Reviews

Nothing Human Golden Gryphon Press 2003

From Publisher's Weekly Nebula and Hugo winner Kress explores the personal and social repercussions of a hard‑science idea--manipulating genetics to try to compensate for ecological catastrophe--while delivering some refreshingly un­likable aliens out to save humanity. Lillie, conceived via in-vitro fertilization, falls into an inexplicable coma when she reaches puberty. Other children suffer similar symptoms. Relief is tempered with fear when the children wake up and announce that they bear a welcome message from aliens called the pribir. In the resulting hysteria, Lillie and other pribir­altered children are brought to a secure military compound, where the pribir step up their messages. Lillie volunteers to go aboard the pribir ship for more schooling, where she discovers that the pribir are masters of genetics but little else. When the children return, although only seven months have passed for them, 40 years have passed on Earth. A lack of focus due to the many points of view, a lengthy time span (three generations of children, two described in detail) and the children's failure to use any of the genetic info they've learned on the alien ship will annoy some readers, but others will appreciate the central question raised by this thought‑provoking novel: When humanity has destroyed itself and must be remade in a new image, does that mean we're not human any more? (Sept.) From Rocky Mountain News NOTHING HUMAN by Nancy Kress (Golden Gryphon, $26.95). Grade: A      Although her three Nebulas and one Hugo Award have come from her short fiction, Nancy Kress’ latest work might put her in line for the best novel award this year. In Nothing Human, the author has combined two of science fiction’s most enduring themes: man’s destruction of his planet and first alien contact. The result is a riveting and thoroughly engaging story.    In 1999, many women have become pregnant at an obscure clinic that specializes in in vitro fertilization. Fourteen years later, all the children from these births go into comas. As physicians and scientists try to find a cause for this anomaly, they discover strange growths in the olfactory areas of the brains of all the 13-year-olds.    When they awake, the first thing the children say is “The pribir are coming.” They have the unique ability to smell information sent to them by an extraterrestrial delegation that has arrived to jump-start the evolutionary process.    The children are all invited to go aboard the alien ship, but most refuse to leave their families. Those who do meet the two representatives if the pribir, Pete and Pam. The couple looks human, but it is obvious from their stoic natures and vast knowledge that they are not.    After several months of learning advanced genetics and other sciences from the pribir, the teens suddenly undergo uncontrollable sexual urges, with the result that, when they return to Earth, all of the girls are pregnant . . . with triplets.    The “pribir children,” as they have been tagged, are faced with another surprise: Because of time dilution, during the months they have spent on the ship, 40 years have passed on Earth, and those four decades have been enough for biological warfare and the greenhouse effect to send the planet into an unstoppable downward spiral.    Nothing human can survive into the next century; however, genetically enhanced progeny of the pribir children would have a chance. But after all of the tampering with their genome, would this generation still be a part of the human race? It is left for this small group to decide what will become of humanity.                                                                                     Mark Graham

Copyright ©1999 Nancy Kress