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).
( )

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's a terrible title, too. (A bit like her The Beggars in Spain...that's a really bad title, too. Much better story though.)

The fact that the characters are well drawn and convincing and the prose is competent doesn't really make sufficient compensation. It's disappointing as I thought the novella version of The Beggars in Spain was good and it had me hunting for her works in every bookshop I've visited since. Having finally got hold of something else, it turns out to be not nearly as interesting or sophisticated in terms of the SF elements or the subtext, even though Beggars in Spain ended up a rush job towards the end. (It got expanded into three full-length novels that I would still like to read.)

Disappointing. ( )

I like Nancy Kress, but this one felt very unconvincing, mostly because it never addresses the most important question: why on earth would an advanced alien race want to save humanity after we had killed the Earth? Such hubris to imagine that homo sapiens is important to anyone but ourselves. ( )

After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress is a strong post-apocalyptic story that mixes time travel, global disaster and mysterious aliens into a short book that certainly deserved it’s 2012 Nebula and Locus awards. In the year 2035 a small group of human survivors live in a prison-like shell from which some of them are able to time travel back to 2013 and grab items from before the earth was destroyed. The most important items are young children that will help to repopulate the world.

Meanwhile back in 2013, brilliant mathematician Julie Kahn is working with the FBI to solve a number of strange kidnappings. As she untangles the puzzle her predictive algorithms begin to reveal much more than just simple kidnapping is going on. The story advances into 2014 when global disaster strikes and the future of humanity is at risk.

I was totally captured by this story and although it is of a bleak and despairing nature, the author ended her story with a strong message of hope which I appreciated. This novella length story is a quick read and the author makes the world’s end very credible and scary. After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall is a unique, well-paced and gripping tale. ( )

Good, but depressing (of course) - it made me think of other stories, one by Kress herself where the aliens kill most of the humans, another novel by John Varley with the time travel piece and a little bit of Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis series. ( )

this was pretty good.
i pretty much inhaled it in a single afternoon/evening. ( )

This book carried its own momentum -- it was a quick, easy read. The premise of a device to travel back in time to rescue people before an apocalypse in order to preserve the human race is done in an interesting way -- the people going have no control over the device, when it leaves or goes or where it goes, and can only hop in when it's ready and grab who/what they can before they are sent back.

It was hard to put down, but I do have some criticisms. For one, the number of grabs seems like awfully small number statistics for Julie, the mathematician to have noticed a pattern and developed an algorithm. It didn't seem like there was enough connecting the kid grabs to the store grabs for her to have linked them together.

Also, the ending was probably deliberately ambiguous, but I still have a lot of unresolved questions about the Tesslies - the beings who collected the survivors and made the time travel device. I have a really hard time finding their choices to have any consistency, and can't come up with a story fro them that would motivate them.

Don't read if you need to be reassured that teenage boys aren't all terrible. ( )

A compact story that moves between 2013-2014 and 2035. In the earlier time frame, Julie Kahn, a mathematician recognizes patterns in recent child abductions and store thefts as she consults with the CIA. In the future, Peter, a deformed 15 year old boy lives in a biosphere created by aliens known as the Tesslies. However, things appear to be changing. First, the Tesslies have added the jumping portal allowing Peter and the other survivor children to go back in time for quick "grabs" of supplies and children. Also, the grass outside the shell is beginning to grow suggesting that the inhabitants might be able to survive outside the "shell" in the near future if they can survive long enough.
The brief chapters jump between Julie's story, the slow bacterial mutation that leads to a giant tsunami, and Peter's story all of which intersect in the end. ( )

Solid, but very short, and less experimental than I expected from the title. Short chapters, clearly labelled, track two character plotlines - one present-day (2014), one several decades later. In addition, half-page "chapters" also in the present day track the physical events that mark the beginning of the transition from the present world to the future one. "During the fall" doesn't really get much attention -- it's all before and after, with some time travel thrown in. The future plot, following as it does young teen in a world very different than ours, could be considered Young Adult of the "sex is part of YA life" variety. As he learns more about the past, we learn more about his world. The present-day plot follows a female statistician who gradually discovers something bad is coming. These stories do converge, in a way that is a bit contrived, but not simple out of the blue coincidence.

My main complaint is that there a few too many "what ifs" thrown in the pot. Not only the cause of the fall in the title, but the Tesslies (robots? aliens), the Shell (in which the few humans remaining live in the future) and time travel. That, in such a short novel, reminded me of the typical 180 page paperback SF novels of the 1960's.

Fortunately, Kress is a better writer than most SF writers were back then. Things get pretty grim, reminding me a bit of her novel Alien Light, but brevity and good writing help keep the book from becoming a slog.

Recommended. ( )

Interesting book, didn't spend a lot of time on the science which is ok. We spent a lot of time in the heads of two characters Julie before the fall and Peter after the fall. I was really dreading dreading the ending and how their two stories would intersect but the author tied things together nicely. In spite of the huge amount of peril the characters are in the author does manage a bit of hope at the end, though a bit abruptly. ( )

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 past through an almost alien mindset.

In their past, and our future, a brilliant statistician named Julie Kahn is investigating the disappearances. This sets her on a collision course with Pete and the future he represents.

A well-written book, but upsetting as all apocalyptic novels are. I wish this had been a little longer and more fleshed-out. ( )

A quick read but I didn't find it convincing in terms of plot. ( )

I liked how the characters were drawn, and the gradual reveal of life in the Shell.

The interludes that described environmental changes didn't quite work for me -- they should have been ominous, but instead they were just repetitive.

What really irritated me was this whole Gaia nonsense. The idea that eventually an anthropomorphic Earth will kick our asses is not science. Furthermore, we don't need a sentient Earth to punish us for ruining the environment. The actual science is scary enough.

Also, it would have been nice if the Tesslies actually got explained. ( )

I like Nancy Kress quite a lot so I was happy to see a new, if slim, novel from her. The plot has been adequately described by others so this review will be short as well. I liked the plot structure, three intertwining stories, slowly converging, with the future story (after the fall) ending the book. After the fall, the survivors are desperate, resulting to kidnapping children from the past. Before the fall, the police are baffled by a series of seeming unrelated kidnappings which, nonetheless seem to be predictable by a statistics consultant to the FBI. It was inevitable that, Pete, the main kidnapper from the future and Julie, the FBI consultant, would meet. Especially since the jacket blurb said it would happen.

I liked the portrayal of the two main characters. Pete, 15-years-old, trapped in the Shell, frustrated both with the limited kind of life available to him and what he has to do to ensure a future that he's not even sure he believes in. Julie, needing a child but not wanting a husband, guilty about the way in which she had her child and convinced that these kidnappings are related somehow to the hints she sees of looming disaster.

I didn't see the Gaia connection coming until it sort of jumped into the story rather late. I'm not sure it was necessary for Gaia to be invoked for the tragedy when Kress had set up several other potential instigators, but it didn't hurt the story for me. ( )

This was on the Hugo ballot as a novella. so I read it in order to vote fully informed. The setup of the story was interesting but the ending was a complete downer. I'm not sure how you could have changed the outcome of the story but it was just rough and so bleak. ( )

Read as part of the Hugo Voting Packet. While I enjoyed this one and could see why it made the ballot, I find that a year on I don't remember much about it and don't feel any urge to re-read it, unlike the de Bodard and Sanderson novellas.

It's easy to see why [a:Nancy Kress|21158|Nancy Kress|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1232323985p2/21158.jpg]'s [b:After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall|13163688|After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall|Nancy Kress|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327930784s/13163688.jpg|18342702] 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 survivors on Earth of a catastrophic alien attack decades before. Kept alive by the grace of the aliens--the Tesslies--Pete and his fellow survivors jump back to the past to rescue individual children, hoping somehow to overcome their captors and restart life again on the planet.

Meanwhile, Julie Kahn is a mathematician and contractor for the FBI helping to hunt down a mysterious crime spree that follows the outcomes of her algorithm. Each event brings her closer to a conclusion she may not be ready to accept.

Skipping between three timelines, the story quickly builds to a crescendo. Kress uses the absence of information as a tool to build mystery and suspense, creating a palpable sense of the ominous. Given how short the book is--a novella, by definition--it was easy to blow through it in just one sitting.

At this point, the book blogger code of ethics demands that I warn you that spoilers follow...or at least, information that could lead you to spoilers.

Despite Kress' excellent writing, I struggled with her resolution. Rather than explain anything, it has the effect of deus ex machina, except that we have no idea where the ex machina emerges from. The twist--oh, yes, there is a twist, but if you're still reading this, don't say I didn't warn you--has no explanation in reality or science fiction. It just happens. We never learn how or from whence it came...it just happens. And the major plot device--a time machine, robots, aliens, tidal waives, volcanos--none of it makes sense in the context of what Kress has promised the reader. If Kress had made angels appear and bring a message from God, it would have made more sense than the strange plot device she used.

Ultimately, for that reason, I finished [b:After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall|13163688|After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall|Nancy Kress|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327930784s/13163688.jpg|18342702] with a feeling of betrayal, disappointment, and like I had just had a heavy handed message about the environment stuffed down my throat. I might even have been ok with the message, if Kress had seemed like, just for a moment, she would justify it by some sort of explanation. As it was, though, her story amounts to no more than wishful thinking that might shift this book more into the fantasy genre than science fiction. It's good writing, but in the balance is a disappointing story. ( )

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 survivors on Earth of a catastrophic alien attack decades before. Kept alive by the grace of the aliens–the Tesslies–Pete and his fellow survivors jump back to the past to rescue individual children, hoping somehow to overcome their captors and restart life again on the planet.
Meanwhile, Julie Kahn is a mathematician and contractor for the FBI helping to hunt down a mysterious crime spree that follows the outcomes of her algorithm. Each event brings her closer to a conclusion she may not be ready to accept.
Skipping between three timelines, the story quickly builds to a crescendo. Kress uses the absence of information as a tool to build mystery and suspense, creating a palpable sense of the ominous. Given how short the book is–a novella, by definition–it was easy to blow through it in just one sitting.
At this point, the book blogger code of ethics demands that I warn you that spoilers follow…or at least, information that could lead you to spoilers.
Despite Kress’ excellent writing, I struggled with her resolution. Rather than explain anything, it has the effect of deus ex machina, except that we have no idea where the ex machina emerges from. The twist–oh, yes, there is a twist, but if you’re still reading this, don’t say I didn’t warn you–has no explanation in reality or science fiction. It just happens. We never learn how or from whence it came…it just happens. And the major plot device–a time machine, robots, aliens, tidal waives, volcanos–none of it makes sense in the context of what Kress has promised the reader.If Kress had made angels appear and bring a message from God, it would have made more sense than the strange plot device she used.
Ultimately, for that reason, I finished After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall with a feeling of betrayal, disappointment, and like I had just had a heavy handed message about the environment stuffed down my throat. I might even have been ok with the message, if Kress had seemed like, just for a moment, she would justify it by some sort of explanation. As it was, though, her story amounts to no more than wishful thinking that might shift this book more into the fantasy genre than science fiction. It’s good writing, but in the balance is a disappointing story. ( )

This is an intense novella on both fronts: the uncertainty of what will happen to these captive few humans in the future and why the aliens have kept them there for twenty years, and the horrible sense of dread in the past because the reader knows the cataclysm is imminent and the characters have no idea. I read Kress's novel Beggars in Spain and was frustrated by the unevenness of it; I really didn't have much interest in reading more of her work. This story has taught me the error of my ways.

I can most definitely see why this one the Nebula. ( )

3 sobre 5, para "After de Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall: A Novel", de Nancy Kress ( )

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 Fall, During the Fall has been nominated for a Nebula Award this year. It has finely drawn characters (especially Pete, from the future, and Julie, from the present), and is based (at least in the sections set “during the fall”) on solid scientific principals with a touch of imagination — just enough to power the plot.

The novella opens with Pete just beginning what we learn is a Grab: he is transported to the past for only ten minutes, during which he must grab whatever he can and bring it into the future with him. The top priority is young children, unaffected by the radiation that has poisoned his generation and rendered it mostly infertile. Pete, a young teenager, arrives near the ocean, but his delight in the scene is erased when he realizes all that has been destroyed by the Tesslies. The Tesslies, we learn, are entities about which nothing is known except that they reduced humankind to a mere handful of people eking out an existence in the Shell, a habitat the Tesslies provided for them. Pete is able to grab a toddler and a baby and bring them back with him.

In the next few pages, we switch to an omniscient point of view, narrowing in on a plateau in Brazil where bacteria is mutating at the base of the roots of coffee plants. We learn in subsequent chapters that this mutation essentially converts the bacteria to alcohol, destroying the roots, destroying plant life — and the same mutation is inexplicably happening at the same time in disparate corners of the globe.

Then we’re in the present, where Julie is working with the FBI on the kidnapping of the toddler and baby. The mother’s husband was killed in the kidnapping — not by Pete, but by the machinery that allows him to travel in time and space, through which adults may not pass. She is, understandably, hysterical, though her hysteria takes a form that makes it impossible to communicate with her. Julie has been working on a series of kidnappings, mathematically predicting where and when the next one will take place, and this brings her work closer to solving the puzzle.

As the book proceeds, we learn much more about Pete and the small community in which he lives, and the manner in which the adults are trying to preserve the good and obliterate the bad in their young charges. More than that, they are trying to rebuild the human race from a very small population. The group is scientifically oriented; the children do not even understand the religious references and hymns that the oldest member of the group often uses. They keep watch for changes in the world outside their Shell, waiting for the day when it is safe to venture out again. The one factor no one quite understands is the Tesslies. Are they aliens who invaded our world? Are they human creations? It isn’t even known if they are machines or biological organisms. We never do learn quite what their nature is, which is the only fault I find with the novella.

We also learn more about Julie, who, it turns out, is pregnant from an affair she had with the FBI agent with whom she was working. She leaves her full-time project with the FBI and prepares herself for the child she always wanted, but she continues to do independent consulting. More, she continues to work on the algorithms that she was preparing to predict the kidnappings. One of her projects, for a professor seeking to make a name for himself, reveals that big changes are coming to the world — and not for the good.

We learn more about those changes, too. They are not limited to bacterial mutation, but include enormous changes in the behavior of the Earth’s tectonic plates, increased volcanic activity, and other signs that the Earth is becoming hostile to its human infection.

Kress effectively guides the flow of all three of these narrative streams, ultimately bringing them to a confluence that is both frightening and uplifting. Kress’s skill shows in the intricacy of the plotting, the scientific knowledge, and the strong characterization. Although I’ve read only three of the Nebula-nominated novellas so far, I have to think that After the Fall has an excellent chance of claiming the rocket ship.

Originally published at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/after-the-fall/ ( )