Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress

What a great read! A little heavy on the "history and moral philosophy" (apologies to R. Heinlein), but still a really great story. I think I read it when the original novella came out back in 1991, probably at my father's suggestion. I suppose it could have been in '93 when the novel came out, but he was pretty sick by then. I think I recognized the cover of the first edition in the wiki.

The technology is plausible - if a little previous. Leisha Camden, the genetically engineered heroine of the piece, was born in 2008. So, push it back another fifty years. With the mapping of the human genome, genetic engineering is reaching the point where the scifi becomes a possibility. I found the political and social extremes less plausible than the scientific miracles.

At the beginning of the story, people are beginning to custom order their children. The specific modification that triggers the incidents of the story is one which makes sleep unnecessary. Supposedly, the "Sleepless" are so much more productive because of the extra time they have that they have enormous advantages over "Sleepers." This does seem a little far-fetched - and Kress does ignore the fact that she herself has indicated that those who have their fetuses modified for sleeplessness also have them modified for high intelligence. After twenty or so years, they discover that modification for sleeplessness also virtually eliminates aging, making the Sleepless not quite immortal, but certainly very, very long lived.

The jewel of the writing though is in the description of how the third generation of genetically modified children, the Superbrights, think. She describes their thinking as chains of ideas which link and cross and spin. A marvelously creative bit. I wonder if the Star Trek people had read it when they came up with Darmok - in which they encountered the people who communicated by analogy. Although, that was original Trek, so I guess it would have had to be the other way around.

I had been thinking about this book, and trying to remenber the author's name recently. I wanted to hunt it up and reread it. Then there it was, on Kindle's 100 under $3.99 list for this month. And she has written a whole pack of other stuff, including two sequels to this one. I may have to hunt some of them down - which may be why this was on the list in the first place.