Customer Reviews

Maximum Light

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Kress is one of the current bright lights in science fiction. "Maximum Light" makes her shine all the brighter.

The story is set in the near-future, where an ecological disaster has savaged male fertility and the remnant aged population has legislated away technology need for the survival of the human race.

Kress weaves a story of a dying "senior citizen" scientist/politician, a young hellion, and one of the minority fertile men (who happens to be gay) into a punchy story. The story is well written. It is almost cyber-punk. Kress handles the three character perspectives well, although not perfectly. The two male characters had (IMHO) very female perspectives. These shaded into the "true" female character's. In addition, I paged through the didactic passages on "mankind fouling their own nest via better living through chemistry". However, the story's 250-odd pages meant these sections were mercifully short.

This book was a big surprise to me. The book seemed to thin to be any good. However, it was dense with ideas. In a period of bloated trilogies, pre-sequels, and never-ending-stories it is an example of how a talented author can write a story and end it without requiring the readers to wait two years. In places "Maximum Light" reminded me of Sterling's "Holy Fire" (recommended). These two novels ("Maximum Light" and "Holy Fire") may be the leading-edge of a gerontology sub-genre.

This book is real good. It not perfect, but "real good". Recommended.

This was my first book by Nancy Kress. Without knowing anything about else about her writing career, I could tell she is an experienced writer, with a good ability to communicate fairly complex ideas in straight forward fashion. She takes a solid premise - fertility has dropped to the point where the future of the species is threatened - and runs it through the impact on society. Youngsters are a treasured, indulged resource, while old folks litter the parks and streets, and infertile couples yearn for even one child, human or otherwise. That piece of the story is pretty well done.
The science fiction part of the story is a little weak, a danger when writing about the "near" future. The setting isn't that far into the future so there isn't THAT much different from society and technology today. For example, a hooker isn't wearing just a wig. No, this is sci fi, so she's wearing a holo(gram) wig. Kind of a cheap add-on thrown in during the editing process I thought as I read along. However, I have to add that there was a nice, light non-intrusive techno touch late in the book when Shana, the young female hero, rents a car. She pulls into a gas station to use a terminal to print out driving directions. That was nice, and almost here now. Sort of like making MapQuest easily available in public.
I also liked the multiple, first person approach. The story evolves through the eyes of the several main characters, Shana, a young, rough and tumble female soldier, Cameron, the young, gay male dancer and an old, wealthy scientist with political ties in addition to money (I'm forgetting his name right now.)I enjoyed this by the time I got to the end but had doubts as I was reading along. This sort of story is handled much more deftly by writers like Neal Stephanson in Snow Crash and Diamond Age. I would read another novel by Kress but I'm not going to actively chase it down.

I'm afraid I must join the ranks of those who like Kress but were disappointed with _Maximum Light_.

The book kept me engrossed during my morning and evening commutes, but it wasn't enough -- good enough or real enough -- to be excellent. I didn't feel comfortable with the picture Kress draws of women of the next generation: biologically-driven baby-obsessors. I found insulting her belief that women would rather have mutant living dolls than be without (real or pseudo) offspring. I also think she gives the government too much ethical credit. I don't want to include too many spoilers, but I will say that I don't think the choice offered to some characters near the end of the book is at all realistic. More likely would have been termination with extreme prejudice!

I did enjoy this book during my commutes, so I don't want to totally slam it, but from Nancy Kress I expected more. I *do* like that she's moving into a liklier near-future for her stories, and I hope she will keep writing about that world. It has promise of being very interesting. Unfortunately, the promise is not yet kept.

This is a first rate science fiction novel by one of the best writers in the genre. It is set in the near future, about thirty years from now, when chemical contamination of the environment has resulted in a precipitously falling birth rate and a high incidence of birth defects. Three totally different characters work to uncover an illegal business in the growing/manufacturing of human-animal babies. The intricate plot is beautifully constructed with suspenseful and logical twists and turns. Its greatest strength, though, may be its rich and believable character development. The three major characters are a successful young gay dancer, a sexy and wildly manipulative girl from the gutter, and an aging scientist. The chapters rotate between first-person narratives by each of them, and all three narrative styles are totally believable. This is one of the best science fiction novels of recent years, and I recommend it most highly.

"Maximum Light" is very good indeed. It is a great adventure story and a great piece of speculative fiction. If you are interested in the scientific hypothesis behind the endocrine/toxics element of the plot, I highly recommend "Our Stolen Future," by Theo Colburn.

This was somewhat outlandish, but engrossing. But DON'T read the back cover if you don't want a major plot twist spoiled.

Kress will always be able and articulate, but this is nowhere near as engaging, nuanced, or provocative as the Beggars books. For a far more compelling take on nearly the same premise, I strongly recommend P.D. James' The Children of Men.

I could not get beyond the writer's thesis that science at the time could not clone humans or figure out other ways to combat infertility. I picked up the book after having read her Beggar's series and having been eager for more of her writing. Maximum Light fell short of the unique ideas, characters and landscapes in Beggars. I think Ms. Kress was possibly trying to increase her coffers by spitting out a quick-read without too much thought about the premise that the story was built on.

The characters in Maximum Light do the job while you are reading this book, but once you're done, you may not remember them. Maximum Light is a little plot-driven, but overall good for a quick read on a lazy afternoon.

I am sure it is a juggling act for an author to provide both a fast paced action-adventure narrative AND to also provide a lot of food for thought ... but Kress does both (as usual for her I might add). Recent news stories that suggest the central thesis might in fact have been based on somewhat faulty science shouldn't matter ... the science was correct at the time Kress penned her book, and she thought through every aspect of the premise as the best sci-fi should.