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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can completely understand why it won so many awards. It reminds me of [a:Kim Stanley Robinson|1858|Kim Stanley Robinson|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1217240935p2/1858.jpg]'s Mars series of books, which I liked but it took me awhile to get into. This book grabbed me from the beginning not only about the story but about the political and nuanced questions that were asked. Similar to the Mars series I'm probably going to be thinking about this for a good time afterword. I like it when I book makes me think. I'm usually more on the Fantasy line of things but this book and [a:Kim Stanley Robinson|1858|Kim Stanley Robinson|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1217240935p2/1858.jpg]'s make me want to get more into the SciFi genre more and more. Maybe it is because I'm getting older but I'm wondering more and more what will the future be like and with all our social debates where will end up. This book allows me to look at the good, bad & the ugly and ponder this question.
What bothered me most about this book is how spoon-fed information is, how bluntly themes are presented. The first two parts are actually quite enjoyable, but the other two are too insane to get behind.
3.25 stars
Characters: 184 (no, this is not a joke)
Take away: If you read this novel, only read book 1/part1. You will thank me later <3
Reasons I struggled with this book despite the premise being awesome:
1) To the best of my ability I counted at least 184 characters, I realized I was going to have to dig deep when I was only 13% of the way into the book and there were already 47 characters. So many of them were one-off characters that were never referenced again. Why do authors do this?!
2) This book was way too long. The story is broken into 4 books, the first book was an award-winning nebula short story from 1991. And I would say that if I had only read the first book I probably would have given it 4.5 stars. But the longer it went on the longer I was hoping it would end faster.
3) The moral philosophy was just too heavy-handed for my taste. There was a weird obsession with Lincoln and other founding fathers that I found to be really odd, and didn't fit that well into the story.
4) Some of the nicknames for the gene-edited and non-gene edited people were cringy. Donkey? Liver? Beggars? To hear characters talk about other characters with these names just annoyed and embarrassed me.
5) A 15 years old girl gets married to an old man and subsequently she has his children, and no one in the plot thought that was fucked up? wtf
6) And the final conclusion of the book had the stunning realization that poor and/or non-gene-modified humans have value. Wow
Characters: 184 (no, this is not a joke)
Take away: If you read this novel, only read book 1/part1. You will thank me later <3
Reasons I struggled with this book despite the premise being awesome:
1) To the best of my ability I counted at least 184 characters, I realized I was going to have to dig deep when I was only 13% of the way into the book and there were already 47 characters. So many of them were one-off characters that were never referenced again. Why do authors do this?!
2) This book was way too long. The story is broken into 4 books, the first book was an award-winning nebula short story from 1991. And I would say that if I had only read the first book I probably would have given it 4.5 stars. But the longer it went on the longer I was hoping it would end faster.
3) The moral philosophy was just too heavy-handed for my taste. There was a weird obsession with Lincoln and other founding fathers that I found to be really odd, and didn't fit that well into the story.
4) Some of the nicknames for the gene-edited and non-gene edited people were cringy. Donkey? Liver? Beggars? To hear characters talk about other characters with these names just annoyed and embarrassed me.
5) A 15 years old girl gets married to an old man and subsequently she has his children, and no one in the plot thought that was fucked up? wtf
6) And the final conclusion of the book had the stunning realization that poor and/or non-gene-modified humans have value. Wow
I couldn’t get through the first chapter - the descriptions of genetically modifying babies and a father so callously wanting to abort an unwanted, unmodified twin to keep it from “stealing nutrients from the good one” is just not something I can personally stomach.
Too scientific for me maybe but pretty good. Except for the end. Like the book end exactly where it was getting interesting ... It's frustrating.
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Just isn't very well put together collected into parts like this. Interesting premise (even on reread), but... not enough.
Truly great piece of work, all the prizes were well deserved
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I love science fiction books that extrapolate current social issues into the future. And that is exactly what Kress does with Beggars in Spain. She takes the ideas of Ayn Rand and takes them to two extremes. One extreme is a society that becomes totally dependent on the works of others and cannot survive on their own. The other extreme is a society that is focused only on the individual and their personal productivity in which that productivity inherently benefits society. But once that person can no longer care for themselves, society is under no obligation to care for them. Both extremes are pretty depressing.
The book also deals with prejudice and fear of others who are different. It reminded me a lot of the X-Men and New Mutants comic books of the late 80s and early 90s and the way they handled the same issue. Of course, this was written around the same time, so it is easy to see why the similarities would exist as these were issues that society was dealing with as a whole back then.
I enjoyed playing with the idea of a segment of the human race which needed no sleep and the advantage they would have over the rest of society. Kress brings in some interesting tangents that I wasn't expecting such as how might the lack of dreaming for the "sleepless" affect them psychologically.
The book was a series of stories based off Kress's novella which won the Hugo and Nebula Awards. I felt this story, which was the first in this book, was by far the strongest in terms of character development and world development. The following stories vary, but all are good.
I enjoyed this and would recommend reading the first story. That should get you hooked to read the rest.
The book also deals with prejudice and fear of others who are different. It reminded me a lot of the X-Men and New Mutants comic books of the late 80s and early 90s and the way they handled the same issue. Of course, this was written around the same time, so it is easy to see why the similarities would exist as these were issues that society was dealing with as a whole back then.
I enjoyed playing with the idea of a segment of the human race which needed no sleep and the advantage they would have over the rest of society. Kress brings in some interesting tangents that I wasn't expecting such as how might the lack of dreaming for the "sleepless" affect them psychologically.
The book was a series of stories based off Kress's novella which won the Hugo and Nebula Awards. I felt this story, which was the first in this book, was by far the strongest in terms of character development and world development. The following stories vary, but all are good.
I enjoyed this and would recommend reading the first story. That should get you hooked to read the rest.