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Beggars in Spain

© Karen James

"With energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."
- Abraham Lincoln, to Major General Joseph Hooker, 1863

With these words and the birth of Leisha Camden, a genetically modified human who would never require sleep, a chain of events sprang up which were marked with envies and fears, destruction and revenge, and repression and blind hatred. Beggars in Spain is a story of biological advantages and the complex maneuverings of society to adjust itself around the cataclysmic changes resulting from genetic manipulation.

"A nation may be said to consist of its territories, its people, and its laws. The territory is the only part which is of certain durability."
- Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress, 1862

Inspired by the hatred of humanity, the Sleepless community struggled against discrimination and outright persecution. They chose a path of isolation that Leisha Camden decided not to follow. Her choice brought a division of community that reflected the many divisions of humanity.

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves."
- Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress, 1862

Cataclysmic changes in the genetic formula of humanity should drive cataclysmic changes in the societal formula of humanity. A new people must act and behave in a new way or suffer the same failings, and ultimately the destruction of what they had built on the twisted thoughts of history. The Sleepless were doomed, not because of their genetics, but because of their failure to think uniquely. They were too human.

"No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."
- Abraham Lincoln, Peoria, 1854

What the Sleepless knew all along, they conveniently forgot, and that set them on their path of destruction. As they fought for their freedom they took steps to relinquish their own freedom. Trusting themselves and never seeing the reality of becoming beggars in Spain.

Nancy Kress achieved a remarkable feat when she built a story full of intricate scientific ideas, deep characters, and a thought provoking plot. This novel is an expansion of the Hugo and Nebula award winning novella which appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in April 1991. Those awards should easily apply to this novel. Beggars in Spain is a winner.

About the Book
Beggars in Spain copyright 1993 by Nancy Kress