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Beggars In Spain

Beggars In Spain

Author: Nancy Kress

Beggars in Spain sounds like some awful pulp fantasy - or even worse, some heartwrenching modern societal tale designed to make us all feel guilty and concious of the dreadful state of the world. Well, it's not. Beggars of Spain is good old hard science fiction, this time with genetic modification and a nice dose of biology. It began life as a novella, before being expanded due to its just how well received it was. The premise is simple, and one we're sure you've all thought of - what would we be like if we didn't need to sleep? Of course, what we expect science fiction to do here is to show the horrible effects of a lack of sleep, and have the world spiral into some dystopia. And that's exactly what happens, except it isn't. The horrible effects of a lack of sleep? Entirely social. This is a great book for examining society on a large scale, intertwined with some incredibly intriguing and forward thinking technological advances, hence why we've placed it in our top 25 hard science fiction books. The author has described it as attempting to wrangle with Ayn Rand and Ursula Le Guin, so if political science fiction is your thing, make sure to pick this up! While science has proven the science behind Tau Zero as not possible, the book can still be appreciated as a great science fiction book without the actual pure science part being correct.

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