Rating: 
Summary: "Maximum Light" is a highlight
Review: Kress is one of the current bright lights in science fiction. "Maximum Light" makes her shine all the brighter. The story is set in the near-future, where an ecological disaster has savaged male fertility and the remnant aged population has legislated away technology need for the survival of the human race. Kress weaves a story of a dying "senior citizen" scientist/politician, a young hellion, and one of the minority fertile men (who happens to be gay) into a punchy story. The story is well written. It is almost cyber-punk. Kress handles the three character perspectives well, although not perfectly. The two male characters had (IMHO) very female perspectives. These shaded into the "true" female character's. In addition, I paged through the didactic passages on "mankind fouling their own nest via better living through chemistry". However, the story's 250-odd pages meant these sections were mercifully short. This book was a big surprise to me. The book seemed to thin to be any good. However, it was dense with ideas. In a period of bloated trilogies, pre-sequels, and never-ending-stories it is an example of how a talented author can write a story and end it without requiring the readers to wait two years. In places "Maximum Light" reminded me of Sterling's "Holy Fire" (recommended). These two novels ("Maximum Light" and "Holy Fire") may be the leading-edge of a gerontology sub-genre. This book is real good. It not perfect, but "real good". Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: "Maximum Light" is a highlight
Review: Kress is one of the current bright lights in science fiction. "Maximum Light" makes her shine all the brighter. The story is set in the near-future, where an ecological disaster has savaged male fertility and the remnant aged population has legislated away technology need for the survival of the human race. Kress weaves a story of a dying "senior citizen" scientist/politician, a young hellion, and one of the minority fertile men (who happens to be gay) into a punchy story. The story is well written. It is almost cyber-punk. Kress handles the three character perspectives well, although not perfectly. The two male characters had (IMHO) very female perspectives. These shaded into the "true" female character's. In addition, I paged through the didactic passages on "mankind fouling their own nest via better living through chemistry". However, the story's 250-odd pages meant these sections were mercifully short. This book was a big surprise to me. The book seemed to thin to be any good. However, it was dense with ideas. In a period of bloated trilogies, pre-sequels, and never-ending-stories it is an example of how a talented author can write a story and end it without requiring the readers to wait two years. In places "Maximum Light" reminded me of Sterling's "Holy Fire" (recommended). These two novels ("Maximum Light" and "Holy Fire") may be the leading-edge of a gerontology sub-genre. This book is real good. It not perfect, but "real good". Recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: competent but not inspiring
Review: Kress will always be able and articulate, but this is nowhere near as engaging, nuanced, or provocative as the Beggars books. For a far more compelling take on nearly the same premise, I strongly recommend P.D. James' The Children of Men.
Rating:
Summary: Characters are OK, but Plot a little forced
Review: The characters in Maximum Light do the job while you are reading this book, but once you're done, you may not remember them. Maximum Light is a little plot-driven, but overall good for a quick read on a lazy afternoon.
Rating:
Summary: Kress at her best
Review: This is a first rate science fiction novel by one of the best writers in the genre. It is set in the near future, about thirty years from now, when chemical contamination of the environment has resulted in a precipitously falling birth rate and a high incidence of birth defects. Three totally different characters work to uncover an illegal business in the growing/manufacturing of human-animal babies. The intricate plot is beautifully constructed with suspenseful and logical twists and turns. Its greatest strength, though, may be its rich and believable character development. The three major characters are a successful young gay dancer, a sexy and wildly manipulative girl from the gutter, and an aging scientist. The chapters rotate between first-person narratives by each of them, and all three narrative styles are totally believable. This is one of the best science fiction novels of recent years, and I recommend it most highly.
Rating:
Summary: Kress at her best
Review: This is a first rate science fiction novel by one of the best writers in the genre. It is set in the near future, about thirty years from now, when chemical contamination of the environment has resulted in a precipitously falling birth rate and a high incidence of birth defects. Three totally different characters work to uncover an illegal business in the growing/manufacturing of human-animal babies. The intricate plot is beautifully constructed with suspenseful and logical twists and turns. Its greatest strength, though, may be its rich and believable character development. The three major characters are a successful young gay dancer, a sexy and wildly manipulative girl from the gutter, and an aging scientist. The chapters rotate between first-person narratives by each of them, and all three narrative styles are totally believable. This is one of the best science fiction novels of recent years, and I recommend it most highly.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not as goods as her earlier Begger books
Review: This is an interesting but ultimately unsatisfying mystery novel set in the near future. Ms. Kress extrapolated recent news about declining birth rates with some interesting experiments in skin grafting, added a couple of bad guys, a gay couple for political correctness and created a middling novel.
Rating:
Summary: Outlandish but still engrossing.
Review: This is my first Nancy Kress book. While I thought some parts of the story's premise were unbelievable and outlandish, I found the issues it contained about procreating in the future to be compelling enough to keep me reading. I don't generally get much time to read, but I moved through this book faster than any book I've read in months. It's a small, easy read, and the characters are interesting enough that you want to keep reading to see what happens to them.
Rating:
Summary: Outlandish but still engrossing.
Review: This is my first Nancy Kress book. While I thought some parts of the story's premise were unbelievable and outlandish, I found the issues it contained about procreating in the future to be compelling enough to keep me reading. I don't generally get much time to read, but I moved through this book faster than any book I've read in months. It's a small, easy read, and the characters are interesting enough that you want to keep reading to see what happens to them.
Rating:
Summary: Not her best.
Review: This is the only of Nancy Kress' books I've read that I didn't like that much. It was interesting enough to finish, and the description of the future America was pretty interesting, but the characters weren't real --- they were being made to do things they never would have done in order to drive the plot forward.
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