home > book reviews > Nancy Kress
Google > Nancy Kress


Books

Short works

Books : reviews

Nancy Kress.
The Prince of Morning Bells.
Fox Acre Press. 1981

rating : 3 : worth reading
review : 11 March 2003

Nancy Kress's first novel, recently reprinted, is a clever and moving Fairy Tale Quest. (I mean "fairy tale" in the same way as I explain about John Barnes' One for the Morning Glory, although TPoMB is slightly less knowing than OftMG.) Princess Kirila decides to go on a Quest for the Heart of the World, and is soon joined by Chessie, a talking purple labrador who explains that he is an enchanted prince. Before the conclusion they suffer a sequence of enchantments that attempt to divert Kirila from her quest. What makes the story for me is the inventiveness and interest of these enchantments (although quantum chromodynamics has moved on a little in the decades since publication), and the developing characters of Kirila and Chessie.

This is a first novel, and there are a few rough edges (I never did understand the point about the bat, for example). But the virtues well outweigh the vices, and I certainly shed a tear during the final scene.

This welcome reprint has obviously been done by scanning and recognising an earlier print, because there are occasional glitches not caught by the proof-reading: a "we11" rather than a "well", an "0h" rather than an "Oh", some spurious hyphens, and so on. These are mildly irritating (they jolt me out of the story when they occur), but a few typos are a relatively small price to pay for having this book back in print.

Nancy Kress.
The Golden Grove.
Berkley. 1984

Nancy Kress.
An Alien Light.
Legend / Century. 1987

rating : 3.5 : worth reading

Nancy Kress.
Beaker's Dozen.
Tor. 1998

Contents

• Margin of Error. 1994
Be careful whose work you steal, for even a boiling frog might jump.
• Beggars in Spain. 1991
expanded as Beggars in Spain
• Feigenbaum Number. 1995
• Fault Lines. 1995
• Unto the Daughters. 1995
• Evolution. 1995
• Ars Longa. 1994
• Sex Education. 1996
• Grant Us This Day. 1993
• Flowers of Aulit Prison. 1996
• Summer Wind. 1995
• Always True to Thee, In My Fashion. 1997
• Dancing on Air. 1993

Nancy Kress.
Dogs.
2008

Nancy Kress.
Steal Across the Sky.
Tor. 2009

rating : 4 : passes the time
review : 23 May 2010

Enigmatic aliens, the "Atoners", have arrived on the moon. They advertise for people to "Witness" the terrible thing they did to humanity ten thousand years ago. The witnesses they choose seem to be a totally random selection of Earth's youth. Off they go to other planets, do their witnessing, and gradually realise what has been done to humanity. Then they return to Earth to report on all this. So, what are the Atoners going to do about it?

I enjoyed reading this, but was ultimately left unsatisfied. Unless this is a set-up for a sequel (and it doesn't really have that feel), absolutely nothing is explained. We never learn why the Atoners did what they did to humanity (I can "understand" why they did what they did on the other planets, by why to the Earth?). We never learn why they chose that particular set of Witnesses. We never learn why the Atoners wouldn't let Frank keep his souvenir, despite similar information being made available many times on Earth. (I'm being deliberately vague here, to try not to introduce spoilers -- but my biggest complaint can't be explained without a spoiler -- so look for it here only if you don't mind spoilers.)

So, well written and engaging, but ultimately unsatisfying (unless I've missed the point?)

Nancy Kress.
After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall.
Tachyon. 2012

In the year 2035, all that Is left of humanity lives in the Shell.

No one knows why the Tesslies attacked in 2014, devastated the environment, and nearly destroyed humanity. Or why the aliens imprisoned twenty-six survivors in a sterile enclosure built on the barren remains of the Earth.

Fifteen-year-old Pete, one of only six children born in the Shell, is determined to lead humanity to a new beginning. But Pete struggles to control his anger as, one by one, the survivors sicken and die. Though the Earth appears to be slowly healing, the Shell’s inhabitants may not live long enough to see it. The only chance for humanity lies within brief time portals. Pete and the survivors hatch a desperate plan: to increase their numbers by abducting children from the past.

In 2013, a brilliant FBI consultant sees a pattern in seemingly unrelated kidnappings. As Julie Kahn’s predictive algorithms reveal that the world is in imminent danger, she discovers that she might also play a role in its possible rebirth. Julie and Pete are rapidly converging in time—a chance encounter between them may be the Earth’s only hope.

Nancy Kress.
Fountain of Age: stories.
Small Beer Press. 2012

Nine new stories from a long-time star of the science fiction field. Includes the Hugo Award winner “The Erdmann Nexus” and the caper-inspired Nebula Award winning title story “Fountain of Age.”

Kress unpacks the future the way DNA investigators unravelled the double helix: one gene at a time. In many of these stories gene sculpting is illegal yet commonplace and the effects range between slow catastrophe (“End Game”), cosmic (“First Rites”), and tragic (“Safeguard”). Then there’s the morning Rochester disappears and Jenny has to rely on “The Kindness of Strangers.” And Jill, kidnapped by aliens, trying to learn the “Laws of Survival.” And Hope, whose Grandma is regretting the world built “By Fools Like Me.”

Contents

• The Erdmann Nexus. 2008
• The Kindness of Strangers. 2008
• By Fools Like Me. 2007
• First Rites. 2008
• End Game. 2007
• Images of Anna. 2009
• Laws of Survival. 2007
• Safeguard. 2007
• Fountain of Age. 2008

Nancy Kress.
Crossfire.
Tor. 2003

Nancy Kress.
Crucible.
Tor. 2004

Nancy Kress.
Probability Moon.
Tor. 2001

Nancy Kress.
Probability Sun.
Tor. 2001

Nancy Kress.
Probability Space.
Tor. 2002

Nancy Kress.
Yesterday's Kin.
Tachyon. 2014

Aliens have landed in New York City. After several tense months, they finally reveal the reason for their arrival.

The news is not good.

Geneticist Marianne Jenner is at the top of her field, but her family has hit rock bottom. Two of her children, Elizabeth and Ryan, are paranoid and constantly bickering—though they agree an alien conspiracy is in the works. Her youngest, Noah, is addicted to a drug that keeps temporarily altering his identity. Yet between the four of them, the course of human history will be forever changed.

Earth’s most elite scientists have ten months to prevent a disaster—and not everyone is willing to wait.

[This novella forms the opening section of the 2017 novel Tomorrow’s Kin]

Nancy Kress.
Tomorrow's Kin.
Tor. 2017

The aliens have arrived.

They’ve landed their embassy ship on a platform in New York Harbor, and will only speak with the United Nations. They say that their world is so different from Earth, in terms of gravity and atmosphere, that they cannot leave their ship. The population of Earth has erupted in fear and speculation.

One day, Dr. Marianne Jenner, an obscure scientist working with the human genome, receives an invitation that she cannot refuse. The Secret Service arrives at her college to escort her to New York. She has been invited, along with the secretary general of the UN and a few other ambassadors, to visit the alien embassy.

The truth is about to be revealed. Earth’s most elite scientists have ten months to prevent a disaster—and not everyone is willing to wait.

[The 2014 novella “Yesterday’s Kin” forms the opening section of this novel.]

Nancy Kress.
If Tomorrow Comes.
Tor. 2018

Ten years after the aliens left Earth, humanity has succeeded in building a ship, the Friendship, in which to follow them home to Kindred. Aboard are a crew of scientists and diplomats, plus a squad of Rangers to protect them. But when the Friendship arrives, they find nothing they expected. No interplanetary culture, no industrial base—and no cure for the spore disease that ravaged Earth.

Instead of the expected instantaneous jump between worlds, more than ten years have passed.

The scientists find themselves in a race against time to save humanity from a deadly virus while a clock of a different sort runs down on a military solution no less deadly to all.

Nancy Kress.
Terran Tomorrow.
Tor. 2018

The diplomatic mission from Earth to World ended in disaster. Earth’s scientists discovered that the Worlders were not the scientifically advanced culture they seemed, but rather the heirs of the alien technology that had brought them to World in the first place. Though Marianne Jenner and her team brought a limited quantity of the vaccine against the deadly spore cloud, they had no way to make enough more to save their hosts. The Earth scientists, and surviving diplomats, fled back to Earth.

But while the passengers experience only a few days in transit, twenty-eight years have passed on Earth since their departure. When Friendship arrives home, Jenner and her team find an Earth changed almost beyond recognition. The spore-cloud plague has devastated the population, and the human race has been reduced to a few million isolated survivors fighting bitterly for resources. The knowledge brought back by Marianne Jenner and her team may not be enough to turn the tide of ongoing warfare.