Beaker's Dozen [Anglais] [Relié]

Although you can't judge a book by its cover, sometimes you can make a few good guesses about it based on the title. This is definitely true of Beaker's Dozen, a collection of short stories by renowned SF author Nancy Kress, who writes, "Of the thirteen stories in this book, eight are concerned with what might come out of the beakers and test tubes and gene sequencers of microbiology." What modesty prohibits Kress from adding is that all of the stories are excellent works by one of SF's finest writers. The highlights here are Kress's Hugo and Nebula Award-winning story "Beggars in Spain" (later expanded into an acclaimed novel of the same name), and the Nebula Award-winning story "The Flowers of Aulit Prison." --Craig E. Engler

A crucial aesthetic issue in SF is how well the science and fiction meld. In Kress's writings, there are never the crude info-dumps or token, thin characters endemic to much of the genre. Every story of the 13 reprinted in this volume has, in addition to the science?sometimes rigorous and detailed, sometimes extrapolated and fantastically ramified?compelling human beings (or other sentients) entangled with one another in ways that are psychologically real. Leading off is the Hugo-winning novella "Beggars in Spain" (1991), which led to Kress's highly regarded Beggars series of novels. From the simple premise of a genetically engineered ability to do without sleep, Kress weaves a compelling tale of factional and personal conflicts in a future meritocracy. Closing the collection is another novella, "Dancing on Air," in which Kress explores the implications of genetic enhancements against the perfectly apt background of stage mothers and their thoroughbred ballerina daughters. This story contains some of the best "alien" POV narrative anyone is likely to see, with the "alien" being a genetically enhanced Doberman. Nearly perfect is "Always True To Thee, in My Fashion," a parodic take on the fashion world in which mood-altering designer drugs go in and out with the clothes. Other stories explore chaos theory, alternate history and, exquisitely in "Summer Wind," the human experience of aging and the passage of time. A recurrent weakness is the crowding of thematic metaphors in a heavy-handed way, so that the plotting at times is greatly overworked. Subplots sometimes converge and provide resonance to the theme as if they created a mathematical proof rather than an organic story. Even in these tales, however, there is much to admire and fascinate.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The 13 short stories Kress gathers here include "Beggars in Spain," the Hugo and Nebula award-winner that spawned her best-known work, the Beggars trilogy. As noteworthy are "Ars Longa," "Fault Lines," "Sex Education," and "Unto the Daughters." Kress belongs to that minority of writers who are equally at home with all lengths of story, although her character-driven and sometimes outright psychological approach to narrative actually works better in short fiction. A fair number of these stories are available in other books, but they bear reprinting, especially in a collection like this that can serve as a handy introduction to a major literary sf and fantasy talent. Roland Green

Kress's first story collection since The Aliens of Earth (1993) comprises 13 tales, 199197, and includes the original novella-length version of her splendid Beggars in Spain. Kress shows her talents to best effect when combining several situations and ideas: an alien detective story, in which the murderer does the investigating, that probes the nature of consensual reality; designer drugs, mysterious deaths, and the piercing emotions aroused when love ends abruptly; a fine Sleeping Beauty variant; Adam and Evethe feminist version; and an odd, provocative, insidious yarn that, in one of several possible interpretations, promises that on Judgement Day it will be God, not humanity, wholl be judged. Also on the agenda: ideal beings and chaos theory; genetic engineering and vengeance; cloning; drug-resistant bacteria on the rampage; plus implants, ballet, and mothers. Finally, in a lighter vein: thanks to his interfering old schoolteacher, Walt Disney turns his back on cartoons and instead becomes a third-rate painter; and emotions are acquired, displayed, and discarded like designer fashions. With her focus always on people rather than on gadgets or even ideas, Kress at her best is as incisive and subtle as any. And if you don't like the stories, you can always ponder the collection's baffling title. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"It should now be clear to all that Nancy Kress is a dominant figure in modern science fiction."--Analog.
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"The twenty-first century, it's often remarked, will transform our knowledge of biology, in the same way that the twentieth century transformed physics. With knowledge of course, comes application. And with the application of all we are learning about genetic engineering come social and ethical questions, some of them knotty.

This is where science fiction enters, stage left. Scientific laboratories are where the new technologies are rehearsed. Science fiction rehearses the implications of those technologies. What might we eventually do with out new-found power? Should we do it? Who should do it? Who will be affected? How? Is that a good thing or not? For whom?

Of the thirteen stories in this book, eight of them are concerned with what might come out of the beakers and test tubes and gene sequencers of microbiology. Not everything in these stories will come to pass. Possibly nothing in them will; fiction is not prediction. But I hope the stories at least raise questions about the world rushing in onus at the speed--not of light--but of thought."

-- Nancy Kress from her introduction
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Kress's best short stories of the decade are collected here for the first time, including many award nominees, and the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novella, "Beggars in Spain".

"The twenty-first century, it's often remarked, will transform our knowledge of biology, in the same way that the twentieth century transformed physics. With knowledge, of course, comes application. And with the application of all we are learning about genetic engineering come social and ethical questions, some of them knotty.

"This is where science fiction enters, stage left. Scientific laboratories are where the new technologies are rehearsed. Science fiction rehearses the implications of those technologies. What might we eventually do with our new-found power? Should we do it? Who should do it? Who will be affected? How? Is that a good thing or not? For whom?

"Of the thirteen stories in this book, eight of them are concerned with what might come out of the beakers and test tubes and gene sequencers of microbiology. Not everything in these stories will come to pass. Possibly nothing in them will; fiction is not prediction. But I hope the stories at least raise questions about the world rushing in on us at the speed--not of light--but of thought."

-Nancy Kress from her introduction --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Nancy Kress was born and raised in upstate New York, where she spent most of her childhood either reading or playing in the woods. She earned a bachelor's and master's degree in education, as well as an M.A. in English. While she was pregnant with the second of her two sons, she started writing fiction. She had never planned on becoming a writer, but staying at home full-time with infants left her time to experiment.

In 1990 she went full-time as an SF writer. The first thing she wrote in this new status was the novella version of Beggars In Spain, which won both the Hugo and the Nebula Award. She is the author of more than twenty books, including more than a dozen novels of science fiction and fantasy, as well as three story collections, and two books on writing. Of her most recent novels, Probability Space (Tor, 2002) won the John W. Campbell Award for Best SF novel. Her short fiction has appeared in all the usual places, garnering her one Hugo and three Nebula Awards. Her work has been translated into Swedish, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Japanese, Croatian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Greek, Hebrew, and Russian. She is also the monthly "Fiction" columnist for Writer's Digest Magazine and she teaches writing regularly at various places, including Clarion and The Writing Center in Bethesda, Maryland. She currently resides in Rochester, New York.
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