Rating: 
Summary: A good book from a great writer
Review: "Maximum Light" is very good indeed. It is a great adventure story and a great piece of speculative fiction. If you are interested in the scientific hypothesis behind the endocrine/toxics element of the plot, I highly recommend "Our Stolen Future," by Theo Colburn.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting airplane fare. Not much else.
Review: Another poisened world, no children, crooked government, "What'll we do?", semi-thriller that seems to have been assembled from familiar bits and pieces. The world has reached a reproductive "tipping point" and the environment is to blame. The kids are fed up with supporting the oldies. What else is new? We visit the all too real decline in male sperm count thats been going on since the ealry 1950's. Also, since this time, the same studies have discovered traces of PVC in the vast majority of the samples. Analysis showed that as the amount of trace PVC went up, sperm count went down. Next we get baby monkey substitutes for mom? Maybe the underground baby mill can develop geneticly limited intelligence. We could tattoo bar codes on their feet so we can tell them from the real things. Organ theft and reproductive stumps? Read "Hellstrom's Hive". Gay bashing by illiterate female army cadets as a theme. Not funny. You get the idea.
Rating: 
Summary: Fast-paced but very thoughtful
Review: I am sure it is a juggling act for an author to provide both a fast paced action-adventure narrative AND to also provide a lot of food for thought ... but Kress does both (as usual for her I might add). Recent news stories that suggest the central thesis might in fact have been based on somewhat faulty science shouldn't matter ... the science was correct at the time Kress penned her book, and she thought through every aspect of the premise as the best sci-fi should.
Rating: 
Summary: Not on Par with Beggars
Review: I could not get beyond the writer's thesis that science at the time could not clone humans or figure out other ways to combat infertility. I picked up the book after having read her Beggar's series and having been eager for more of her writing. Maximum Light fell short of the unique ideas, characters and landscapes in Beggars. I think Ms. Kress was possibly trying to increase her coffers by spitting out a quick-read without too much thought about the premise that the story was built on.
Rating:
Summary: Not on Par with Beggars
Review: I could not get beyond the writer's thesis that science at the time could not clone humans or figure out other ways to combat infertility. I picked up the book after having read her Beggar's series and having been eager for more of her writing. Maximum Light fell short of the unique ideas, characters and landscapes in Beggars. I think Ms. Kress was possibly trying to increase her coffers by spitting out a quick-read without too much thought about the premise that the story was built on.
Rating:
Summary: LOCUS Magazine has very different opinion.
Review: I haven't actually read the book - but I wanted to pass on LOCUS magazine's review, which has a much different opinion of the book. I won't quote the entire review (which was in the December 1997 issue of Locus Magazine) but their reviewer concluded by saying that "Maximum Light is a marvelous work of SF, at once thrilling, suspenseful, intelligent and profound. Don't miss it."
Rating:
Summary: worth a read, but she can do better
Review: I love Kress' particular sci-fi "style" which involves biological advances (no spaceships here, sorry) and ethical issues. This is actually one of her older works but it doesn't fail to satisfy. The premise here has to do with societal reaction to mass infertility caused by the huge amount of chemicals induced into the human environment -- and the really scary thing about this one is that, as bizarre as some of the situations seem to be, they could very easily happen. I remember reading a couple years ago that people now have more chemicals in their bodies than ever before (medicine, hygenic products, food...you name it) and I've often wondered just how far the research into the side effects has gone. Kress takes it to a logical conclusion (though admitetdly a worst-case one) and the results are very, very chilling. I do wish, however, that she'd knock off with the vulgarity and coarse language. Yes, life is vulgar and coarse, and sometimes you do need to include things like that for realism, but not constantly. I also can't help but notice that she's used the same viewpoint-technique (multiple first-person) in a lot of her stories. She's perfectly capable of writing other viewpoints, and sometimes they're more appropriate. But the story is definitely excellent, and this is one I'd recommend.
Rating:
Summary: worth a read, but she can do better
Review: I love Kress' particular sci-fi "style" which involves biological advances (no spaceships here, sorry) and ethical issues. This is actually one of her older works but it doesn't fail to satisfy. The premise here has to do with societal reaction to mass infertility caused by the huge amount of chemicals induced into the human environment -- and the really scary thing about this one is that, as bizarre as some of the situations seem to be, they could very easily happen. I remember reading a couple years ago that people now have more chemicals in their bodies than ever before (medicine, hygenic products, food...you name it) and I've often wondered just how far the research into the side effects has gone. Kress takes it to a logical conclusion (though admitetdly a worst-case one) and the results are very, very chilling. I do wish, however, that she'd knock off with the vulgarity and coarse language. Yes, life is vulgar and coarse, and sometimes you do need to include things like that for realism, but not constantly. I also can't help but notice that she's used the same viewpoint-technique (multiple first-person) in a lot of her stories. She's perfectly capable of writing other viewpoints, and sometimes they're more appropriate. But the story is definitely excellent, and this is one I'd recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Not good enough for Kress
Review: I'm afraid I must join the ranks of those who like Kress but were disappointed with _Maximum Light_. The book kept me engrossed during my morning and evening commutes, but it wasn't enough -- good enough or real enough -- to be excellent. I didn't feel comfortable with the picture Kress draws of women of the next generation: biologically-driven baby-obsessors. I found insulting her belief that women would rather have mutant living dolls than be without (real or pseudo) offspring. I also think she gives the government too much ethical credit. I don't want to include too many spoilers, but I will say that I don't think the choice offered to some characters near the end of the book is at all realistic. More likely would have been termination with extreme prejudice! I did enjoy this book during my commutes, so I don't want to totally slam it, but from Nancy Kress I expected more. I *do* like that she's moving into a liklier near-future for her stories, and I hope she will keep writing about that world. It has promise of being very interesting. Unfortunately, the promise is not yet kept.
Rating:
Summary: Another good one - provocative as usual
Review: In another of her "what happens if" future society books Nancy Kress makes us think about what happens when science and society clash. As with her other "Beggars" books - this too is thought provoking. I liked it almost as much as Beggars. Story interesting - characterizations good. Only thing missing was - more!
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