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mattie 's review for:
Beggars in Spain
by Nancy Kress
What a slog to get through: 400 pages that should've been 200, and some great ideas, but such poor execution. The characters and their personal experiences were *so* thinly drawn it was really hard to get into the book. And while I love a good explanation of sociopolitical fallout from some crazy scifi event/technology, that was *all* the book was, at the expense of any kind of connection with the characters, or even a good description of experiental things like what it's like not to sleep. It was frustrating to have the author leave out details about things like the time a bunch of teenage Sleepless *did* sleep, by taking drugs, which was mentioned only very briefly in passing.
I had *no* idea why characters did the things they did: why was Jordan willingly working for WeSleep, when he seemed to hate them? Why did Kevin break up with Leisha, offstage, with no warning or explanation? I couldn't even keep a lot of the characters straight: Tony/Richard/Kevin/Will. When there *were* character-centric passages, they were often dull and needlessly long navelgazing about theoretical issues.
I *did* really like Miri, and found the last part of the book the most interesting. Sanctuary became a convincingly disturbing dystopia. But I didn't like the time jumps, and I was mystified by the fact that the title itself, often referenced in the book, came from a theoretical question about the more advantaged being attacked by the multitude of jealous beggars in Spain -- does Nancy Kress not know Spain is a first world country? Is she confusing it with disadvantaged Spanish-speaking Latin American countries? It also bothered me that she'd made the villain Muslim.
I had *no* idea why characters did the things they did: why was Jordan willingly working for WeSleep, when he seemed to hate them? Why did Kevin break up with Leisha, offstage, with no warning or explanation? I couldn't even keep a lot of the characters straight: Tony/Richard/Kevin/Will. When there *were* character-centric passages, they were often dull and needlessly long navelgazing about theoretical issues.
I *did* really like Miri, and found the last part of the book the most interesting. Sanctuary became a convincingly disturbing dystopia. But I didn't like the time jumps, and I was mystified by the fact that the title itself, often referenced in the book, came from a theoretical question about the more advantaged being attacked by the multitude of jealous beggars in Spain -- does Nancy Kress not know Spain is a first world country? Is she confusing it with disadvantaged Spanish-speaking Latin American countries? It also bothered me that she'd made the villain Muslim.