This one is seriously good; stayed up past my bedtime to finish it, which makes it at least four stars for me. Got it as part of a bundle of dark SF or I wouldn't have ever picked it up as I'm pretty much up to here with post apocalyptic stories. This one is creative in concept and story though a tad preachy. Still a great read. ( )

Workman Science Fiction book about a small group surviving a ecological apocalypse, apparently with the help of benevolent extraterrestrials. The unnamed, unseen ETs provide the survivors with a time traveling device which they use to abduct people from their past to use in repopulating the earth. The narrative shifts between the past and the survivor's present time. There was nothing particularly bad or good about the book; it ended up being largely forgettable.

3 bones!!! ( )

Even knowing it is a novella, it feels like half a story. I'm not sure I'm even interested in the other half, given that we have huge plot holes and a deus ex machina. Filling those in wouldn't really make this a good story.

I also really hate books where there is a date at the beginning of each chapter and the reader is expected to do the bookkeeping of which chapter goes where. That is just lazy storytelling. Establish where and when each character is, then use that. How hard is it? ( )

This is a really interesting novella about how the world might end... and what could come next. It's hard for me to figure out how to write about it without spoilers, but I did enjoy the read and would recommend it if the synopsis is something that sounds interesting to you.

One thing that should be obvious from the title (and will become obvious soon if it wasn't) is that this is told in three different timelines. How they all connect is part of the plot that involves spoilers, but the discovery of how everything works together is fascinating and worth the journey. ( )

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 just decorative. It reflects the three converging timelines the story is told on.

We start 'After The Fall' in 2035, with twenty-seven human survivors, split between the ageing adults and the often weak or disabled young, living in a dome they didn't build and can't leave, on a devastated barren Earth and hoping to be the future of humanity.

We go back to 'Before The Fall' and watch a quant mine the data that tells her the world is heading for disaster and knowing that not only will no-one listen but that sharing the data will make her a target.

We converge on 'During The Fall' through an elaborate hard-for-the-reader-to-predict-but-fun-to-watch path. Then, right at the end, when we think we know just how bad everything is and how blind we were and how screwed we are, we get something new.

Nancy Kress makes this multiple timeline technique work well, using it to increase the tension and the sense of doom while leaving just enough wriggle room for hope that you don't give up.

The book was published in 2012. Reading it in 2020, it seems even more grimly plausible than it must have done then. I think it's a great example of Cli Fi (Climate Fiction).
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