Customer Reviews

Crucible

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Nancy Kress continues her space-colonization story with this novel, a sequel to "Crossfire."

In terms of plot, the book opens as the colonists on Greentrees are still caught between the rock of "Furs" and the hard place of "Vines"--alien races at war with each other. The humans are allied with the Vines, who have a plan to eliminate the Fur threat.

If that weren't enough, a ship of humans arrives from Earth, bringing ambitions and prejudices of their own--and a whole new dimension to the conflict.

Without giving away too much, the story unravels a thorny briar patch of conflicts at many levels--among humans, planets, interstellar species, ecologies, technologies, biologies, relativity, and especially philosophies.

It's a massive undertaking on Ms. Kress's part, and she succeeds brilliantly. One of her strengths as a writer is that she has an appreciation for technology without being seduced by it. Better still, she creates very believable characters--the only other writer I can think of who created characters as convincingly was John D. MacDonald. But more than just a character study, she has an intricate, well-paced plot with a resolution that doesn't let anyone off the hook.

Best of all, there's enough threads to support a third entry in the series.

Nancy Kress's "Crucible", the sequel to her novel "Crossfire", is noteworthy mainly since it has more of her excellent world-building featured in her best novels. Alas her characters are not really all that memorable, with the sole exceptions of Alex Cutler and General Julian Martin, but even they are depicted in scenes that seem all too predictable. Here in "Crucible", the human colonists of the planet Greentrees must contend with yet another battle between the alien civilizations of the Vines and Furs, and the unexpected visit of an Earth warship, Crucible, and its charismatic commander, General Julian Martin. Having enjoyed some of Kress's earlier work, I am surprised that her characters and plot aren't nearly as memorable as those from "Beggars in Spain".

Four decades ago Jake Holman and thousands of settlers following him were trapped in the middle of an inter-galaxy war between the militaristic humanoid Furs and the serene flora-like Vines. Jake and his followers supported the Vines against the bellicose Furs though the odds heavily favored the latter. The Vines used a last-hope virus to remove the aggressive tendencies of the Furs.

Jake is old and frail, but feels proud of his accomplishments especially the diversity he brought to Greentrees. Still a fierce contention exists between the Chinese in the city Hope of Heaven against the technocrats of Mira City. When the earth ship CRUCIBLE arrives on Greentrees, Captain Julian Martin ruthlessly uses that antagonistic rivalry to further his ambitions to become planetary dictator. He seduces Technology Resources Allocation Officer Alexandra Cutler, a member of the Mira City executive triumvirate, and other key citizens to do his bidding. Off planet the fighting between the Furs and the Vines remains heated. On and off the orb, Jake's dream is turning nightmarish.

The sequel to CROSSFIRE, CRUCIBLE contains plenty of action and intriguing alien species with deeply developed cultures. The story line moves along two paths, off and on the planet, but also is somewhat difficult to follow because of the complex continuous changes as to what is the core of the tale. Most interesting for those who read the first novel is how much Jake has aged from the swashbuckling hero to an elderly statesman ignored by the next generation as being yesterday's news. Fans, as they did with Nancy Kress' previous outer space cerebral thriller, will ponder the author's concept that society needs to defend the right to live alternate .and minority lifestyles.

Harriet Klausner

I've read 8 books by Nancy Kress but after this one I'm not sure I'll read more. This book degrades into military fiction, and leaves out the development of characters so they are nothing but shells. This book is sorely unrealistic leaving the story unbelievable. I can't explain too much without giving away the story, but basically, the Furs who are supposed to be a very intelligent race are not smart enough to use ceramics and know nothing about quarantines. I thought the setup for this series was interesting but I think Kress is concentrating on a prolific career instead of worrying about plausibility. Let's hope the next series is not about war with aliens.

Laborious allegory (after the Patriot Act) which I enjoyed but is better as an action thriller.