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In a world where the slightest edge can mean the difference between success and failure, Leisha Camden is beautiful, extraordinarily intelligent ... and one of an ever-growing number of human beings who have been genetically modified to never require sleep. Once considered interesting anomalies, now Leisha and the other "Sleepless" are outcasts -- victims of blind hatred, political repression, and shocking mob violence meant to drive them from human society ... and, ultimately, from Earth itself. But Leisha Camden has chosen to remain behind in a world that envies and fears her "gift" -- a world marked for destruction in a devastating conspiracy of freedom ... and revenge.… (más)
Año 2019. Una nueva especie de seres humanos, los Insomnes, disponen de mayor conocimiento y poder. Modificados por la ingeniería genérica para no tener que dormir, los insomnes cuentan con más horas de actividad, no enferman nunca y son más longevos. Sus superdotados descendientes, los Superinsomnes, pueden desarrollar, además, una nueva biotecnología por la que aspiran a dominar el mundo. En el otro extremo de la sociedad se encuentran los Durmientes, cuyo recelo de los Insomnes es notorio, pues dependen de éstos para garantizar su propia supervivencia. En semejante contexto, tres personajes de diferente condición exponen su particular punto de vista sobre un conflicto que se intuye inminente e inevitable.
BEGGARS IN SPAIN (Avonova/Morrow, $23), by Nancy Kress, suffers from an excess of ambition. ... Despite some nice touches -- what penalty do the Sleepless pay for their inability to dream? -- the narrative degenerates into a series of future-history vignettes, inhabited by unchanging characters who fail to engage our emotions or our intellect.
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
"With energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories." - Abraham Lincoln to Major General Joseph Hooker, 1863
Dedicatoria
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
For Marcos - again
For my sister Kate
Primeras palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
They sat stiffly on his antique Eames chairs, two people who didn't want to be here, or one person who didn't want to and one who resented the other's reluctance.
Citas
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
"Sleep served an important evolutionary function. Once Clem Pre-Mammal was done filling his stomach and squirting his sperm around, sleep kept him immobile and away from predators. Sleep was an aid to survival. But now it's a leftover mechanism, a vestige like the appendix. It switches on every night, but the need is gone. So we turn off the switch at its source, in the genes."
"Compared to their age mates, the nonsleep children—who had not had IQ genetic manipulation—are more intelligent, better at problem-solving, and more joyous."
He told them this very carefully, finding the right words for truth. Truth was very important, Leisha already knew. Truth was being true to yourself, your specialness. Your individuality. An individual respected facts, and so always told the truth.
"A man's worth to society and to himself doesn't rest on what he thinks other people should do or be or feel, but on himself. On what he can actually do, and do well. People trade what they do well, and everyone benefits. The basic tool of civilization is the contract. Contracts are voluntary and mutually beneficial. As opposed to coercion, which is wrong."
"No, the only dignity, the only spirituality, rests on what a man can achieve with his own efforts. To rob a man of the chance to achieve, and to trade what he achieves with others, is to rob him of his spiritual dignity as a man."
'The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.' You must never let your individual caravan be slowed by the barking of rude or envious dogs.
"There have always been haters, Stewart. Hate Jews, hate Blacks, hate immigrants, hate Yagaiists who have more initiative and dignity than you do. I'm just the latest object of hatred. It's not new, it's not remarkable. It doesn't mean any basic kind of schism between the Sleepless and the Sleepers."
"Those other objects of hatred you cite--they were all powerless in their societies. They occupied inferior positions. You, on the other hand—all three Sleepless in Harvard Law are on the Law Review."
"No. But I figured out something else, watching all those communes and villages and kampongs. We are too individualistic."
To Kenzo Yagai she said, Trade isn't always linear. You missed that. If Stewart gives me something, and I give Stella something ,and ten years from now Stella is a different person because of that and gives something to someone else as yet unknown—it's an ecology. An ecology of trade, yes, each niche needed, even if they're not contractually bound. Does a horse need a fish? Yes.
To Tony she said, Yes, there are beggars in Spain who trade nothing, give nothing, do nothing. But there are morethan beggars in Spain. Withdraw from the beggars, you withdraw from the whole damn country. And you withdraw from the possibility of the ecology of help.
Últimas palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
She turned toward the compound and started to run.
In a world where the slightest edge can mean the difference between success and failure, Leisha Camden is beautiful, extraordinarily intelligent ... and one of an ever-growing number of human beings who have been genetically modified to never require sleep. Once considered interesting anomalies, now Leisha and the other "Sleepless" are outcasts -- victims of blind hatred, political repression, and shocking mob violence meant to drive them from human society ... and, ultimately, from Earth itself. But Leisha Camden has chosen to remain behind in a world that envies and fears her "gift" -- a world marked for destruction in a devastating conspiracy of freedom ... and revenge.
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"Beggars in Spain" Group Discussion
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