Dogs
by Nancy Kress
from Tachyon Publications
Nano Comes to Clifford Falls: And Other Stories
by Nancy Kress
from Golden Gryphon Press
Beggars in Spain
by Nancy Kress
from Eos
Many of us wish we could get by with less sleep. Beggars in Spain extrapolates that wish into a future where some people need no sleep at all. Nancy Kress, an award-winning author of novels, short stories, and columns on writing, has created another thoughtful but dramatic statement on social issues.
Leisha Camden was genetically modified at birth to require no sleep, and her normal twin Alice is the control. Problems and envy between the sisters mirror those in the larger world, as society struggles to adjust to a growing pool of people who not only have 30 percent more time to work and study than normal humans, but are also highly intelligent and in perfect health. The Sleepless gradually outgrow their welcome on Earth, and their children escape to an orbiting space station to set up their own society. But Leisha and a few others remain behind, preaching acceptance for all humans, Sleepless and Sleeper alike. With the conspiracy and revenge that unwinds, the world needs a little preaching on tolerance.
In a world where the slightest edge can mean the difference between success and failure, Leisha Camden is beautiful, extraordinarily intelligent ... and one of an ever-growing number of human beings who have been genetically modified to never require sleep.
Once considered interesting anomalies, now Leisha and the other "Sleepless" are outcasts -- victims of blind hatred, political repression, and shocking mob violence meant to drive them from human society ... and, ultimately, from Earth itself.
But Leisha Camden has chosen to remain behind in a world that envies and fears her "gift" -- a world marked for destruction in a devastating conspiracy of freedom ... and revenge.
Nancy Kress's landmark genetic engineering story, one of the most critically acclaimed SF novellas of the last decade. A rich financier compels scientists to create for him the perfect daughter--smart, beautiful, and with no need to sleep. Kress masterfully explores the social implications of "Sleepless" people in a novella you will never forget. Hugo Award Winner; Nebula Award Winner; Fictionwise eBook of the Year (2000)
Beggars and Choosers (Beggars Trilogy (also known as Sleepless Trilogy))
by Nancy Kress
from Tor Science Fiction
Beggars Ride (Beggars Trilogy (also known as Sleepless Trilogy))
by Nancy Kress
from Tor Science Fiction
Nancy Kress ends her Beggars trilogy (which began with the novella later turned into a novel, Beggars in Spain) almost full circle from where it began. Against a backdrop where rich humans have themselves modified to perfection and poor, unmodified "Livers" eke out a nomadic existence, the genetically superior Sleepless have stopped distributing Change. Change is the miracle substance that prevents disease in all humans. In cutting off Change, the Sleepless have ignited a class war that will ultimately be resolved not by technology and science, but by the children of technology, who must live side-by-side despite their differences.
Now the trilogy is completed in Beggars Ride, a compelling novel of science fiction that raises one of the most ambitious and large-scale works of the decade to the status of finished masterpiece. Kress, a writer who had been appropriately compared to H.G. Wells and Aldous Huxley, deals with evolutionary forces, genetic engineering, technological progress, and social and class conflict, confronting enduring issues that face human society in this century and the next.
The Sleepless and the SuperSleepless, two generations of genetically modified superhumans, are now in conflict with each other, and with the spectrum of normal humanity, whose radical division into the rich and poor has made a parody of democracy in the twenty-second century. Human civilization has been transformed. Now it may be destroyed. And if it falls, what kind of world is left, what kind of humanity?
Nancy Kress has written a work of fiction that culminates and brings to new fruition the Wellsian strain of SF invented a century ago.
Probability Moon (The Probability Trilogy)
by Nancy Kress
from Tor Science Fiction
Earth is an environmental disaster area when humanity gains new hope: a star gate is discovered in the solar system, built by a long-gone alien race. Earth establishes extrasolar colonies and discovers alien races--including the warlike Fallers, the only spacefaring race besides humans. Mysterious, uncommunicative, and relentlessly bent on humanity's extinction, the Fallers have mastered the star gates, and are closing in on earth.
Dr. Bazargan commands the scientific team sent to a newly discovered world to study its humanoid natives: beings who literally perceive only one reality. To lie is to be unreal--and condemned to death. The humans must flee for their lives across the unknown planet when they and the aliens learn the scientific mission is a lie. It's the cover for a secret military exploration of the moon Tas, which is another artifact of the gate-makers: a superweapon capable of annihilating all life in a star system, and already known to the Fallers.
Nancy Kress has won the Hugo, the Sturgeon, and three Nebula Awards. She is justly acclaimed as a literary SF writer, but receives little acknowledgement that her work is hard SF. Probability Moon should change this, winning her many new readers while pleasing her fans. It's a rare and desirable hybrid: a literary, military, hard-SF novel. Set in the same world as her Nebula- and Sturgeon-winning novelette, "Flowers of Aulit Prison," Probability Moon is the first book of a trilogy, but it has a self-contained story line. The sequel, Probability Sun, will appear in 2001, and the concluding book will be The Fabric of Space. --Cynthia Ward
In this fragile situation, a new planet is discovered, inhabited by a pre-industrial race who experience "shared reality"-they're literally compelled to share the same worldview. A team of human scientists is dispatched-but what they don't know is that their mission of first contact is actually a covert military operation.
For one of the planet's moons is really a huge mysterious artifact of the same origin as the star gates . . . and it just may be the key to winning the war.
Crossfire (Cosmic Crossfire)
by Nancy Kress
from Tor Science Fiction
A human colony settles on a distant planet, a colony formed by Jake Holman-- a man trying to escape a dark past. But as this diverse group of thousands comes to terms with their new lives on a new world, they make a startling discovery: primitive humanoid aliens. There are only a few isolated villages, and the evidence seems to indicate they aren't native to the planet--despite the aliens living in thatched huts and possessing only primitive tools.
When a handful of human colonists finally learn the truth, they will face the toughest decision of their lives, a decision that could determine not just the fate of their new home, but the fate of all humanity.
Maximum Light
by Nancy Kress
from Tor Books
In Maximum Light, which takes place in the near future, synthetic chemicals are destroying the fertility of nearly every species on Earth, including humans. The birthrate has dropped so low that the human population consists primarily of people over the age of 50, and children are considered precious resources. Shana Walders and Cameron Atuli get caught up in a bizarre conspiracy to create hybrid human/animal "substitutes" for couples desperate for a young one to love. But when 75-year-old Congressional advisor Nick Clementi becomes involved, he discovers that the conspiracy goes far deeper than anyone would believe, and the future of the human race may be at stake. This fast-paced thriller from veteran science fiction author Nancy Kress keeps the plot twists coming, which makes Maximum Light a difficult book to put down once you've started.
An Alien Light
by Nancy Kress
from Avon Books (Mm)
+++
