Nancy Kress has put together an interesting and frightening book about what we as humans are doing to the Earth. The theme is woven into the story but the words “we did it to ourselves” do not appear until the very end of the book. I usually have problems with books that flash back and forth in time but in After, Before and During the Fall that format works exceedingly well. By flashing back and forth the entire story is told in just 189 pages. We get to see life in 2035 and the contract with li...

Powerful end-of-the-world science fiction that is well written, elegantly structured and delivered on personal, human scale that increases its impact.Nancy Kress' novella packs a big punch into a small package by combining powerful ideas with a clever story-telling structure and telling the story through the eyes of people you don't typically find at the heart of a so-this-is-the-end-of-the-world? story.The makes-my-brain-stutter title, 'After The Fall, Before The Fall, During The Fall' isn't ju...

In recent years, I’ve hesitated to pick up a hard science fiction novel. The quantum physics one must be familiar with to enjoy the novel is so far beyond me that I feel I need a physics course or two as a prerequisite. It’s hard to appreciate a novel when you haven’t the faintest idea what’s going on.Trust Nancy Kress to write a hard science fiction novella that is so clear, so precise and so well-written that the reader is never left behind. It is no surprise that After the Fall, Before the Fa...

A quick and effortless read that is profoundly rewarding, and satisfying. I've been reading a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction lately, and this is one of the few that was so plausible in places, it was truly frightening. I highly recommend it.

Nancy Kress has fast become one of my favourite science fiction authors. Like most authors I’m a fan of, her works don’t always make it on my favourites list, but they always make me think. Kress often explores how technology affects humanity’s relationship with nature and our own biology. She continues to play with these themes in After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall while adding in an ineffable alien menace and the paradoxes of time travel.The title explains the structure: this sto...

Reading this shortly after the Hunger Games trilogy may not have cast it in a favourable light: it has some of the technical problems of Collins and none of the passion. This comes over as a polite request not to trash the planet which is weak compared with the raw outrage expressed by Collins. There's no suggestion as to how to avoid trashing the planet. And there's the problem that the science is implausible, the ideas unoriginal, and the situation, "after the fall" exceedingly improbable. It'...

The cover is striking. A tsunami wave and cracked, egg-shaped building, not to mention the tiny skull are great indicators for a science fiction story. I kept reading, despite my feelings about the characters and the story, because of the tiny chapters that making up "During the fall". I've never been so invested in the life cycle of bacteria.One cataclysmic event changes the population and topography of Earth.In 2035, four adults, six children, and a coterie of others are trapped in an egg-shap...

Hugo Nominee Review 2013 - Novella 3 (17500-40000 words)Can an ending to a book retroactively make you dislike what came before? The fall has a standard sf trope, time travel to bring people forward to repopulate after a disaster, and plays with the structure by having incidents After, Before and During the disaster. I found the story generally interesting, though the writing of the characters felt a little flat. The wrapping up of the before was really good, the whole during was underwhelming,

After a world-wide catastrophe (or series of catastrophes), only a few humans survive. They are trapped inside a bunker, with sufficient water, air and food (unvaried though it may be) but too much genetic damage to continue the human race. In hopes of keeping their species going, they start traveling into the past and kidnapping the healthy babies they find. This part of the story is told through the eyes of Pete, a rather stupid teenager who was born in the bunker and views the world of the pa...

Pretty well-paced and thought out for a novella, a bit simplistic in the end, but who can hate an apocalypse that you can time travel to before and after?

Originally reviewed on The Book SmugglersAfter the FallIt is the year 2035. Life on Earth has ceased to be, humanity reduced to a handful of survivors trapped together in "The Shell" (a hull built by an alien intelligence that survivors refer to as "Tesslies") that shields its human captors from the desolate wasteland outside. Of the 26 original adults taken into the Shell before the annihilation of life, just a scant a few remain. But hope endures, because these original survivors copulated and...

Being a novella instead of a full novel, Kress didn't have the space to fully address a lot of issues brought up in the book. Here's a list of some of the issues I have with the storyline. 1) Why the pet shop? Is this a Noah's Arc story? The lone dog isn't going to be able to multiply. Why gerbils? 2) What are the Tesslies? Aliens or machines? If the conclusion is a Gaian allegory, why and how are the Tesslies there? 3) If the Tesslies/Gaia are trying to save the Earth, why are they saving the h...

A relatively short (under 200 pages) but interesting novel that puts a unique spin on the apocalypse. As the title suggests, each chapters carries us backwards or forwards in time, telling three intersecting stories:AFTER THE FALL: A claustrophobic, emotionally charged, post-apocalyptic tale of dying adults, damaged adolescents, and stolen children.BEFORE THE FALL: Cold and efficient, a contemporary drama surrounding one woman's struggle to decipher a mystery while preparing for single motherhoo...

I read this in the 2013 paperbackswap.com SF Challenge, for Category #9 "Time Travel" My copy was in kindle ebook format from Wisconsin Digital Library.This received a nomination for 2012 Nebula novella award; the winners have not yet been determined.While this very short novel has a good hook, and contains a lot of good writing, it felt incomplete to me. The narrative toggles between the very near future, and one generation down the timeline after a global catastrophe has left only a small habi...

Very strange, lots of stuff thrown together - ecological disaster, humans destroying the Earth, single mothers, mathematical algorithms, FBI investigations, alien intervention, time travel, baby snatching, sex- and testosterone-fueled teen boys - and it was just... kinda weird. I feel like this was all written to not-so-subtly say how terrible humans are for the planet.

3.75 stars for this 2012 Nebula award-winning (and Hugo nominated) SF novella. I have a seriously alarming stack of books to read but I opened this one up last night and it was short enough and interesting enough to suck me in until I finished it (around 1 am). It's a combination of worldwide environmental disaster and time travel.Kress freely jumps back and forth between a couple of different time periods in our day and a grim future, only about 20 years years later. A small, isolated group of

It's easy to see why Nancy Kress's After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall has done well with science fiction's premier awards. Winning the Nebula and the Locus for best novella and garnering a nomination for the Hugo, the story is equally intriguing and gripping. It's too bad her story flops for failure to satisfy reader expectations.Pete, one of the Six, lives in the completely enclosed and environmentally controlled "Shell" in the year 2035. They are descendents of the few remaining

In the end this was just okay for me, so 2.5 stars. The premise was interesting - the "after, before and during" refers to a planet wide climate catastrophe. Personally, one of the povs's made me uncomfortable. Content warning for: (view spoiler)[ ongoing threat of rape (hide spoiler)]I much preferred Kress's short story End Game performed by LeVar Burton on his podcast.

Novella split into three parts, as evidenced by its title, and centred on the fall of mankind -- after the destruction of the Earth's climate, a few survivors labour onwards to rebuild our species, courtesy some inscrutable aliens serving as custodians of the human race.My rating's hovering between a 3 and a 4. (Seriously, Goodreads, why won't you do half-stars?) I was fascinated by the "After the Fall" + "During the Fall" segments, and was drawn to almost all of the characters. It's an interest...

This novel is pretty much summed up by the title. As always with apocalyptic books, and especially near-future ones, I was terrifically disturbed by the premise. Kress did a great job of weaving timelines and characters. I loved the structure; she managed to create suspense despite telling us the (almost) end right in the title. She is a master of structure and pacing, and she literally wrote the book on beginnings and endings. A moving cautionary tale.As an aside, the descriptions of Pete remin...