The Event Horizon

2. Reviews

2.1 ``Beggars' Banquet'' by Nancy Kress, reviewed by Nigel Tan

A re-read of Nancy Kress's `Beggars' Trilogy reveals its strengths...and flaws

I read all the `Beggars' books (``Beggars In Spain'', ``Beggars and Choosers'' and ``Beggars' Ride'') when they came out in the early half of the 90's, the last coming out in 1996. I enjoyed them hugely. Lately, having some time on my hands, I re-read them just to see how they'd measure up to a second reading. Surprisingly, they held up pretty well, except that a few flaws which seemed minor in the whole scheme of things became a whole lot more jarring the second time around.

The trilogy dwells on a group of genetically modified individuals with augmented intelligence, the Sleepless, who do not have to sleep. Their struggle to survive as society breaks down due to a widening class divide between the Sleepless and the Sleepers forms the backbone of the trilogy and fertile ground for Kress to dissect the human condition, as well as the impact of technology on society and the individual.

Kress is deeply interested in the impact of technology. What if we could genetically modify our children? What if only the rich did so, and would their rich children be even more successful and richer? What *would* be the definition of `human'? Who can be trusted to control new technology with far-reaching implications for all of humanity, such as near-immortality? Is anyone capable of controlling the technology? Is it the moral responsibility of the scientist to ensure that his inventions are not abused by the unscrupulous? Kress offers no easy answers to these questions as the characters grapple with these weighty issues, and to her credit, she does not offer any simplistic feel-good solutions either. None of those ``just as the Earth was on the brink of collapse, our hero invents a stardrive that takes mankind out to the stars!'' nonsense.

Much like Robert Reed, Kress's characters are well written, with complex motivations, and just as capable of being noble or bone-headed about things. Her characters evolve from novel to novel, and quite bravely, (warning: Spoiler ahead!) she opts to kill off several major characters in the course of the trilogy as they become overtaken by events. Which was a pity as I was gradually beginning to like them.

My main grouse on re-reading was my realisation that Nancy Kress simply does not have that great an ear for dialogue. Many of the character launch into polemics about their favourite topics (read: Kress's favourite topics) and they all sound the same when they rant (read: Nancy Kress ranting). Much of the ranting, in fact, sounds stylistically like the earlier (and possibly much less skillful) work of Sheri S. Tepper. She certainly does need a more deft hand in bringing up and discussing issues, instead of using large chunks of novel space for characters to argue with each other.

The series eventually ends in a rather unexpected note, bringing some threads of the novel to a rather abrupt end, while exploring the implications of a few newly developed threads, especially nanotechnology. It's a pity that though Kress explores the biological and societal implications of genetic modifications fully, she does not extend the same treatment to nanotechnology (which plays a bigger role in the latter half of the trilogy), unlike the fertile nanotech expostulations of Neal Stephenson's ``The Diamond Age''. But perhaps, the trilogy being initially grounded on and fertilised by the idea of genetic modifications, Kress simply wanted to deal with it as the primary focus. Which, in full consideration, she does splendidly.

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