Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
IBooks (2005), Paperback, 350 pages
Description
Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML: In the tradition of the greatest cyberpunk novels, Blood Music explores the imminent destruction of mankind and the fear of mass destruction by technological advancements. Blood Music follows present-day events in which the fears concerning the nuclear annihilation of the world subsided after the Cold War and the fear of chemical warfare spilled over into the empty void of nuclear fear. An amazing breakthrough in genetic engineering made by Vergil Ulam is considered too dangerous for further research, but rather than destroy his work, he injects himself with his creation and walks out of his lab, unaware of just quite how his actions will change the world. Author Greg Bear's treatment of the traditional tale of scientific hubris is both suspenseful and a compelling portrait of a new intelligence emerging amongst us, irrevocably changing our world..… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Bookmarque
It is difficult to put into words why I like this book so much. I’ve read it probably 6 or 7 times and I’m still fascinated with the concept of high intelligence at the micro-scale. Yes, it is perhaps too long and quite choppy, but I can forgive that because the ideas in this book are so
Like other good science thriller writers, Bear gives us an explanation of the mechanics underlying his story. I both understood it and took it as read; not being a scientist myself I can’t easily verify whether what he says is true. Basically it sounded plausible and so I could go with it as the basis of the novel; that is that the scientist Ulam in working with the natural mechanics of information exchange among cells, accidentally engineered learning cells, which evolved into sentient, intelligent cells. Not so scary until it is explained that they still work like cells; that is in groups. Now we have groups of intelligent cells running amok in the human body.
Eventually they figure out how to overcome the rejection syndrome when moving to another human and they spread. They are explorers and consider Ulum and other early hosts as godlike beings. They have no concept of the macro scale, but when they do get it, they bide their time and continue to learn.
It seems to me that because of their co-dependent nature they aren’t subject to the same selfish aggression that humans are. Their very natures are rooted in cooperation and co-existence; like the Borg the concept of the individual is difficult for them to understand. Through interaction as peers with their hosts Ulam and Bernard, they realize more and more about what it is to be human and Bernard experiences not only his own memories, but those of others. This is accomplished through something like mitochondrial DNA; a structure within cells that encodes for memory and serves as a long-term storage vault through generations of people. Racial memory for lack of a better term, only it is stored at a cellular level and can be reproduced and replayed; experienced by others.
The original story (which I’ve only read once) is more of a cautionary tale a la Frankenstein; casting the scientist as arrogant, irresponsible and destructive. The novel only starts out that way when the changes to humans in the story are thought to be a disease. The “plague” quickly turns to something else in my mind; a salvation. Humanity will surely destroy itself one day, but preserving ourselves (encoding ourselves) as noocytes gives us immortality of a sense. Basically the story changes to one of the next stage in human evolution. A topic Bear seems to like.
Eventually every human loses its macro scale and becomes literally dissolved into a mass of living “tissue”. Certain portions of a person’s brain are encoded to retain the whole of the personality, memories, knowledge and experiences. The rest of the body is taken as general building material for this new micro-scale world. The parts that are fully developed noocytes continue to think, feel and become part of the whole; working with peer cell groups from other people. It’s as if all of humanity has become one gigantic organism. Of course the cells encoded with individual personalities continue to change and one can meet up with a version of oneself; one changed and evolved, but yet still containing the essential personality of the original person. It’s all very idealistic and dreamlike.
Many hard core science fiction fans hate this idea and would have liked Bear to keep to known territory; the sacred state of humanity and the preservation there of. Some even liken this to a fascist attempt at racial cleansing; to get rid of the old, the ugly, the mentally challenged etc. Bear never goes there though. He wonders at it through a character; are the bad and defective people integrated as well as the geniuses, or are they deleted or altered to shed their negative characteristics? Another character’s relatives explain it to one not immediately assimilated by saying that they ‘fix’ people. And they do, but do they delete people who don’t meet some kind of standard? We readers never know, but we can speculate.
The upshot of so many billions of trillions of intelligent beings concentrated in such a small space is the observer effect. That is the premise that mere observation and/or measurement of a phenomenon will affect it in some way. Any set of closely observed phenomena will change and too much change upsets the balance of the physics of the universe. Then the question; does the universe set the mind’s direction or does the mind set the universe’s direction? Bear doesn’t answer because he can’t. We’re left to wonder about it.
And a good deal more. One problem of this novel is that of characters created, fussed over and then dropped completely without resolution. He does the same with some ideas and concepts. I would have liked more resolution if only to bring the story to a close, if not to answer scientific queries. Once the noocytes return, what happens? We’re left with a dream-like vignette of Bernard and his first girlfriend and their first date. In actuality, they never had a second and he’s regretted it all his life. Now encoded into the Thought Universe, he has reconnected with the encoded version of this woman and some of each part of them can relive and redirect the past in a new future. All very idealistic and sort of clangs against the hard science of what came before it. I love the idea of it and I think Bear did, too, but it seems he came to it late in the writing of the novel and I think he should have gone back and modified the spirit and execution of the first parts of the story to check up with his change of plans. He also could have killed some story lines that went nowhere, too. It makes for a messy, but strangely satisfying package.
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intriguing. Plus George Guidall’s voice in narration is gentle and dreamlike; adding to the nirvana-like concept of the Noo-Sphere and the Thought Universe. Tantalizing.Like other good science thriller writers, Bear gives us an explanation of the mechanics underlying his story. I both understood it and took it as read; not being a scientist myself I can’t easily verify whether what he says is true. Basically it sounded plausible and so I could go with it as the basis of the novel; that is that the scientist Ulam in working with the natural mechanics of information exchange among cells, accidentally engineered learning cells, which evolved into sentient, intelligent cells. Not so scary until it is explained that they still work like cells; that is in groups. Now we have groups of intelligent cells running amok in the human body.
Eventually they figure out how to overcome the rejection syndrome when moving to another human and they spread. They are explorers and consider Ulum and other early hosts as godlike beings. They have no concept of the macro scale, but when they do get it, they bide their time and continue to learn.
It seems to me that because of their co-dependent nature they aren’t subject to the same selfish aggression that humans are. Their very natures are rooted in cooperation and co-existence; like the Borg the concept of the individual is difficult for them to understand. Through interaction as peers with their hosts Ulam and Bernard, they realize more and more about what it is to be human and Bernard experiences not only his own memories, but those of others. This is accomplished through something like mitochondrial DNA; a structure within cells that encodes for memory and serves as a long-term storage vault through generations of people. Racial memory for lack of a better term, only it is stored at a cellular level and can be reproduced and replayed; experienced by others.
The original story (which I’ve only read once) is more of a cautionary tale a la Frankenstein; casting the scientist as arrogant, irresponsible and destructive. The novel only starts out that way when the changes to humans in the story are thought to be a disease. The “plague” quickly turns to something else in my mind; a salvation. Humanity will surely destroy itself one day, but preserving ourselves (encoding ourselves) as noocytes gives us immortality of a sense. Basically the story changes to one of the next stage in human evolution. A topic Bear seems to like.
Eventually every human loses its macro scale and becomes literally dissolved into a mass of living “tissue”. Certain portions of a person’s brain are encoded to retain the whole of the personality, memories, knowledge and experiences. The rest of the body is taken as general building material for this new micro-scale world. The parts that are fully developed noocytes continue to think, feel and become part of the whole; working with peer cell groups from other people. It’s as if all of humanity has become one gigantic organism. Of course the cells encoded with individual personalities continue to change and one can meet up with a version of oneself; one changed and evolved, but yet still containing the essential personality of the original person. It’s all very idealistic and dreamlike.
Many hard core science fiction fans hate this idea and would have liked Bear to keep to known territory; the sacred state of humanity and the preservation there of. Some even liken this to a fascist attempt at racial cleansing; to get rid of the old, the ugly, the mentally challenged etc. Bear never goes there though. He wonders at it through a character; are the bad and defective people integrated as well as the geniuses, or are they deleted or altered to shed their negative characteristics? Another character’s relatives explain it to one not immediately assimilated by saying that they ‘fix’ people. And they do, but do they delete people who don’t meet some kind of standard? We readers never know, but we can speculate.
The upshot of so many billions of trillions of intelligent beings concentrated in such a small space is the observer effect. That is the premise that mere observation and/or measurement of a phenomenon will affect it in some way. Any set of closely observed phenomena will change and too much change upsets the balance of the physics of the universe. Then the question; does the universe set the mind’s direction or does the mind set the universe’s direction? Bear doesn’t answer because he can’t. We’re left to wonder about it.
And a good deal more. One problem of this novel is that of characters created, fussed over and then dropped completely without resolution. He does the same with some ideas and concepts. I would have liked more resolution if only to bring the story to a close, if not to answer scientific queries. Once the noocytes return, what happens? We’re left with a dream-like vignette of Bernard and his first girlfriend and their first date. In actuality, they never had a second and he’s regretted it all his life. Now encoded into the Thought Universe, he has reconnected with the encoded version of this woman and some of each part of them can relive and redirect the past in a new future. All very idealistic and sort of clangs against the hard science of what came before it. I love the idea of it and I think Bear did, too, but it seems he came to it late in the writing of the novel and I think he should have gone back and modified the spirit and execution of the first parts of the story to check up with his change of plans. He also could have killed some story lines that went nowhere, too. It makes for a messy, but strangely satisfying package.
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LibraryThing member Trogdor7899
Although the premise is great, the book falls flat about 2/3 of the way through. I am somewhat biased about the book because I read the short story first and that, in my opinion, was much stronger and the short story should have been left alone. The book is a good read but was disappointing. Worth
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reading one time I suppose. Show Less
LibraryThing member bilbette
SPOILER: A manufactured virus develops a collective consciousness that takes over the scientist who creates it and eventually the world.
LibraryThing member ragwaine
Very technical,good ending, didn't wimp out. Very cool idea. Just read the short story a couple years later and that rocked too.
LibraryThing member cave.blogem
Thought it was about nanotechnology, which was why I decided to read it. Some of the cover blurbs are also, I don't know, perhaps inaccurate is the right word. I shouldn't expect much veracity from blurbs, but to trumpet this book because it is by someone who really knows the underlying science
The book's ending is a little deceptive, which may account for the nano-designation it gets in some articles. The cells that take over North America recede into a smaller space, exiting the continent entirely. But this has nothing to do with Van Der Waal forces or nano-dimensional stuff. It all takes place (in the novel) through an information-based warping of the space-time continuum, if I understood correctly.
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seems beside the point. Maybe he does. The whole idea of biologic was so speculative in 1984, not to mention other stuff. It's like saying that the reason you read Chrichton's books is because he really knows his science. In the book Prey, for example, he could, but it doesn't really matter, because nanomachines taking over your wife's body is still mostly speculative. Does any of that make sense? I guess what I mean is that the science knowledge didn't seem to have anything to do with the book's verisimilitude.The book's ending is a little deceptive, which may account for the nano-designation it gets in some articles. The cells that take over North America recede into a smaller space, exiting the continent entirely. But this has nothing to do with Van Der Waal forces or nano-dimensional stuff. It all takes place (in the novel) through an information-based warping of the space-time continuum, if I understood correctly.
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LibraryThing member grizzly.anderson
For some time I've been looking for a copy of Blood Music because I remembered reading a good review of it years ago, and I've come to like Greg Bear. Recently I got hold of a used copy, and I wasn't disappointed. I might have been if I'd special ordered it full price.
It actually reads like two,
The second is the story of the person who figures out what has happened and the risk this new life form poses to the rest of the world, and who sacrifices himself to to prevent complete disaster.
The second story is intermixed with the story of the new life itself. What might its goals and desires be? How would it effect the world around it? How would it even perceive that world and the life we know?
If anything the last, most speculative part is also the weakest part. Bear does a decent job trying to think and present the completely alien, but I kept being sidetracked by my own inability to accept the basic premise of how his micro-community gestalt mind actually functioned. Knowing *less* biology might have actually made that part easier for me.
Still an enjoyable and well written book.
It actually reads like two,
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possibly three different novellas strung together. The first is the cautionary Frankensteinesque horror story. The arrogant creator of new life is destroyed by his own creation. Which escapes.The second is the story of the person who figures out what has happened and the risk this new life form poses to the rest of the world, and who sacrifices himself to to prevent complete disaster.
The second story is intermixed with the story of the new life itself. What might its goals and desires be? How would it effect the world around it? How would it even perceive that world and the life we know?
If anything the last, most speculative part is also the weakest part. Bear does a decent job trying to think and present the completely alien, but I kept being sidetracked by my own inability to accept the basic premise of how his micro-community gestalt mind actually functioned. Knowing *less* biology might have actually made that part easier for me.
Still an enjoyable and well written book.
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LibraryThing member reading_fox
Unusual. All the way through this I had the odd sensation that I'd read it or something very similar before. It never came to me what it was.
The basic premise is something that has definetly been the subject of many novels, but Bear writing in the 80s will have been at the forefront. It has taken a
Virgil Ulam is your almost stereotypical mad scientist, poor social skills, but technically brilliant. As a sideline to the work he's supposed to be doing for a new BioTech start-up (also a very good prescience from the 80s), he starts looking at introns (non replicating parts of DNA) within simple cells. He manages to get them to replicate, massively increasing the information storage and hence processing capabilities of the cells (this is the bit that's completely impossible) He know's he has suceeded in doing this because they can run mazes just like lab rats. Being a mad scientist however means that he isn't that hot on security, and so he gets found out. Just before he gets canned, he takes the desperate step of injecting hmself with his 'clever' cell lines. Secure in the knoweldge that only he understands, he knows he has a couple of weeks to find an new job in another lab where he can continue to work on the cells. After all they're only cells like any other in his body, and what harm could it do?
The rest of the book covers the details of precisely what the consequences can be of not knowing what you are doing. As seen by the very few survivors who happen to be genetically compatible. Annoyingly the tale form his mother's POV is left incomplete.
I don't think this is an anti-GM creed in the way that Jurrasic Park might be, but the basic message - Be extremely careful if you don't fully understand what it is you are experimenting with - remains the same. The actual technological suggestions aren't to be taken seriously, the consequences are.
Bear doesn't write the most empathic characters going, he is much more ideas orientated, and as such this isn't a particularly gripping novel. But it's readable enough and even though badly dated at times the background principles remain awe inspiring.
The basic premise is something that has definetly been the subject of many novels, but Bear writing in the 80s will have been at the forefront. It has taken a
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couple of decades for the biotech industry to reach the prevalence in understanding it now holds. This unfortunately means we understand a lot more than we did then, and many of concepts are now out-of-date or just downright impossible. Also seriously dating the novel is the computer technology. Considering it was published '85, Bear did quite well at predicting it's widespread uptake in laboratories et al, but the continued references to VDTs (presumably Visual Display Terminals) grates every single time.Virgil Ulam is your almost stereotypical mad scientist, poor social skills, but technically brilliant. As a sideline to the work he's supposed to be doing for a new BioTech start-up (also a very good prescience from the 80s), he starts looking at introns (non replicating parts of DNA) within simple cells. He manages to get them to replicate, massively increasing the information storage and hence processing capabilities of the cells (this is the bit that's completely impossible) He know's he has suceeded in doing this because they can run mazes just like lab rats. Being a mad scientist however means that he isn't that hot on security, and so he gets found out. Just before he gets canned, he takes the desperate step of injecting hmself with his 'clever' cell lines. Secure in the knoweldge that only he understands, he knows he has a couple of weeks to find an new job in another lab where he can continue to work on the cells. After all they're only cells like any other in his body, and what harm could it do?
The rest of the book covers the details of precisely what the consequences can be of not knowing what you are doing. As seen by the very few survivors who happen to be genetically compatible. Annoyingly the tale form his mother's POV is left incomplete.
I don't think this is an anti-GM creed in the way that Jurrasic Park might be, but the basic message - Be extremely careful if you don't fully understand what it is you are experimenting with - remains the same. The actual technological suggestions aren't to be taken seriously, the consequences are.
Bear doesn't write the most empathic characters going, he is much more ideas orientated, and as such this isn't a particularly gripping novel. But it's readable enough and even though badly dated at times the background principles remain awe inspiring.
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LibraryThing member donaldmorgan
Dorris Lessing recommended this in an interview as one of her favorite sci fi reads so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I was groaning through the initial pages of typical adolescent fantasy crap: Allergy prone, four-eyed, socially inept (yet brilliant!) nerd transforms into super-being via
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laboratory shenanigans and gets laid, but then the story turned into something much more interesting. If you are like me, bored to death by most sci fi, this one might be worth trying out. Show Less
LibraryThing member hairballsrus
This is definitely a "whoa" book. Hard sf ages quickly and there are a few visable cracks in this 1985 novel ( video screens and floppy disks to mention a couple), but the ideas behind the story-science gone awry, observation as a force of evolution, etc. etc...do what all good science fiction
Granted, the characters get a bit of a bum rush, some storylines just deadend, but the concepts keep the story afloat. I can definitely see the beginnings of Darwin's Radio in this book.
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books should do-THEY MAKE YOU THINK! I really enjoyed it. Granted, the characters get a bit of a bum rush, some storylines just deadend, but the concepts keep the story afloat. I can definitely see the beginnings of Darwin's Radio in this book.
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LibraryThing member arning
Nanotechnology--molecular-level machines that are capable of self-replication, become self aware and start redefining
LibraryThing member djryan
The original gray goo apocalypse. These days we're afraid of nanotechnology and cyber-singularities, but apart from a couple is quaint leftovers from the eighties (disk drives, what no Internet?) it's still a fresh as when I first read it.
LibraryThing member rachaelster
I mentally inhaled this in one night without even realising it
LibraryThing member Hegemellman
I am having a hard time describing this book, so bear with me. You know that place where an author takes a left turn into crazy-town? It's an easy place to get to and a difficult place to do well. I, personally, prefer when an author takes us to The Land Beyond Reason, also known as Pure
Protagonist 1 was playing around in the lab and made intelligent cells. He injected himself with them. They proceeded to transform him and, being trillions of intelligent beings with little concept of the scale on which we live, explore the world by getting in the water and being generally unavoidably contagious. Fairly quickly all of North America has succumbed to noocytes and is a wasteland except for 20 or so people who for some reason (even though they had surely destroyed millions of similar people without such reservations) had kept alive until they had learned to work with these people's unusual biochemistry. We follow four of these people. We also follow Bernard, Protagonist 2, who flew off to Europe to have himself quarantined and who is transitioning very slowly. It turns out that the noocytes don't kill everyone. Once they had learned how, they actually assimilate those people who become noocytes.
There is also another hard left when the noocytes turn North America into some sort of huge biomass and another when they stop nuclear bombs from going off by distorting the rules of the universe temporarily (did I mention that so many information processing beings so densely located are able to affect the very fabric of the universe?) and _another_ when the noocytes transition to existing on a quantum level and _*another*_ when having the noocytes on a quantum level is threatening to rip the earth apart and BAM! the book ends.
Speaking of the book ending, when you exist on a purely informational level one of the millions of copies of you will spend time a sort of thought holodeck where you will redo your regrets in macro-life.
After reading this book I was mostly left saying, "huh? Why did I just read this?" It gets two stars instead of one because had I known the nature of the book I would have not read it at all, but knowing the nature of the book I can understand why other people would want to read it.
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Imagination and a suburb of Science Fiction, slowly, so slowly that it feels like a logical progression. This book is not like that. It takes a hard left to crazy-town about a third of the way through when our unlikeable Protagonist 1 (Virgil) is murdered by his dull friend who is just trying to save the world (sortof).Protagonist 1 was playing around in the lab and made intelligent cells. He injected himself with them. They proceeded to transform him and, being trillions of intelligent beings with little concept of the scale on which we live, explore the world by getting in the water and being generally unavoidably contagious. Fairly quickly all of North America has succumbed to noocytes and is a wasteland except for 20 or so people who for some reason (even though they had surely destroyed millions of similar people without such reservations) had kept alive until they had learned to work with these people's unusual biochemistry. We follow four of these people. We also follow Bernard, Protagonist 2, who flew off to Europe to have himself quarantined and who is transitioning very slowly. It turns out that the noocytes don't kill everyone. Once they had learned how, they actually assimilate those people who become noocytes.
There is also another hard left when the noocytes turn North America into some sort of huge biomass and another when they stop nuclear bombs from going off by distorting the rules of the universe temporarily (did I mention that so many information processing beings so densely located are able to affect the very fabric of the universe?) and _another_ when the noocytes transition to existing on a quantum level and _*another*_ when having the noocytes on a quantum level is threatening to rip the earth apart and BAM! the book ends.
Speaking of the book ending, when you exist on a purely informational level one of the millions of copies of you will spend time a sort of thought holodeck where you will redo your regrets in macro-life.
After reading this book I was mostly left saying, "huh? Why did I just read this?" It gets two stars instead of one because had I known the nature of the book I would have not read it at all, but knowing the nature of the book I can understand why other people would want to read it.
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LibraryThing member Will-Hart
An award winning and original book that is not your typical protagonist-slays-enemy story. The book changes direction dramatically mid way through and we are left with an interesting and mostly convincing discussion of biological computing, alternative theories of physics and the reaction of the
Good but not stunning, and certainly not for everybody.
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world to global catastrophe.Good but not stunning, and certainly not for everybody.
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LibraryThing member Clevermonkey
After some tinkering, a scientist's cells get intelligent, get culture, get busy. Far ahead of its time, the precursor to bio-punk.
LibraryThing member featherbear
in Natalie Angier's chapter on evolutionary biology in The Canon, she notes that among the attributes of living organisms, cell structure has undergone the least amount of change across millions of years of evolution. So what if some mad scientist tampers with that structure to make "smart" cells?
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Association item: the Treehouse of Horror episode where Lisa creates an entire civilization from a culture of Bart's snot. Bear writes better SF than Michael Crichton, fwiw. Show Less
LibraryThing member bookwyrmm
Interesting concept with some interesting twists, but just did not keep my attention and some parts just did not make sense.
LibraryThing member TheDivineOomba
Another Hugo book read - this time "Blood Music" by Greg Bear. Its one that has been sitting in my shelves for awhile - and I needed a short afternoon read. It was a good choice - not to heady, perfect length, good story.
First - I found the first half to be a bit stereotypical - nerdy anti-social
The main character (now the handsome scientist/businessman) is still stereotypical. Not a lot of character development. Other characters such as, developmentally challenged Suzy, who was not changed, must survive in a changed world. There are other characters, but they mostly fade out of the story.
This book suffers from a lack of depth from the characters, but it shines when it comes to how the intelligent bacteria was handled. Even though this book was written in 1985, it didn't feel dated.
Recommended.
First - I found the first half to be a bit stereotypical - nerdy anti-social
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scientist running un-ethical experiments at a biotech firm releases a world ending plague of microbes that convert everything to more microbes. Its been done over and over - however, this might be the first story that everybody copied from. The second half of the book is where it shines. It goes from an end of the world scenario to something completely different. Just what are the intelligent microbes doing, and why are they doing it - is the question. The main character (now the handsome scientist/businessman) is still stereotypical. Not a lot of character development. Other characters such as, developmentally challenged Suzy, who was not changed, must survive in a changed world. There are other characters, but they mostly fade out of the story.
This book suffers from a lack of depth from the characters, but it shines when it comes to how the intelligent bacteria was handled. Even though this book was written in 1985, it didn't feel dated.
Recommended.
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LibraryThing member isabelx
“I'm not as nonchalant as I seem. I'm worried, Edward. I'd like to find a better way to control them before they find out about my brain. I mean, think of it. They're in the billions by now, more if they're converting other kinds of cells. Maybe trillions. Each cluster smart. I'm probably the
A selfish and slapdash scientistbrings about the end of the world through sheer carelessness . I'm not sure how I feel about this book, but the more far-fetched it got the less I cared about what was happening.
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smartest thing on the planet, and they haven't begun to get their act together. I don't want them to take over.” He laughed unpleasantly. “Steal my soul, you know? So think of some treatment to block them. Maybe we can starve the little buggers. Just think on it." He buttoned his shirt. "Give me a call."A selfish and slapdash scientist
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LibraryThing member nmele
Now a classic, I think this is a well-written, very suspenseful novel.
LibraryThing member KevinRubin
"Blood Music" was a great sci-fi novel. I'd seen it around for years, but never gotten to picking it up and reading it.
It begins with a genetic research scientist, Vergil Ulam, and his personal research done at the lab where he works. He's brilliant, but not entirely ethical, although he doesn't
Any coincidence that Vergil's last name is Ulam, the same as the "father" of the hydrogen bomb?
Ulam's personal research is into converting individual cells into computers, with memory and processing power. His earlier work, E. Coli cells is successful, but each individual cell has only the brain power of a mouse. Later he uses some of his own white blood cells, and they each end up with the brain power of a monkey.
But when his boss finds out about it, and doesn't want anything to become public for fear of hurting the company's IPO, he orders Vergil to destroy his work. Vergil starts to, but then feels like they're his children and instead of destroying all, injects some (a few million cells) back into his body, intending to extract them again once he finds a job in another lab.
And that's how his intelligent research gets out of the lab and changes the world...
Overall I enjoyed it till the changes towards the end that left me sort of confused.
It begins with a genetic research scientist, Vergil Ulam, and his personal research done at the lab where he works. He's brilliant, but not entirely ethical, although he doesn't
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see it that way, he feels he's entitled to what he does, for instance, he sees no problem hacking into a university's computer to fake his academic record, because he knows he's capable of the job he's doing, the managers just need a "sound and light show" to go with it.Any coincidence that Vergil's last name is Ulam, the same as the "father" of the hydrogen bomb?
Ulam's personal research is into converting individual cells into computers, with memory and processing power. His earlier work, E. Coli cells is successful, but each individual cell has only the brain power of a mouse. Later he uses some of his own white blood cells, and they each end up with the brain power of a monkey.
But when his boss finds out about it, and doesn't want anything to become public for fear of hurting the company's IPO, he orders Vergil to destroy his work. Vergil starts to, but then feels like they're his children and instead of destroying all, injects some (a few million cells) back into his body, intending to extract them again once he finds a job in another lab.
And that's how his intelligent research gets out of the lab and changes the world...
Overall I enjoyed it till the changes towards the end that left me sort of confused.
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LibraryThing member Andy_DiMartino
Had read some of his work that he had written in Asimov's Foundation series, enjoyed that so picked this up and really enjoyed this too. Good plot
LibraryThing member Veeralpadhiar
Highly overrated. I enjoyed this book until Vergil Ulam injects himself with the cells he is working on. What the hell? I lost interest after that and then just sleep walked through the whole book thinking all the while that this could have been so much better.
LibraryThing member Neil_Luvs_Books
What an interesting story. It started a bit rough for me with a bit of the science feeling out of date. But by page 100 the story hit its stride and then it became a delightful read. Very imaginative and well worth reading. Greg Bear was certainly deserving for the accolades he received for this
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novel. It did have some of the feel of Stephen King’s The Stand but was much more optimistic in outlook. Show Less
Awards
Hugo Award (Nominee — Novel — 1986)
Nebula Award (Nominee — Novel — 1985)
John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (Finalist — 1986)
British Science Fiction Association Award (Shortlist — Novel — 1986)
Prix Apollo (1986)
Language
Original publication date
1985-04
Physical description
350 p.; 8.3 inches
ISBN
1596871067 / 9781596871069