"Now, what about beggars in Spain?"
"What?"
"You walk down a street in a poor country like Spain and you see a beggar. Do you give him a dollar?"
"Probably."
"Why?"
Just finished with my latest bus-book "Beggars in Spain" by Nancy Kress. It gets five out of five stars.
It's based in the near future during a time when parents can select genetic traits for their unborn children. The world energy crisis has been averted by a man named Kenzo Yagai who invented Y-energy cells and a new philosophy of economics. The main character, Leisha, is a "sleepless"; she has been genetically altered to not need sleep. She is beautiful, cheerful, and extremely intelligent. She has a sister - a fluke in a million twin - named Alice who has not been altered in any way.
The story follows the sisters from pre-birth to the week after Leisha graduates from university. It's short (I actually read the novella version) but packed with so much imagery and philosophy I can't begin to sum it up. This is a story about prejudice, economics, and love (and damn, don't I feel trite reducing the story down like that: "this is a story... about love"... blah, sounds like a bad Hallmark movie spiel... trust me though, this story is world's away from Hallmark).
The plot of the story kind of sneaks up on you. It tells you about Leisha's life and the people who shape her and some of the events and people seem insignificant... until the conclusion (which doesn't really conclude anything) where Leisha's world views and values (chiselled at throughout the story) finally burst apart to reveal...
Well, that would be telling.
But I was amazed at how all the threads wove together. This book had an underlying theme about how no one is insignificant, and how - even if we aren't all created equal - we are all created as unique and special beings with something to contribute to the world.
I recommend this book for several reasons: the plot, the characters, the intricate way Nancy Kress has built up her future society (it's still recognisably our world, and you can easily imagine it as our world in ten-twenty years time), the philosophy, the... but I'll just leave it at "this is a very good book" and hope that someone reading this will go out and find a copy of it to enjoy themselves.
Because it is a very good book.
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