Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Kress at her best, Mar 17 2003
This is a first rate science fiction novel by one of the best writers in the genre. It is set in the near future, about thirty years from now, when chemical contamination of the environment has resulted in a precipitously falling birth rate and a high incidence of birth defects. Three totally different characters work to uncover an illegal business in the growing/manufacturing of human-animal babies. The intricate plot is beautifully constructed with suspenseful and logical twists and turns. Its greatest strength, though, may be its rich and believable character development. The three major characters are a successful young gay dancer, a sexy and wildly manipulative girl from the gutter, and an aging scientist. The chapters rotate between first-person narratives by each of them, and all three narrative styles are totally believable. This is one of the best science fiction novels of recent years, and I recommend it most highly.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Not bad, but not top shlef science fiction., Feb 5 2003
This was my first book by Nancy Kress. Without knowing anything about else about her writing career, I could tell she is an experienced writer, with a good ability to communicate fairly complex ideas in straight forward fashion. She takes a solid premise - fertility has dropped to the point where the future of the species is threatened - and runs it through the impact on society. Youngsters are a treasured, indulged resource, while old folks litter the parks and streets, and infertile couples yearn for even one child, human or otherwise. That piece of the story is pretty well done.
The science fiction part of the story is a little weak, a danger when writing about the "near" future. The setting isn't that far into the future so there isn't THAT much different from society and technology today. For example, a hooker isn't wearing just a wig. No, this is sci fi, so she's wearing a holo(gram) wig. Kind of a cheap add-on thrown in during the editing process I thought as I read along. However, I have to add that there was a nice, light non-intrusive techno touch late in the book when Shana, the young female hero, rents a car. She pulls into a gas station to use a terminal to print out driving directions. That was nice, and almost here now. Sort of like making MapQuest easily available in public.
I also liked the multiple, first person approach. The story evolves through the eyes of the several main characters, Shana, a young, rough and tumble female soldier, Cameron, the young, gay male dancer and an old, wealthy scientist with political ties in addition to money (I'm forgetting his name right now.)I enjoyed this by the time I got to the end but had doubts as I was reading along. This sort of story is handled much more deftly by writers like Neal Stephanson in Snow Crash and Diamond Age. I would read another novel by Kress but I'm not going to actively chase it down.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
worth a read, but she can do better, Nov 5 2002
I love Kress' particular sci-fi "style" which involves biological advances (no spaceships here, sorry) and ethical issues. This is actually one of her older works but it doesn't fail to satisfy. The premise here has to do with societal reaction to mass infertility caused by the huge amount of chemicals induced into the human environment -- and the really scary thing about this one is that, as bizarre as some of the situations seem to be, they could very easily happen. I remember reading a couple years ago that people now have more chemicals in their bodies than ever before (medicine, hygenic products, food...you name it) and I've often wondered just how far the research into the side effects has gone. Kress takes it to a logical conclusion (though admitetdly a worst-case one) and the results are very, very chilling. I do wish, however, that she'd knock off with the vulgarity and coarse language. Yes, life is vulgar and coarse, and sometimes you do need to include things like that for realism, but not constantly. I also can't help but notice that she's used the same viewpoint-technique (multiple first-person) in a lot of her stories. She's perfectly capable of writing other viewpoints, and sometimes they're more appropriate. But the story is definitely excellent, and this is one I'd recommend.
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