Book Review: After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, by Nancy Kress
A pre- and post-apocalyptic time travel story.
Tachyon Publications, 2012, 189 pages
The year is 2035. After ecological disasters nearly destroyed the Earth, 26 survivors-the last of humanity-are trapped by an alien race in a sterile enclosure known as the Shell.
Fifteen-year-old Pete is one of the Six-children who were born deformed or sterile and raised in the Shell. As, one by one, the survivors grow sick and die, Pete and the Six struggle to put aside their anger at the alien Tesslies in order to find the means to rebuild the earth together. Their only hope lies within brief time-portals into the recent past, where they bring back children to replenish their disappearing gene pool.
Meanwhile, in 2013, brilliant mathematician Julie Kahn works with the FBI to solve a series of inexplicable kidnappings. Suddenly her predictive algorithms begin to reveal more than just criminal activity. As she begins to realize her role in the impending catastrophe,simultaneously affecting the Earth and the Shell, Julie closes in on the truth. She and Pete are converging in time upon the future of humanity-a future which might never unfold.
Weaving three consecutive time lines to unravel both the mystery of the Earth's destruction and the key to its salvation, this taut post-apocalyptic thriller offers a topical plot with a satisfying twist.
As the title suggests, After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall is an apocalyptic tale told from three perspectives: before, during, and after the end of the world. Chapters alternative between 2014 (the present) and 2035 (the future).
In the present, the main character is an FBI contractor named Julie Khan who's been brought in for her brilliant mathematical skills to figure out a string of mysterious, seemingly random thefts and child abductions. Alternating with Julie's chapters are interludes describing the growth of a mysterious enzyme that's killing the root systems of plants worldwide. Julie eventually realizes that not only is she tracking a mysterious kidnapping/burglary ring, but she is also tracking end-times clues, and they are related.
In 2035, the end times already happened. Earth was supposedly destroyed by the alien "Tesslies," who have imprisoned/sheltered a tiny band of human survivors in a "Shell," which provides unlimited clean air and water but very limited agricultural resources. The Tesslies also gave the humans a time travel platform. At irregular intervals, it lights up, and one person can jump on, go back in time to the Before Times, and grab whatever they can find in the 20 minutes they have before they are yanked back to 2035. In this way, they collect tools, food, random tech... and children. Only children can survive time travel; adults die. The survivors grab any children they find (including infants) because most of them are infertile, and they need to restart the human race.
Eventually all these threads intersect. Julie figures out what's going on. The end of the world approaches. And the survivors find out the truth about the Tesslies.
This novella was a quick read and a pretty good story. The science fiction is reasonable if hand-wavey. Just enough is explained to be coherent, without explaining the Tesslies or the apocalypse in excessive detail.
There was one thing that marred the story a lot, though. I've never read Nancy Kress before, but while she has the sci-fi down, she's definitely got a Woman Writing Men problem.
Her protagonist, Julie, is a brilliant mathematical genius who is the only person in the world who figures out what's actually happening. Also, early in the story, we learn she's been having an affair with her married FBI boss. She is completely morally untroubled by this, and when she becomes pregnant, she straightforwardly tells him that there's no need for him to be involved. He accepts this because he has a family already and it would be complicated; he kinda sorta offers to help and stay involved, but she don't need no man, who does? The government bureaucrat who is the only other person who comes close to the truth is a glory-seeking sociopathic egotist, and Julie immediately recognizes he's not going to actually warn people in time. Julie's brother exists to be a distant presence who lets her know the Yellowstone Caldera is about to blow but otherwise he's just another expendable useless dude in the story.
(Julie, of course, gives birth to a girl.)
Meanwhile, in 2035, McCallister is the wise, brilliant woman who is leading the survivors and trying to "reboot" human society, including by putting her own still-functional uterus in service to the cause. She has to do this with the only still fertile males around, including a teenage boy.
The teenage boys, written by Kress, read like a woman's vague understanding of what teenage boys are like, written as if they are essentially autistic, horny sociopaths. When we get a view into the thoughts of Pete, the secondary character, he's basically a linear anger-bot who thinks about bringing back good loot, wanting to fuck McCallister, being angry when he can't fuck McCallister, being angry that another boy gets to fuck McCallister, resentfully fucking the other girl who's willing to fuck him, masturbating, and wanting to kill Tesslies. It's a big character-development moment when he realizes that the people whose children he is abducting feel bad about it, and when he eventually meets Julie and she explains how the world is ending.
I wanted to believe that Pete was intentionally written as an emotionally stunted, possibly autistic kid who grew up in a dystopian post-apocalyptic enclave with no real parental figures, but the other teenage boys are not any more functional. I think this is how Kress really thinks teenage boys think.
Despite being distracted by the Men Are Useless vibe (hint: they also caused the apocalypse), I liked this story otherwise, but it has made me wary of approaching another "hard SF" story by Kress.
My complete list of book reviews.
Tachyon Publications, 2012, 189 pages
The year is 2035. After ecological disasters nearly destroyed the Earth, 26 survivors-the last of humanity-are trapped by an alien race in a sterile enclosure known as the Shell.
Fifteen-year-old Pete is one of the Six-children who were born deformed or sterile and raised in the Shell. As, one by one, the survivors grow sick and die, Pete and the Six struggle to put aside their anger at the alien Tesslies in order to find the means to rebuild the earth together. Their only hope lies within brief time-portals into the recent past, where they bring back children to replenish their disappearing gene pool.
Meanwhile, in 2013, brilliant mathematician Julie Kahn works with the FBI to solve a series of inexplicable kidnappings. Suddenly her predictive algorithms begin to reveal more than just criminal activity. As she begins to realize her role in the impending catastrophe,simultaneously affecting the Earth and the Shell, Julie closes in on the truth. She and Pete are converging in time upon the future of humanity-a future which might never unfold.
Weaving three consecutive time lines to unravel both the mystery of the Earth's destruction and the key to its salvation, this taut post-apocalyptic thriller offers a topical plot with a satisfying twist.
As the title suggests, After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall is an apocalyptic tale told from three perspectives: before, during, and after the end of the world. Chapters alternative between 2014 (the present) and 2035 (the future).
In the present, the main character is an FBI contractor named Julie Khan who's been brought in for her brilliant mathematical skills to figure out a string of mysterious, seemingly random thefts and child abductions. Alternating with Julie's chapters are interludes describing the growth of a mysterious enzyme that's killing the root systems of plants worldwide. Julie eventually realizes that not only is she tracking a mysterious kidnapping/burglary ring, but she is also tracking end-times clues, and they are related.
In 2035, the end times already happened. Earth was supposedly destroyed by the alien "Tesslies," who have imprisoned/sheltered a tiny band of human survivors in a "Shell," which provides unlimited clean air and water but very limited agricultural resources. The Tesslies also gave the humans a time travel platform. At irregular intervals, it lights up, and one person can jump on, go back in time to the Before Times, and grab whatever they can find in the 20 minutes they have before they are yanked back to 2035. In this way, they collect tools, food, random tech... and children. Only children can survive time travel; adults die. The survivors grab any children they find (including infants) because most of them are infertile, and they need to restart the human race.
Eventually all these threads intersect. Julie figures out what's going on. The end of the world approaches. And the survivors find out the truth about the Tesslies.
This novella was a quick read and a pretty good story. The science fiction is reasonable if hand-wavey. Just enough is explained to be coherent, without explaining the Tesslies or the apocalypse in excessive detail.
There was one thing that marred the story a lot, though. I've never read Nancy Kress before, but while she has the sci-fi down, she's definitely got a Woman Writing Men problem.
Her protagonist, Julie, is a brilliant mathematical genius who is the only person in the world who figures out what's actually happening. Also, early in the story, we learn she's been having an affair with her married FBI boss. She is completely morally untroubled by this, and when she becomes pregnant, she straightforwardly tells him that there's no need for him to be involved. He accepts this because he has a family already and it would be complicated; he kinda sorta offers to help and stay involved, but she don't need no man, who does? The government bureaucrat who is the only other person who comes close to the truth is a glory-seeking sociopathic egotist, and Julie immediately recognizes he's not going to actually warn people in time. Julie's brother exists to be a distant presence who lets her know the Yellowstone Caldera is about to blow but otherwise he's just another expendable useless dude in the story.
(Julie, of course, gives birth to a girl.)
Meanwhile, in 2035, McCallister is the wise, brilliant woman who is leading the survivors and trying to "reboot" human society, including by putting her own still-functional uterus in service to the cause. She has to do this with the only still fertile males around, including a teenage boy.
The teenage boys, written by Kress, read like a woman's vague understanding of what teenage boys are like, written as if they are essentially autistic, horny sociopaths. When we get a view into the thoughts of Pete, the secondary character, he's basically a linear anger-bot who thinks about bringing back good loot, wanting to fuck McCallister, being angry when he can't fuck McCallister, being angry that another boy gets to fuck McCallister, resentfully fucking the other girl who's willing to fuck him, masturbating, and wanting to kill Tesslies. It's a big character-development moment when he realizes that the people whose children he is abducting feel bad about it, and when he eventually meets Julie and she explains how the world is ending.
I wanted to believe that Pete was intentionally written as an emotionally stunted, possibly autistic kid who grew up in a dystopian post-apocalyptic enclave with no real parental figures, but the other teenage boys are not any more functional. I think this is how Kress really thinks teenage boys think.
Despite being distracted by the Men Are Useless vibe (hint: they also caused the apocalypse), I liked this story otherwise, but it has made me wary of approaching another "hard SF" story by Kress.
My complete list of book reviews.