Sea Change, by Nancy Kress.

(I know there could be some mistakes in this review. I’m trying to improve my English, thanks)

I receive this book from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review, so here we go:

Sea Change in one phrase: In a near future, Renata Black is an illegal activist who fights for her cause despite her own personal circumstances.

I could seem that the author’s personal life is involved in the story. Well, all the authors do this to a greater or lesser degree. In this novel -narrated in first person- you can notice this in the personal issues dealt: divorce, the loss of the loved ones, the stubbornness of not giving up… But in second thought I think that this explanation is better: Renata Black is a very well developed character.

So, the novel can be understood as a good picture of the future quotidian life in the USA after a catastrophic event and I think this is a positive aspect. However, I do no like it. Why? I am not sure, maybe it is about the proportion of personal life/science fiction in the story. In both ways it's interesting, I do not deny this, but together, for me at least, it doesn't work completely.

On the other hand, although at a first glance the main premise of the book may look a bit absurd -there are a lot of stupid things in our world, and they exist and they rule our lives-, actually this is the best part of the book, the issues in which Nancy Kress excels. I mean her accurate hard future speculation due both to her scientific knowledge and her incisive imagination. These are some of the topics dealt: genetic modified organisms vs. natural crops, the danger about a genetic engineering in capitalism, irreversibility of climate change and how to deal with it, power abuse vs. civil society activism and the enemies of liberty (fear, ignorance & fanaticism).

Finally I must note a good aspect and two complaints about this novel. About the former, the absence of bloodshed: violence is not necessary to explain a good story. On the latter: Nancy Kress plays the deus ex machina card in the usual computer hacking way and second (a minor one), the USAcentric perspective, but I understand that this is a lot to explain in a short novel.

You can read another review about this author here.