Nancy Kress and People Who Don't Need Sleep

Posted on January 31, 2005

SciFi Wire reports that Hugo and Nebula award-winning SF novel, Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress has gotten a new look and a new cover; it's been reissued in trade paperback edition by Eos. The perennial bestseller has been in print since 1993 in a paperback format. Beggars in Spain is the first book in the Beggars trilogy. The book revolves around people who are genetically engineered not to need sleep. The original novella won the Hugo and Nebula awards and was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Prometheus and Homer awards. It also placed second for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and third in the Locus Poll for 1994. Kress says that she may be moving to nonfiction. "It's harder now to sell an SF novel, especially a first novel, although Beggars was not that for me," she said. "There are fewer markets. Also, as fantasy has soared in popularity, science fiction has fallen, alas." We can't seem to get past the alluring idea of not needing any sleep, and wish that Ms. Kress would continue to create thought-provoking SF.