To be fair, I think I had a similar reaction to Nothing Human. So why did I have so much trouble with Beggars in Spain? I was constantly aware of how far through the book I was, and I never had that urge to continue reading like I do with books that really grip me. And Kress is writing posthuman fiction set not in the far-off future but in the present and in the near-future she is writing about what our lives might be like in a decade or three. More importantly, she considers how the un-altered will react. Whether she is altering the entire human genome, as in Nothing Human, or tweaking just a single trait, as she did here and in 'Act One,' Kress considers the implications of her changes in how these altered humans think and behave. Kress is an awesome author of serious gene-manipulation fiction, by which I mean she doesn't use genetic engineering just as a science-fiction plot device or a background phenomenon, as one might see in other books where other motifs are more important. I recognize her familiar themes from Nothing Human and 'Act One'.

Once again, Nancy Kress uses genetic engineering to explore what it means to be human and how our society treats those who are different. But if I did not need to sleep-had, in fact, grown up without ever knowing sleep-would I miss it? How would I be different? What if I weren't alone?īeggars in Spain has a simple premise-that certain children have been genetically-engineered so that they do not sleep-with enormous implications (such as the Sleepless not aging). For now, however, I like my sleep, and I will defend to the death my right to snore it. Going to bed at midnight and waking up at nine in the morning is a perk of my madcap, Bohemian university student lifestyle that I will have to abandon once I become a stern, starched-collar high school teacher. I prefer at least eight, preferably nine hours of sleep each night.

Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress