Sea Change

Surprisingly, for all my years in sci-fi, I've never read Nancy Kress. I think it has often been a subject/person (me) mismatch, so when Tachyon Publications had a review copy up of Sea Change, a novella that focused on current issues in the environment, I jumped at the chance to give her a try. Expecting sci-fi, this has a strong speculative fiction feel looking at genetically modified foods.

The blurb promises "a smart, mesmerizing bio-thriller, with a hard, nuanced look at the perils and promise of technology," a advertisement it only partially delivers. Lengthy sections of text read like a piece for Sierra Club's magazine, significantly derailing any tension that the spy pretension develops. I wouldn't argue with the 'nuanced,' show more description, although I'd say it's a pretty one-sided presentation of the advantages. If I remember correctly, the GMOs are in reference to plans, for instance, not animals that might escape enclosures and bread with wild populations (salmon are a hot point issue on this). Lacking such finesse, I'm not sure I would call it particularly 'nuanced,' as much as a 'thought-experiment on what happens with a reactive public and equally reactive politicians.'

Regardless, what I hoped to read was a bio-thriller. Did it deliver? Sort of. The main character, Caroline Denton, is a middle-aged divorced woman who has become an operative in the Org. The Org is an underground group researching and applying genetic modifications and operates along the lines of splinter-cells. Caroline has been a life-long activist, but the Org has been her most serious work since a tragedy. The story moves back and forth between Caroline's earlier life and her current work in the Org as her cell is under attack. I found ignoring most of her internal GMO diatribe kept up the 'thriller' pace.

Prose was clean and focused, which I enjoyed. Caroline, also known in the Org as Renata, and her ex-husband definitely achieved the feeling of real, complicated people to me. In fact, at the end, I had to wonder if the true focus was the GMOs, or if it was more of a character study of Caroline. A quick read with a hopeful ending, it didn't quite scratch my enviro-disaster itch, but it was a solid character reflection.

Oh, and by the way, the moving house makes for a fabulous beginning, but it's a McGuffin. A taxi would have served just as well.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for an advance reader copy. All opinions are, as always, my own, inasmuch as the assorted collection of partially remembered data and experiences processed through organic matter can be. show less

In a world that turned against GMOs after one went very wrong and killed a lot of kids, a woman who lost her own young son to a different biological disaster—one that was enhanced by global warming—works for a secret organization that tries to do GMOs better, without capitalist distortions and designed to feed a warming and desertifying world. There are mobile houses and retinal scans and pervasive government surveillance. And the only thing that really didn’t work for me was the relatively hopeful ending relying on “the truth getting out.” Kress tried to deal with the phenomenon of pervasive online misinformation, but ultimately ended up handwaving too much for my currently very pessimistic take on our likely future. Also show more non-explicit discussions of sexual assault, including of a child. show less

This book was on the sale shelf at the library. I've never read the author before. I'm not even sure I realized it was classified as sci-fi until I was mostly done reading the book.

I still feel like there's more to the book than what I got out of it so far. The plot centers on GMOs. Are GMOs good or bad? Or is that a question that depends on the tools and circumstances? As the book says, a hammer can be used to build or to destroy. The premise seems to be that corporations took over GMOs as a for profit endeavor and therefore did not have the world's safety as the primary goal--a goal that smaller farms using GMOs could place over gigantic profits.

That this story wound up on top of my TBR pile was due to it being picked by my book group, seeing as Kress is going to be a guest of honor at the forthcoming World Con in Washington. Keeping in mind that I respect seriousness of purpose that the author brings to her work, and her incorporation of adult women as characters, my overall impression is this work is simply too short to support the story being told. That I really didn't buy the conspiracy in play also didn't help; it was very 1970s "Analog." Better luck next time.

Every organization needs a signature color, Eric Kitson had said, among his other stupid utterances. "Blues" are cops. "Reds" are Communists, unless you live in Boston, where they're a baseball team.

Story: 4.0 / 10
Characters: 6.5
Setting: 8.5
Prose: 7.5