Terran Tomorrow

Kress disappoints with an exposition-heavy and slow-moving conclusion to the Yesterday’s Kin trilogy (following If Tomorrow Comes). Three decades before this book begins, a delegation of humans, including Dr. Marianne Jenner, left Earth to establish trade relations with the “human-aliens” known as the Kindred. When Jenner finally returns, along with four other humans and five Kindred, it’s to a very different Earth: 96% of humans have been killed in a bioweapons attack launched by the fanatic Gaiists, who believed their mass murder necessary to protect the planet. The survivors of the bird-borne virus—those immune to it, and those who venture out of secure domes only in protective suits—must still fight for survival against the New America paramilitary group that emerged from the chaos. Another peril looms when some humans, and some of the Kindred who traveled with Jenner’s party, become comatose from an unknown cause. Underdeveloped characters and uninspired prose (“Between them lay gulfs of perception, crossed only by the fragile bridges of kinship and history”) won’t help readers make it through this ponderous tale. (Nov.)