Probability Moon

Not sure why some reviewers wrote so negatively, I think this is a very good book. It has a good and well developed story line that doesn't follow the Science Fiction receipe for the puny hero who defeats the omnipotent/all powerful villian by the virtue of his/her humanity and a lot of luck. Instead, there are a handful of everyday Joes, each with different strengths and weaknesses, that are basically in over their heads and the ultimate result is... well... failure, but not defeat! That is what is so great about the story! We can't win all the battles, but we never give up the fight! Maybe not the most romantic storyline, but Kress makes it work. I am alway looking for a good SF story that breaks the mold and Kress delivered.

More accessible than the Beggar's series, Kress' latest series of novels deals with a number of difficult concepts. She manages to deal with the idea of shared or collective reality and how we define it in ways that Phil Dick would have imagined. She also brings a hard science edge to her writing that has, until recently, been on the back burner and secondary to her literary skills. Probability Moon is the first in a trilogy that deals with a number of common themes in a fresh way--first contact and humankind's responsibilities role in the universe.Well writen and with a quick pace, Probability Moon isn't as powerful as her best work (Beggar's in Spain) but still manages to inject new life into a number of older sf themes. One of her strengths has always been character and narrative and, while both are important in this novel, they seem to be secondary to the hard sf setting and scientific details. Nevertheless, Kress' book is better written and thought out than most of her contemporaries. She's still one of the best writers working in a medium and genre that has fallen on cliches and formulas in the post Star Wars world.

I slightly prefer Kress' Beggars trilogy, but this has strong characterization, interesting science, plot twists, a plausible almost-human society - you could do quite a bit worseAs for others' critiques, well -Not all plausible characters are cultured well-balanced people.Not all strong storylines have a solitary focus or fit neatly in a market niche.Demonstrating trust in a nearly-human, pacifist society by bringing kids along is both entirely plausible -and a phenomenal opportunity to study such a society in all age groups-The physics, biology, psychology and anthropology are actually plausibly worked out. Physics and biology I know something about. I checked references for the rest. Both Kress and Charles Sheffield - her husband who happens to be a well-respected scientist, hard science fiction author, and almost certainly read drafts of this - are not exactly novices at writing about science-related topics

Hugo and Nebula Award winner Nancy Kress (the "Beggars" trilogy and "Maximum Light") sets "Probability Moon" in a distant future in which humans colonize space through a series of star gates, technological remnants of an ancient civilization. This vanished race also seems to have seeded the galaxy with humans - planetary populations who differ solely because of evolutionary isolation.The newest discovery is a flower loving race who commune in planet-wide "shared reality," a universal inability to lie, even by omission. Although shared universal empathy hardly seems an evolutionary advantage to the visiting humans, deviation from shared reality causes unbearable head pain. Those who cannot share reality - the mentally impaired - are killed at an early age. Others are excluded from shared reality - shunned -as punishment for their crimes.Enli, punished for her brother's death, is one of these. Assigned to spy on the human scientists to determine if they are "real," she gets involved beyond her sorriest imaginings. Meanwhile, the real mission, unbeknownst to the scientists, is a military study of an ancient artifact masquerading as one of the planet's moons. The military, engaged in an escalating, mysterious war, hopes it's a doomsday weapon.Naturally all this is moving toward an explosive climax which Kress resolves handily in this volume while leaving plenty of intriguing questions for a future novel or two. Her characters and the planetary setting are well developed and the story moves at a brisk, suspenseful pace.