like her in Kress' world. Normal people are, of course, threatened by the sleepless and their abilities. By not having to sleep eight to ten hours a day, the sleepless use the extra time to study and practice until they perfect and master a skill or lesson. As Leisha moves further into adulthood, segregation and restrictions become prevalent as protest groups form to tear down the sleepless' dominance. The sleepless retreat into their own world, first on private property, then orbiting the planet on a space station. What began as a parent's desire to see a child have all that is possible becomes, quite simply, a war between the haves and the have-nots. The beggars. "Beggars" connect both the title and the subject matter in Kress' novel. The sleepless believe that they are so superior to others that to share their abilities, skills, discoveries, and finances would be detrimental to the overall development of a new species of human being. If they give to one sleeper, more will demand a contribution. Overwhelmed by beggars, the sleepless would fail when they should and could thrive. Closely paralleling struggles between cultures and races, BEGGARS IN SPAIN is also a commentary on the developing influence of technology on our lives. It's more than just computers in the classroom or familiarity with an operating system or software package -- it's the intrusion of technology on that which is most intimate, most personal, most primal of human beings: conception, creation, and development of life. At what point do we become so greedy that we allow technology to change us? I found the premise of BEGGARS IN SPAIN to be intriguing. As a graduate student of literature, I pursue interests that focus on the role of technology in the writing and literature classroom. Here was a unique situation where technology created the child; the parents only contributed the genetic materials and a shopping list of attributes. Kress builds on the potential that technology promises -- the end of disease and malformation -- with genetic testing of our children before they are even born. But where is the potential for man to excel and develop of his own accord? Would technology ever give us another DaVinci? Another Hawking? In this world, who knows. Where BEGGARS IN SPAIN fails is in its scope. Kress began this work as a novella, then expanded it into a novel, later following it with two additional novels in the series. I haven't read the sequels yet, but as I look at the one I have read, I wonder what kind of story we might have had if Kress had the vision and scope -- a la Babylon 5's creator, J. Michael Straczynski -- to really explore the culture, issues, and consequences of her created world. Perhaps I will be surprised and pleased with the two remaining novels. Kress certainly has a vivid imagination, and her "science" is eerily close to what reality is working on now. In any case, BEGGARS IN SPAIN is an enjoyable read and an intriguing concept to watch for the future. Grade: B Recommended %T Beggars in Spain %A Nancy Kress %I Avon %D 1994 %G ISBN 038071-8774 %P 438 pages %O List Price: $6.99 ** please remove REMOVE from e-mail addy to reply ** For more book reviews, please visit my home page: http://members.aol.com/deerskin/index.htm From rec.arts.sf.reviews Sat Sep 11 17:38:07 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: "Aaron M. Renn" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Beaker's Dozen by Nancy Kress Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 08 Sep 1999 21:36:07 -0400 Organization: GNU's Not Unix! Lines: 50 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2450 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 (arenn@urbanophile.com) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/