Status
Available
Call number
Series
Publication
Warner Books (New York, 1990). 1st edition, 1st printing. 432 pages. $19.95.
Description
A writer, a scientist, and a policewoman collaborate to discover the motive of a famous poet who murdered eight close friends.
User reviews
LibraryThing member reading_fox
This just left me cold really. I liked a lot of Bear's work, but I couldn't identify with the female detective lead. The discriptiions of the future city scape are good, but the work as a whole fails to grip.
There are several main plot lines, which don't really intersect at any point. This doesn't
Emmanual Goldstein has been captured by a private individual who hire Martin Burke to explore his subcnsious to find out why he would commit such a deed. Martin is an expert in the field and developer of a nove probe for taking the nuron signals in the brain and mapping them into representative images, "the Country". Almost a third of the book is devoted to Matin's explorations in Goldstein's country, and all of these passages can be safely skipped much like Frodo in the Marshes of LoTR. They are dull, unplesant and pointless. Bringing nothing to the plot or the apparent underlying concept of he soul.
The Third main theme is completely indepandant, and in my mind a seperate novella in its own right that would be much better as a short story. Man's first exploration of other stars by robotic deepthinker has reached Alpha Centurai and found structures. The deepthinker converse at light speed (ie 4 yr lag) with Earth control and simulations of itself exist on earth, these mostly concern the possability of the AI becoming selfaware.
The juxtaposition of these seperate themes really doesn't help the book, but none of them are that interesting in their own right either, not one of Bear's better works.
There are several main plot lines, which don't really intersect at any point. This doesn't
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make for easy reading. Mary Choi, is a police detective, and also an orca transform (bio-engineering) in LA at the approach of the binary millenium 2048 (when the binary year count gains a digit) This fact although emphasised throughout the book has no relavence at all. She is called in to investigate the deaths of 8 therapies (eg normal) citisens. Suspicion in a high tech age is almost immidiately pointed at one Emanual Goldstein, poet and author. Emmanual Goldstein has been captured by a private individual who hire Martin Burke to explore his subcnsious to find out why he would commit such a deed. Martin is an expert in the field and developer of a nove probe for taking the nuron signals in the brain and mapping them into representative images, "the Country". Almost a third of the book is devoted to Matin's explorations in Goldstein's country, and all of these passages can be safely skipped much like Frodo in the Marshes of LoTR. They are dull, unplesant and pointless. Bringing nothing to the plot or the apparent underlying concept of he soul.
The Third main theme is completely indepandant, and in my mind a seperate novella in its own right that would be much better as a short story. Man's first exploration of other stars by robotic deepthinker has reached Alpha Centurai and found structures. The deepthinker converse at light speed (ie 4 yr lag) with Earth control and simulations of itself exist on earth, these mostly concern the possability of the AI becoming selfaware.
The juxtaposition of these seperate themes really doesn't help the book, but none of them are that interesting in their own right either, not one of Bear's better works.
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LibraryThing member chrisod
I made it about 100 pages into this and just quit. The story didn’t grab me, and stylistically I found it difficult to read.
LibraryThing member RandyStafford
Some of my reactions upon reading this book in 1990. Spoilers follow.
This book was a grueling read not because it wasn't well-written or enjoyable -- it was -- but because it was very complex, and I'm not sure as to what its answers were to the thematic questions it raised -- if there are any final
This is an extremely literary book. It has, at times, a James Joyce like run on prose with its lack of punctuation which causes words to be juxtaposed with either of two phrases or words. In effect, each sentence can have a variety of meanings depending on what you think a modifier should modify. There are four parallel plots (I liked the plot with Richard Fettle, failed writer, best.) which are all different reflections on the themes of self-awareness and punishment and crime. This is also one of those novels of character where much of the plot is concerned with why a character did what he did. In this case, we know immediately that poet Immanuel Goldsmith killed eight of his friends and admirers. Like Ben Reich in Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, we don't know the motive for the murder.
The influence of other sf works seem to be present. The questions of crime, punishment, and therapy as reform are reminiscent of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. The exploration of a mind as symbolized by archetypal symbols is like Roger Zelazny's "He Who Shapes". The vodoun references follow those of William Gibson's Mona Lisa Overdrive and Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net. Bear has sometimes been lumped with these cyberpunks. There use of voodoo in the future may have inspired Bear.
Part of my reaction to this novel stems from what I exptected of it. Given an interview with Bear I read, it seemed the novel would be a police procedural set in a Haiti fifty years in the future. The police procedural part of the plot actually takes up very little of the novel's beginning. Bear does some intereasting extrapolation of forensic techniques involving biology (I found tracing people using the mitochondrial DNA of their symbiotes quite interesting) and nanotechnology (Bear's use of the technology is interesting: nanoven, food, self-cleaning carpets, human "transforms", nano build buildings, and weapons that assembles themeselves from goo. It at first seems quite conservative but, on second thoought, it is just a naturalistic treatment of a future technology.) Goldsmith's guilt is quickly established.
Bear plays off the "conservative" view of punishment as deterrent and social vengeance against willful criminality against the "liberal" view that criminality springs from an unconscious malfunction of the mind that would respond to therapy. In Bear's future, which to me, sounds like an intrusive, manipulative hell of involuntary and coerced social conditioning, most people undergo therapy to conform to an accepted definition of well-adjusted. I agree with Richard Fettle and his literary circle in seeing this as intrusive and sticking to their natural weaknesses. They see therapy as a destruction of personality, which it is. However, I confess this is not a rational view. As Fettle realizes, weaknesses can be quite dangerous, and when we seek therapy for ourselves we are attempting to change our nature. Bear, however, does not dwell overlong on these opposing views of therapy).
The punishment is represented by the Selectors, self-appointed vigilantes who punish through hellcrowns -- devices that enhance and extend in subjective time harrowing personal nightmares with devastating psychic effects. The government prefers therapy. Putting aside Bear's apparent -- if it is a personal view -- optimism in arriving at a rational, complete model of the mind and assigning crimnality to its involuntary, unconscious malfunctioning, that model seems very reliant on a computer paradigm with its talk of programs and subroutines.
The book's main theme, though, is the nature, qualities, and orgins of self-awareness. That is the theme all four subplots revolve around. Bear uses the two metaphors of possession (Richard Fettle in, to my mind, the best writing of the novel, feels possessed by the spirit of Goldsmith when, through writing, he explores Goldsmith's motives for murder) and the mechanistic, computer like model of the mind to explore this question. The subplots are reflections and contrasts of each other.
Mary Choy, human transform, derives her identity from her sense of duty as a policeman. That identity causes her to temporarily fall out with her boyfriend. She also (though this is not emphasized much -- I found, in many ways, the Choy subplot of the novel to be the least interesting one) seems to have trouble reconciling her outer, "transformed" body with her inner self vision. Here Bear seems to be dealing with the role the physical self plays (and Choy is particularly sensitive to other's reactions -- she's wildly different but wants to be treated normally) in self-image and awareness. As if to emphasize the point, Choy is a "natural" -- well-adjusted without therapy.
In contrast to this, space probes AXIS and Jill achieve self-awareness through, grief, mourning, depression, and a sense of betrayal. They are superior intellects who must be hurt enough to feel indignation which engenders (or perhaps the order is reversed) self-awareness. In the story of their psychological development, Bear emphasizes his computer inspired model of the mind.
The other view, the spiritual, emotional view of possession as criminality is played out in the book's most interesting part: Richard Fettle's attempt to understand's Goldsmith's behavior. (One can't help but wonder if the power of this character and his description is due to a fear in the writer Bear of being a failed, burned out writer.) Fettle's self-image is a function of his relation to his friend and idol Goldsmith. Fettle feels betrayed by Goldsmith. All of a sudden, breaking a writing block of years, he tries to understand Goldsmith by writing, in first person, his story. In the book's best writing, a riveting psychological study, Fettle begins to feel possessed by Goldsmith. He contemplates emulating Goldsmith and murdering Nadine Preston, his occassional lover. Eventually, in a stunning scene of memory and self-awarness, he realizes his inner strength and exact relationship to Goldsmith -- an old friend who is now gone but fondly remembered. He reconciles himself to life, is now peaceful and content. (Unlike the above artificial intelligences who are decidedly uncontent.).
Straddling the two sides of the possession and computer metaphors of mind is Martin Burke. He seems to draw his identity from his work. He is an expert in the computer model of the mind but finds, in Goldsmith's mind, a desolation unexpected and evidence of a possession which eventually takes root in him. The question of criminality and its causes is suborned to this theme of identity and self-awareness. Bad self-modellling is the mechanist's view of the mind's answer to crime's causes. The vigilantes see willful behavior (or maybe possession, Bear doesn't make this clear) as the cause. In effect, the therapists see un-self-awarness, bad internal models of personality, as the beginning of crime. The Selectors seem to think crime involves full self-awareness that can be deterred by the hellcrown.
My problem and uneasiness with the novel lies in my inability to see Bear's answer to the question of crime, its relation to self-awareness and the latter's nature. I'll be egotistical and view the failure as Bear's inability to quite achieve the grand scheme he set himself rather than my failure as a reader. It may be Bear intended only to provoke thought and not give answers. Yet, the novel seems incomplete in its thematic exploration though that exploration is sophisticated and diverse. The last chapter throws out the possiblity of guilt and sin being part of awareness. (Earlier Bear brings up insult as being a sign of self-awarness.) Guilt, Bear suggests springs from self-awarness; Yet, guilt hurts; self-analysis is necessary but injures.
My view of Bear's ultimate failure is, I think, supported by others instances of incompleteness. We never get a clear explanation of the society of the shades and combs (or even a clear physical description of the latter's architecture). We are not told the economics of a society with nanotech. (There also seems to be not much point to meeting Colonel Sir John Yardley's or even to the constant references to him. His main function is as an icon in Goldsmith wasted mind.). We are not even told what IPR was or its scandal with President Raphkind. Nor do we ultimately see why Goldsmith murders. Was it an attempt to remake himself (self-awarness as a prelude to destruction) by irreconcibly cutting off his past? Was it a strangely twisted mind devoid of a "prominent personality" as Burke suspects? Or was his act the outcome of a long process that begain with an abusive father?
I enjoyed this book immensely, it was well worth reading, very well-written. But I find it a puzzle without an answer. I just don't know if I can't find the answer or if Bear didn't provide one.
This book was a grueling read not because it wasn't well-written or enjoyable -- it was -- but because it was very complex, and I'm not sure as to what its answers were to the thematic questions it raised -- if there are any final
Show More
answers. This is an extremely literary book. It has, at times, a James Joyce like run on prose with its lack of punctuation which causes words to be juxtaposed with either of two phrases or words. In effect, each sentence can have a variety of meanings depending on what you think a modifier should modify. There are four parallel plots (I liked the plot with Richard Fettle, failed writer, best.) which are all different reflections on the themes of self-awareness and punishment and crime. This is also one of those novels of character where much of the plot is concerned with why a character did what he did. In this case, we know immediately that poet Immanuel Goldsmith killed eight of his friends and admirers. Like Ben Reich in Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, we don't know the motive for the murder.
The influence of other sf works seem to be present. The questions of crime, punishment, and therapy as reform are reminiscent of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. The exploration of a mind as symbolized by archetypal symbols is like Roger Zelazny's "He Who Shapes". The vodoun references follow those of William Gibson's Mona Lisa Overdrive and Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net. Bear has sometimes been lumped with these cyberpunks. There use of voodoo in the future may have inspired Bear.
Part of my reaction to this novel stems from what I exptected of it. Given an interview with Bear I read, it seemed the novel would be a police procedural set in a Haiti fifty years in the future. The police procedural part of the plot actually takes up very little of the novel's beginning. Bear does some intereasting extrapolation of forensic techniques involving biology (I found tracing people using the mitochondrial DNA of their symbiotes quite interesting) and nanotechnology (Bear's use of the technology is interesting: nanoven, food, self-cleaning carpets, human "transforms", nano build buildings, and weapons that assembles themeselves from goo. It at first seems quite conservative but, on second thoought, it is just a naturalistic treatment of a future technology.) Goldsmith's guilt is quickly established.
Bear plays off the "conservative" view of punishment as deterrent and social vengeance against willful criminality against the "liberal" view that criminality springs from an unconscious malfunction of the mind that would respond to therapy. In Bear's future, which to me, sounds like an intrusive, manipulative hell of involuntary and coerced social conditioning, most people undergo therapy to conform to an accepted definition of well-adjusted. I agree with Richard Fettle and his literary circle in seeing this as intrusive and sticking to their natural weaknesses. They see therapy as a destruction of personality, which it is. However, I confess this is not a rational view. As Fettle realizes, weaknesses can be quite dangerous, and when we seek therapy for ourselves we are attempting to change our nature. Bear, however, does not dwell overlong on these opposing views of therapy).
The punishment is represented by the Selectors, self-appointed vigilantes who punish through hellcrowns -- devices that enhance and extend in subjective time harrowing personal nightmares with devastating psychic effects. The government prefers therapy. Putting aside Bear's apparent -- if it is a personal view -- optimism in arriving at a rational, complete model of the mind and assigning crimnality to its involuntary, unconscious malfunctioning, that model seems very reliant on a computer paradigm with its talk of programs and subroutines.
The book's main theme, though, is the nature, qualities, and orgins of self-awareness. That is the theme all four subplots revolve around. Bear uses the two metaphors of possession (Richard Fettle in, to my mind, the best writing of the novel, feels possessed by the spirit of Goldsmith when, through writing, he explores Goldsmith's motives for murder) and the mechanistic, computer like model of the mind to explore this question. The subplots are reflections and contrasts of each other.
Mary Choy, human transform, derives her identity from her sense of duty as a policeman. That identity causes her to temporarily fall out with her boyfriend. She also (though this is not emphasized much -- I found, in many ways, the Choy subplot of the novel to be the least interesting one) seems to have trouble reconciling her outer, "transformed" body with her inner self vision. Here Bear seems to be dealing with the role the physical self plays (and Choy is particularly sensitive to other's reactions -- she's wildly different but wants to be treated normally) in self-image and awareness. As if to emphasize the point, Choy is a "natural" -- well-adjusted without therapy.
In contrast to this, space probes AXIS and Jill achieve self-awareness through, grief, mourning, depression, and a sense of betrayal. They are superior intellects who must be hurt enough to feel indignation which engenders (or perhaps the order is reversed) self-awareness. In the story of their psychological development, Bear emphasizes his computer inspired model of the mind.
The other view, the spiritual, emotional view of possession as criminality is played out in the book's most interesting part: Richard Fettle's attempt to understand's Goldsmith's behavior. (One can't help but wonder if the power of this character and his description is due to a fear in the writer Bear of being a failed, burned out writer.) Fettle's self-image is a function of his relation to his friend and idol Goldsmith. Fettle feels betrayed by Goldsmith. All of a sudden, breaking a writing block of years, he tries to understand Goldsmith by writing, in first person, his story. In the book's best writing, a riveting psychological study, Fettle begins to feel possessed by Goldsmith. He contemplates emulating Goldsmith and murdering Nadine Preston, his occassional lover. Eventually, in a stunning scene of memory and self-awarness, he realizes his inner strength and exact relationship to Goldsmith -- an old friend who is now gone but fondly remembered. He reconciles himself to life, is now peaceful and content. (Unlike the above artificial intelligences who are decidedly uncontent.).
Straddling the two sides of the possession and computer metaphors of mind is Martin Burke. He seems to draw his identity from his work. He is an expert in the computer model of the mind but finds, in Goldsmith's mind, a desolation unexpected and evidence of a possession which eventually takes root in him. The question of criminality and its causes is suborned to this theme of identity and self-awareness. Bad self-modellling is the mechanist's view of the mind's answer to crime's causes. The vigilantes see willful behavior (or maybe possession, Bear doesn't make this clear) as the cause. In effect, the therapists see un-self-awarness, bad internal models of personality, as the beginning of crime. The Selectors seem to think crime involves full self-awareness that can be deterred by the hellcrown.
My problem and uneasiness with the novel lies in my inability to see Bear's answer to the question of crime, its relation to self-awareness and the latter's nature. I'll be egotistical and view the failure as Bear's inability to quite achieve the grand scheme he set himself rather than my failure as a reader. It may be Bear intended only to provoke thought and not give answers. Yet, the novel seems incomplete in its thematic exploration though that exploration is sophisticated and diverse. The last chapter throws out the possiblity of guilt and sin being part of awareness. (Earlier Bear brings up insult as being a sign of self-awarness.) Guilt, Bear suggests springs from self-awarness; Yet, guilt hurts; self-analysis is necessary but injures.
My view of Bear's ultimate failure is, I think, supported by others instances of incompleteness. We never get a clear explanation of the society of the shades and combs (or even a clear physical description of the latter's architecture). We are not told the economics of a society with nanotech. (There also seems to be not much point to meeting Colonel Sir John Yardley's or even to the constant references to him. His main function is as an icon in Goldsmith wasted mind.). We are not even told what IPR was or its scandal with President Raphkind. Nor do we ultimately see why Goldsmith murders. Was it an attempt to remake himself (self-awarness as a prelude to destruction) by irreconcibly cutting off his past? Was it a strangely twisted mind devoid of a "prominent personality" as Burke suspects? Or was his act the outcome of a long process that begain with an abusive father?
I enjoyed this book immensely, it was well worth reading, very well-written. But I find it a puzzle without an answer. I just don't know if I can't find the answer or if Bear didn't provide one.
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LibraryThing member ricaustria
Started this, did not finish.
LibraryThing member snotbottom
I really wanted something other than your, thow-away space opera, but didn't find it here. Such a shame, in my opinion, because the stories (there are at least three going on at the same time) all had such potential, but it didn't feel like they were fully developed. The writing was also
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necessarily complex. and convoluted, which made reading it a chore. Considering I read it on a plane and was essentially a captive audience, and still couldn't get into the story speaks volumes. I couldn't even remember the title of the book and had to search for it online to post this review. Show Less
LibraryThing member wyvernfriend
Interesting read that took quite a while to get into but worth persisting with. A sf mystery that combines voodoo and murder, investigation and politics, drastic physical transformations and AI.
LibraryThing member Clevermonkey
Possibly the best exploration of journeying into the consciousness and memories of another. Gorgeous but boring movie "The Cell" used the idea - this is what that should have been. Also excellent consideration (from the viewpoints of multiple characters, and an evolving A.I.) of what consciousness
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and self-awareness really mean. Show Less
LibraryThing member v12345
This is a good candidate for the first book I don't finish. I do see two other people did just that :-)
However I'll still try for a bit and maybe update here if there's any change.
However I'll still try for a bit and maybe update here if there's any change.
LibraryThing member AltheaAnn
Queen of Angels has been described as Greg Bear's most ambitious work, and ambitious it certainly is. But ambition does not necessarily equal success.
The book takes a murder-mystery type story - a famous and successful poet of the 21st century unexpectedly murders eight of his closest friends - and
- that of a policewoman who has opted for physical transformation through nanotech, costing her friends and family,
- a poet friend of the suspected murderer, a somewhat unhappy individual who has opted not to have the nanotech-enabled 'therapy' that is common in society
- a therapist who has lost his career due to political scandal
All these individuals try, in their own ways, to make sense of these murders and why they may have happened.
Interspersed with this story is the story of the gradual awakening to self-aware consciousness of an AI which is an interstellar probe, and its counterpart on earth. This story is really only thematically linked to the main plot.
Bear discussed many interesting issues here, however, my enjoyment of the book was greatly diminished by the writing, especially during the part having to do with the poet. Attempting an experimental poetic? type of language Bear eschews the use of commas parentheses inserting phrases words into sentences randomly a flow-of-consciousness perspective or just pretension you decide.
It does make it slow to read, because the reader has to sort out all the phrases, decide where the commas should have been, and then decide what meaning(s) the author was getting at.
I like commas. Of course, I had a professor once yell at me for my propensity toward using them too liberally, so this could be a personal issue! ;-)
The book takes a murder-mystery type story - a famous and successful poet of the 21st century unexpectedly murders eight of his closest friends - and
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turns it into a musing on the nature of awareness and identity. The question is approached through various perspectives- that of a policewoman who has opted for physical transformation through nanotech, costing her friends and family,
- a poet friend of the suspected murderer, a somewhat unhappy individual who has opted not to have the nanotech-enabled 'therapy' that is common in society
- a therapist who has lost his career due to political scandal
All these individuals try, in their own ways, to make sense of these murders and why they may have happened.
Interspersed with this story is the story of the gradual awakening to self-aware consciousness of an AI which is an interstellar probe, and its counterpart on earth. This story is really only thematically linked to the main plot.
Bear discussed many interesting issues here, however, my enjoyment of the book was greatly diminished by the writing, especially during the part having to do with the poet. Attempting an experimental poetic? type of language Bear eschews the use of commas parentheses inserting phrases words into sentences randomly a flow-of-consciousness perspective or just pretension you decide.
It does make it slow to read, because the reader has to sort out all the phrases, decide where the commas should have been, and then decide what meaning(s) the author was getting at.
I like commas. Of course, I had a professor once yell at me for my propensity toward using them too liberally, so this could be a personal issue! ;-)
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LibraryThing member majackson
A decent exploration of consciousness/awareness/self-analysis(the benefit of). Major themes: a man kills people and doesn't know why; an interstellar probe is not self-aware, but can't deal with NOT finding interstellar life; the exploration of the "country of the mind" goes wrong; an acolyte
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contemplates murder just to prove that he's not an emotional cypher. All of these sub-plots connect through their questioning what is conscious reality and what is sanity. There is a competent description of the various levels of the mind and how we differ from "lower" animals....and why we sometimes perform at best, hurtful acts; at worst, despicable acts. The concept of "hellcrowns" is definitely painful, but acceptable in terms of the analysis of the concept/meaning/value of punishment. Bear seems to have missed the idea that we created the concept of a "punitive god", theoretically, to control the would-be slackers who try to hide in the multitudes: "you can't hide from GOD!" Show Less
LibraryThing member lcl999
Bought this due to an Economist review of books with an AI theme. It fits that. Big cast of characters, several intertwined stories in parallel, complex. Very modern and contemporary ideas. Hard to believe it was written back in 1990
Awards
Hugo Award (Nominee — Novel — 1991)
John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (Finalist — 1991)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1990
Physical description
432 p.; 6.25 inches
ISBN
0446514004 / 9780446514002
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