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Book Summary and Reviews of Fountain of Age by Nancy Kress

Fountain of Age by Nancy Kress

Fountain of Age

Stories

by Nancy Kress

  • Published:
  • May 2012, 300 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Nine new stories from a long-time star of the science fiction field including the Hugo Award winner "The Erdmann Nexus" and Nebula Award winner "The Fountain of Age." These stories have been reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, and Best of the Web.

Kress unpacks the future the way DNA investigators unravelled the double helix: one gene at a time. In many of these stories gene sculpting is illegal yet commonplace and the effects range between slow catastrophe (End Game"), cosmic (First Rites"), and tragic (Safeguard"). Then there's the morning when Rochester disappears and Jenny has to rely on The Kindness of Strangers." There's Jill, who is kidnapped by aliens and trying to learn the Laws of Survival." And there's Hope, whose Grandma is regretting the world built By Fools Like Me."

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Book Awards

  • award image The Nebula Awards, 2008

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Quality oozes from every page. A master class in the art of short-story writing." —Kirkus Reviews

"Passions are magnified by age and the world only becomes more unpredictable in Kress's new collection, anchored by the Nebula-winning title novella. The nine stories, published over the course of just two years, wrestle with themes of love, death, and transformation... . Kress's depiction of science is much like her characters' experiences with love: by turns glorious and terrible, and always a little disturbing, even in triumph." —Publishers Weekly

This information about Fountain of Age was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Nancy Kress

Nancy Kress is the author of thirty books, including four collections of short stories, and three books on writing. For sixteen years she was the fiction columnist for Writers Digest magazine. She is perhaps best known for the Sleepless trilogy that began with Beggars in Spain. Her work has won four Nebulas, two Hugos, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Award. Other books include the SF novel, Steal Across the Sky; a YA fantasy written under the name Anna Kendall, Crossing Over; and a short novel of eco-terror, Before the Fall, During the Fall, After the Fall. Kress lives in Seattle with her husband, SF writer Jack Skillingstead, and Cosette, the world's most spoiled toy poodle.

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