Blood Music: Amazon.ca: Greg Bear: Books

Product Description

Book Description

The Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of Moving Mars presents the book that mixed genomics with nanotechnology, featuring a scientist who conducts an experiment in cell restructuring that takes on a threatening life of its own.

About the Author

* #40 in the Millennium SF Masterworks series, a library of the finest science fiction ever written.

* Blood Music won the Nebula and Hugo Awards in its original shorter form.

* ‘One of the few SF writers capable of following where Olaf Stapledon led, beyond the limits of human ambition and geological time’ Locus

* ‘Arthur C. Clarke has his most formidable rival yet’ The Times --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

15 Reviews

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

3.9 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)

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Most helpful customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Predictable, or is it?, July 15 2002

By

Charles B. Owen (East Lansing, MI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood Music (Mass Market Paperback)

I am a big fan of Greg Bear, but only recently got around to reading Blood Music. Okay, there's one big nit here. Bear knows a lot more about biology than computability, so the "intelligent cells" idea is not very plausible. Adding computational theory to the science, including how DNA could be similar to a Turing maching would have made it work better, but there are some important speed issues that would have to be dealt with. But, if you get past that and accept the Asimov "big lie" idea and get on with the book, this is a fabulous read.

What I really liked is how well Bear set me up. The first half of the book sets up what you know is going to happen. It's all completely predictable. Then, Bear tosses a massive wrench into the works, doing the unexpected again and again. I realized that, had this been a Stephen King novel, my predictions would have been right, but Bear is better than that and has a much larger imagination. What follows is an expansion of the story to Bear-sized proportions (and if you've read much Bear, you know how big that can be).

I highly recommend this book to people who like their science fiction to include more science and less (or no) magic.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Should have been left at Novella Length, July 1 2004

By

C. Baker "cbaker" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Blood Music (Mass Market Paperback)

Book Review by C. Douglas Baker

Blood Music starts off with a promising concept and treats
it in a relatively sophisticated manner. Through the use of
recombinant DNA research, Vergil Ulam, creates a sentient single
cell organism. These organisms subsequently begin to build a
society to fit their needs. This means changing the molecular
structure of living creatures, including human beings, to suit
them. Thus begins (and ends) Blood Music.

The better aspects of Blood Music involve the exploration of
the possibility of intelligent single-cell organisms. The scenes
where organisms actually "talk" or communicate with Vergil and
later Bernard had great potential. Unfortunately, most of the
novel reads like a second rate horror flick. I have not read the
novelette that won a Hugo so I suspect the more carelessly
conceived aspects of the novel were left out. The "blob" that
takes over New York city and the "ghosts" that appear to convince
Suzy to "join" them are simply trite B-movie devices.

It's hard to recommend reading the entire novel. Only the
first third and second third are worth the effort.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Gentle and throughtful apocalyptic tale, Oct 5 2007

By

ginger snaps - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood Music (Sf Masterworks 40) (Paperback)

I am not a big science fiction fan but, or maybe because of that, enjoyed Blood Music very much. It is a sort of apocalyptic tale: Artificially mutated blood cells with extraordinary intelligence begin to transform human beings from inside and eventually re-shape the entire world according to their own logic.

There are some flaws. The plot appears to be stretched out, perhaps due to the fact that it was originally written as a short story and later developed into a novel. This has also resulted in inconsistency between the first chapters with bio-thriller tones and later sections with calm metaphysical quality.

Indeed, not much action takes place in the second half of the novel. Instead Bear lets his characters ponder on the meaning of change and gradually overcome their fear of the unknown and attachment to the old. And this is why I like Blood Music. There is a sense of anticipation and gentle yearning, which turns a catastrophe into a journey to rebirth. Bear is a brilliant writer who can conceive the end of the world that does not involve aggression and suffering but is brought about by determination and understanding.

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Most recent customer reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars A disappointment
I'm always on the look out for great SF books, and I decided to try this one after hearing how this was a classic SF novel. Read more

Published on Jan 9 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars Virgil destroys the world
One of Bear's more popular works from the Eighties, "Blood Music" tells of the takeover of the living world by a thinking, reproducing nanotechnological being. Read more

Published on Sep 29 2003 by John S. Harris