Beggars and Choosers

Beggars and Choosers is a Hugo-nominated 1994 science-fiction novel by Nancy Kress. It is a sequel to the Hugo-winning Beggars in Spain, and was followed by Beggars Ride in 1996. The Beggars trilogy is set in a near future in which genetic engineering has become commonplace. "Genemods" were developed for intelligence, physical features, personality, enhanced sensory perception, and so on, but when Dr. Susan Melling discovered a genemod to allevia... more

Beggars and Choosers is a Hugo-nominated 1994 science-fiction novel by Nancy Kress. It is a sequel to the Hugo-winning Beggars in Spain, and was followed by Beggars Ride in 1996. The Beggars trilogy is set in a near future in which genetic engineering has become commonplace. "Genemods" were developed for intelligence, physical features, personality, enhanced sensory perception, and so on, but when Dr. Susan Melling discovered a genemod to alleviate the need for sleep, she changed the face of the world. These so-called "Sleepless" were not only more productive, due to 50% more hours in the day, but less prone to the vagaries of the unconscious mind due to their inability to sleep; they were well-adjusted, cheerful, intelligent, driven, and quickly came to dominate the scientific, economic, intellectual, medical, legal and technological arenas of the world, often at unprecedentedly young ages. As with many successful minorities, they were the target of prejudice, racism and general... less