Review: Yesterday&#8217;s Kin
<p><cite>Yesterday&#8217;s Kin</cite> (Nancy Kress; Tachyon Publications) is a surprisingly pedestrian first-contact novel.  Surprisingly because Nancy Kress has done groundbreaking SF in the past. While this novel is competently written, no new ground is being broken here.</p>
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<p>Aliens land in New York City and announce that within a year Earth will encounter a sort of interstellar spore cloud that is likely to be infectiously lethal to humans.  They ofter help with attempts to develop a cure.</p>
<p>Then it turns it that the aliens are human stock, transplanted to a distant K-type star 150,000 years ago.  There are a handful of human with a rare haplotype that they recognize as kin.  A few of these kin (including one of the major characters) attempt to assimilate themselves to the aliens&#8217; culture.</p>
<p>Sadly, there isn&#8217;t as much story value as there could be here.  Far too much of the novel is spent on the major characters&#8217; rather tiresome family dramas.  The resolution of the crisis is rather anticlimactic. SFnal goodness is mostly limited to clever re-use of some obscure facts about human paleontology.</p>
<p>On her past record, Nancy Kress might have some really thought-provoking novels in her yet. This isn&#8217;t one of them.</p>
