The SF Site: Featured Reviews Archive (original) (raw)

Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear an audiobook review by Stephen Brandt Ship is the penultimate achievement of human technology. It consists of three colossal vessels, each one twelve kilometers long, and each tethered to a central moon-sized chunk of ice and rock to provide the elemental materials necessary for a long space voyage. Ship is the human race�s attempt to reach, and colonize, far distant planets. But somewhere during the centuries-long voyage, something went terribly wrong.

City at the End of Time by Greg Bear reviewed by Greg L. Johnson With this novel, the author returns to the kind of big idea science fiction that first marked his appearance in the field. The theme is nothing less than the nature of reality and the possible fate of the entire universe. That's an awfully big topic to take on in the course of a work of fiction, and one that possibly no one could successfully address in the telling of a story. It doesn't completely succeed in its task of melding its vision of the incredibly far future with the need of keeping it all within the framework of a science fiction story, but it does provide ample moments of wonder, awe, and a sense of humanity in the face of an implacable universe. Whether the book is eventually ranked with the best of Greg Bear's novels only time will tell, but it's certainly his most ambitious work, well worth the attention of any serious reader of modern science fiction.

City at the End of Time by Greg Bear reviewed by Paul Kincaid The novel opens with three new arrivals in present-day Seattle. All are young, disconnected, marginalized. They are also running away from something, indeed they have spent their entire lives running away, though what it is that is after them neither they nor we have any clear idea. All three carry with them a stone. One of them, Ginny, is directed to a strange warehouse, where she finds accommodation and a sort of job helping a strange old man, Bidewell, sort through an immense collection of old books in search of anomalies. The second, Jack, earns a precarious living as a busker juggling live rats, shares an apartment with someone we never meet and who seems to keep forgetting Jack's existence.

Quantico by Greg Bear reviewed by Nathan Brazil Set in a near future where the war against terror has come home to North American streets, a climate of fear pervades daily life, and the FBI are waging a stalled battle against home-grown malcontents, and the political system itself. Young FBI agents William Griffin, Fouad Al-Husam and classmate Jane Rowland are on the trail of a domestic threat; a genetically targeted plague, which if released could eliminate entire sectors of society.

Darwin's Children by Greg Bear reviewed by Cindy Lynn Speer It has only been eleven years since the SHEVA retrovirus first made itself known, but the impact has had terrible consequences. The most obvious of these is the children. The New York Times has christened them the Virus Children, and while they in themselves are not a problem as such, the actions their very existence causes may destroy the world.

W3: Women in Deep Time by Greg Bear reviewed by Cindy Lynn Speer This book collects three stories about women, and these women are all in some sort of transition, on a journey to accept themselves, as well as to find their place. As the author says in the introduction, "These three stories have a theme in common: the female psyche, multiplied and divided... At any rate, throughout my career (and for whatever reason), I've been fascinated by the female voice."

Eon by Greg Bear reviewed by Alma A. Hromic Even in 1985, when the Cold War was still very much within living memory and the way of life it had dictated something familiar to every thinking reader out there, this book must have had a terribly anachronistic feel to it. The technology is there, the potential is there, but none of the characters seem to have evolved past the primal Cold Warrior types.

Vitals by Greg Bear reviewed by Greg L. Johnson And you thought the 20th century was horrific. In this book, the 20th century is just the staging ground for the terrors that await us in the 21st. We start finding out what's going on when Hal Cousins' search for the biological underpinnings of death brings him face-to-face with a vast terrifying conspiracy. This is a horror novel with elements of SF and thrillers thrown in. Indeed, the author is playing with the expectations readers of all those types of writing bring with them.

Blood Music by Greg Bear reviewed by Martin Lewis Vergil Ulam is a brilliant, unkempt, maverick scientist. This SF archetype has been carrying out private research behind the back of the biotech firm he works for. When the company find out, he is fired and ordered to destroy his work. Believing his work is too important to be sacrificed Ulam smuggles it out of his lab the only way he can; in his bloodstream. He's injected himself with a solution containing cellular organisms, noocytes, as intelligent as rhesus monkeys. These noocytes continue to evolve within him, getting smarter, learning about his body.

Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear reviewed by Donna McMahon Molecular biologist Kaye Lang, a specialist in retroviruses, works in an obscure corner of her field, so she is utterly unprepared for the tidal wave of fame that strikes when her work becomes the lynchpin of a battle against a devastating new disease. Pregnant women around the world are contracting "Herod's flu," a mysterious illness that severely deforms and kills fetuses. As public pressure and hysteria grow, the U.S. government enlists biotech companies and universities in a race to find a cure, with a reluctant Kaye recruited as their figurehead scientist.

Slant by Greg Bear reviewed by Alexander von Thorn The surfeit of cryptic jargon, the dark cynicism and political allegory, the motif of mutilation, of direct neural interface to universes of information -- William Gibson pioneered this territory in the 80s. But Greg Bear is writing as much in the tradition of Aldous Huxley and Alvin Toffler as William Gibson. This novel is filled with profound ideas and striking images.

Foundation and Chaos by Greg Bear reviewed by Steven H Silver Bear is at his most interesting when he resorts to reporting directly on Hari Seldon's trial incorporating imperial intrigues into it and expanding the scope of Seldon's crimes. Building on the very basis of the Foundation series, it comes across as true to the series.

Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear reviewed by Rodger Turner Greg Bear has thrown in many elements to tantalize. He's set the novel in 1947, he's added dinosaurs, found fifty years before but out of fashion for the day, he's added South American explorers and dictators and he's built a cast of marvelous characters both real and imagined.