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Books : Science Fiction & Fantasy : Authors, A-Z : B : Bear, Greg
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Greg Bear notoriously reworks traditional SF themes in his own special way. His first success, Blood Music (1985), features an intelligent plague which seems destructive but eventually recreates humanity in new, transcendent form--echoing Arthur C. Clarke's rough-hewn 1953 classic Childhood's End. Darwin's Radio revisits this territory but foregrounds scientific, medical and political reactions to disaster; it's reminiscent of a Michael Crichton technothriller. The menace is a "new" virus, SHEVA, which is in fact very old--embedded in a ancient human DNA sequences and now emerging as "Herod's 'Flu", which in pregnant women always forces miscarriage. Chillingly, US health aauthorities first see this threat as something to boost funding, while conservative scientists suppress research into the bizarre reality of what's happening. Evidence from Neanderthal remains and Stalin's mass graves hints that SHEVA is no disease but evolution in action. Human genomes everywhere, linked by the subtle network of "Darwin's radio", are activating Plan B: the creation of a new species. Then, with the world racked by panic, riots, death cults and martial law, SHEVA begins to mutate ... Tense stuff, though some biological info-dumps are tough going, and it's awkwardly paced towards the end when nine months are needed for the biologist heroine's own pregnancy, leading to... but that would be telling. This is a fearfully plausible scientific thriller. --David L Langford
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It's an unexpected combination: Greg Bear, author of so many ambitiously complex SF novels, writing about the colourful simplicities of the Star Wars universe. He carries it off well enough, with a mix of action-adventure and thoughtful world-building that entertains while keeping to the spirit of Lucas's saga.A few years after the events of The Phantom Menace, young Anakin Skywalker is getting restless--sneaking away from Jedi Temple training to gamble his life in a flying game that's much more bizarre and dangerous than the movie's podracing (even before an alien "Blood Carver" assassin intervenes). Anakin's character is taking shape now:
But above all, he loved winning.
To turn his frustrated energy to useful ends, the Jedi Council has Obi-Wan Kenobi take Anakin to investigate the remote, enigmatic world Zonama Sekot, whose organic technologies produce magnificent spacecraft and where a Jedi apprentice has vanished without trace. Secretly pursuing them is a battle squadron captained by the weapons designer who has already blueprinted the Death Star and is being double-crossed by his employer Commander Tarkin.Rogue Planet's action climaxes as the Jedis learn to grow their own spaceship: the Blood Carver strikes and two heavily armed fleets converge on helpless-seeming Zonama Sekot. Every faction has secret cards up its sleeve--and Anakin's is a very dangerous wild card indeed. There's final victory and heartbreak but also loose ends (including even stranger, deadlier aliens) that suggest sequels to follow. Bear does a solidly workman-like job. --David Langford
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It's an unexpected combination: Greg Bear, author of so many ambitiously complex SF novels, writing about the colourful simplicities of the Star Wars universe. He carries it off well enough, with a mix of action-adventure and thoughtful world-building that entertains while keeping to the spirit of Lucas's saga.A few years after the events of The Phantom Menace, young Anakin Skywalker is getting restless--sneaking away from Jedi Temple training to gamble his life in a flying game that's much more bizarre and dangerous than the movie's podracing (even before an alien "Blood Carver" assassin intervenes). Anakin's character is taking shape now:
But above all, he loved winning.
To turn his frustrated energy to useful ends, the Jedi Council has Obi-Wan Kenobi take Anakin to investigate the remote, enigmatic world Zonama Sekot, whose organic technologies produce magnificent spacecraft and where a Jedi apprentice has vanished without trace. Secretly pursuing them is a battle squadron captained by the weapons designer who has already blueprinted the Death Star and is being double-crossed by his employer Commander Tarkin.Rogue Planet's action climaxes as the Jedis learn to grow their own spaceship: the Blood Carver strikes and two heavily armed fleets converge on helpless-seeming Zonama Sekot. Every faction has secret cards up its sleeve--and Anakin's is a very dangerous wild card indeed. There's final victory and heartbreak but also loose ends (including even stranger, deadlier aliens) that suggest sequels to follow. Bear does a solidly workman-like job. --David Langford
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This is book number two in the new Second Foundation Trilogy being written by hard science fiction authors Gregory Benford, Greg Bear, and David Brin, otherwise known as the "Killer B's". In this book, Bear continues where Benford's Foundation's Fear left off, as the trial of legendary psychohistorian Hari Seldon is about to begin. Bear writes with a style uncannily similar to Foundation creator Isaac Asimov's, and he even manages to incorporate some of Asimov's own writing in the novel. Aside from the trial, Bear also focuses on the nearly immortal robots that serve the Foundation, including R. Daneel Olivaw, who is set to guide one of the Foundation's first great undertakings. But Olivaw runs into trouble from an unexpected quarter, his best operative, Lodovik Trema, whose positronic brain has been irrevocably altered in a strange accident that has given him freedom from the supposedly immutable laws of robotics. --Craig Engler
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