Customer Reviews

Crossfire

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Nancy Kress' style captivates me to the point that I am quite willing to overlook her shortcomings. I'll mention them though, just to get them out of the way: I found the beginning a bit rough, keeping track of a lot of characters all introduced at the same time. And there were occasional repetitions noticeable, and rather awkward foreshadowing.

These are each very minor flaws though, and don't interfere with a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Plotwise, we have a private company in the 23rd century building a spaceshp and ferrying 6,000 very rich people from a dying Earth to their new planet, Greentrees. These 6000 represent quite diverse groups and ideologies. There's a tribe of Cheyennes wanting to take up a traditional mode of life; 1000 Chinese and 1000 New Quakers each seeking separate ways of leading simpler and quieter lifestyles; a major charcter's extended family of ecologically obsessed scientists; a deposed Arabic royal family, along with a few other various assorted rich & eccentric individuals.

The challenges and difficulties of setting up a world with such large and diversified groups is well handled by the author. Further complication ensue with the discovery of aliens already living in villages and with the approach of a spaceship bearing a very different species approaching.

The core of the novel and its primary fascination come from the parts where humans and aliens work to avoid mistakes like those made on first contact. However, the stories & agendas of the various characters are also fascinating. At times, one might fear trite & ho-hum subplots such as the friction between the New Quaker doctor and his rebellious daughter, or the Corporation leader with a deep dark secret in his past, and yet we feel deeply enough for those involved that we are concerned with how each works out his and her challenges.

Having been away from science- reading for a long while, disenchanted with the depressing view of the future and the emphasis on hard science prevalent in the genre, I found this to be a refreshing, enjoyable return.

Nancy Kress makes it seem effortless. Her inspired plotting, characters and imagination remind me of Robert Silverberg in his prime. The only other author currently writing that is comparable in depth and quality is, perhaps, Patricia Anthony.

Crossfire tells the story of an intergalactic ark that carries a number of wealthy volunteers to an unsettled Earth-like planet. Jake Holman,the president of the venture, is the smooth talking negotiator of the group that manages to arrange co-operation among a widely diverse population with different agendas for wanting to settle a new world. Most believe that Earth is on its last legs.

The planet that's been surveyed appears to have no life and the habitat is well suited to humans. There's one catch; after arriving they discover that there is intelligent life of sorts. A number of villages inhabited by what they call the Furs. There are three different groups, though: One appears docile and, upon examination, appears to have some sort of uniform brain damage; the second is unusually aggressive and attacks one group of settlers; the third appears to be chronically drugged but it's not clear by what. A number of clues indicate that the planet may be a "giant petri dish" and other aliens have some vast, poorly understood experiment going on.

Just when things couldn't get any worse an alien ship is detected entering the star system and will be in orbit in less than 36 hours.

Kress manages to create convincing characters with vastly different agendas. She also conveys the complex moral and ethical decisions facing these colonists. There are a number of minor flaws; Jake Holman is too reminiscent of Lyle Kaufman a character from Kress' Probability series. Still, there is just enough of a measured difference to make his character interesting and more than a carbon copy of the other character. The dark past haunting Holman that Kress keeps hinting at gives added gravity to the character and his actions.

The conclusion of the book isn't as smooth as expected. That's no surprise, however, as Crossfire, like Proability, was designed as a single, giant novel split into three volumes (at least that's what rumor has it as being). The second volume will be particularly interesting as it will resolve a number of conflicts and awkward situations that could leave humanity stranded in the crossfire of intergalatic war.

Keep writing Nancy, you're doing a heck of a job.

Nancy Kress has the rare ability to combine interesting characters, moral dilemmas, and approachable concepts of science, fusing them into books that are impossible to put down. CROSSFIRE certainly fits that description.

A large, diverse human colony has settled on a distant planet, only to find that their new world is inhabited. To their relief, leader Jake Holman and his team discover that the aliens are primitive and passive. It also seems that the aliens aren't native to the planet. As he investigates further, Jake uncovers some startling truths about the aliens, the members of his team, and himself. But he has more immediate concerns: trying to stop an interstellar war.

I once heard Orson Scott Card say that good science fiction isn't about the future, it's about the present. In CROSSFIRE, Kress tackles moral issues with an expert hand. This novel is about rights, strained relationships, standing up for truth, sacrifice, redemption, and many more complex issues that we face today. Kress never writes with a heavy hand, but she always gives the reader plenty to think about in the midst of a great tale.
Highly recommended.

364 pages

Jake Holman and Gail Cutler head the expedition to colonize the new planet, Greentrees, with paying colonists from Earth. Among them are New Quakers, Cheyenne, a deposed Saudi royal family, Gail's rich eccentric family which includes the DeBeers, and assorted scientists of all stripes. They soon find that the planet is inhabited by kangaroo-like mammals, which they name "The Furs" who have been genetically engineered by another plant-like species, named "The Vines". The humans are captured and dragged all over the galaxy, caught in the crossfire of this species war.

Nancy Kress is the author of one of my top ten EVER favorite books, BEGGARS IN SPAIN (If you haven't read it - run and buy a copy!), so I wanted badly to like this book but just couldn't. I could barely force myself to finish it, and then the up-in-the-air ending made me throw my paperback across the room.

Reading the various reviews, I was looking forward to an interesting book on the struggles of travelling to and settling on a uninhabited planet, and then getting into first encounters. After reading it, I wouldn't use the word "interesting". It was fairly dull and uninspired. But it did help me fall asleep on several nights.

Usually I try to figure out why a book was written. What is the point of the book. A fun story is legitimate. Maybe some interesting technology. Colorful characters. Better if there is philosophical or moral dilemmas, or some sort of analogy. I am not sure any of that was present in this. There was some religious commentary, but it didn't really go anywhere.

One of Nancy Kress's strengths is that she is able to create characters whom the reader gets to know. In this respect, I think she's done her best work in "Crossfire."

But that's only one dimension of this fine book. The concept of a first-contact novel is of course not new, but Ms. Kress has put a terrific twist on the concept, and built a riveting story about a settlement of several thousand humans who depart a dying Earth in search of a new start--and get much more than they bargained for.

Of course, if they found a new Eden, we wouldn't have much of a story--and to be sure, once the settlers encounter aliens, the mystery only deepens, and doesn't get any easier once another group of aliens turns up.

So--we have great characters in a good story, but Kress doesn't stop there. The book has a brisk pace to its complex plot, which sweeps the reader through its numerous twists.

Topping it off is a resolution that, like so much in life, leaves important issues unsettled. In this case, I hope that means there will be a sequel!

This book has a great plot, characters that are interesting and well-developed, well-presented ethical and philosophical dilemmas - in short good science fiction plus good writing. Highly recommended.

A private corporation is set up in order to travel to and colonize a habitable planet Greentrees. The colonists belong to several unrelated cultural groups who manage to get along well enough to accomplish their initial goals. Unbeknown to the humans, Greentrees is used as an experimental station by Vines, plant-like non-DNA aliens who are at war with DNA-based Furs. Vines and Furs arrive at Greentrees in quick succession, and the humans become entangled in their conflict. With the mastery and sophistication that her readers have come to expect from her, Nancy Kress introduces a contingent of life-like, ultimately believable, complex, and unique characters. The chatracters, the overall premise of the book, the abundant details of alien and future human technology and biology make Crossfire a very worthwhile read. However, in the second half of the book, the plot twists are so fast-paced and unpredictable that I found them to be detracting from the quality of the novel. Were Crossfire a script for a TV show, Farscape comes to mind, these plot developments would have been perfect. The advantage of a novel is that the reader can hear the characters' inner voices. The ratio of character introspection to action was about right for me in the first half of the book but decidedly unbalanced in the second half. Still I highly recommend this book because the good points outweigh the not so good points.

*Spoiler free review* The book has a decent premise and the author knows her craft-- the prose is well written so no problems there.

The story is on the meh side though. It feels like it had the potential to be a little more epic in scope and just missed. There isn't enough gravity and depth with the stakes, characters, and worldbuilding.

I did like the character centric focus of the book and the interactions with the various aliens along with the first contact aspect, that was okay...

If someone is new to sci-fi or perhaps 11-17 yrs old, this would be a GREAT introductory book for them. I feel as if this is a diet low calorie space opera. Or if we were exercising our sci-fi muscles, this book would be a warm up.

Compared to Peter F. Hamilton, Kevin Anderson, David Drake, David Weber, etc. etc. this book just doesn't carry the same weight. Not to say its a bad book. The story is enjoyable and the writing makes it a pleasant read. Just saying that this book is 'light' when compared to other works.

But I did enjoy it and I had no problems finishing it.

A solid but unexceptional first contact story. A group of colonists from Earth discover that their chosen planet has a small population of sentients who are also not natives of the colony planet. The humans find themselves in the middle of an interplanetary war between 2 other species. The plotting is moderately clever because of Kress' inversion of one of the usual plot devices. In many books, the usual device is human conflict with some kind of eusocial, usually insectoid, colony species. This is often accompanied by alliance with other individualistic species. In this book, the human allies are somewhat pacifistic colony-type plants and the enemies an aggressive mammaloid species. Kress also includes a number of human Quaker colonists to reflect this theme.
Readers who enjoy this theme should look at Joan Slonczewski's neglected Still Forms on Foxfield.