Slant [Mass Market Paperback]

I have always liked Bear, so was very disappointed with this novel. The premise is interesting, the sci-fi vision is intriguing, but the characters were not developed. I just did not care about them or their individual stories. This book felt like a collage of snapshots, not a story.

Greg Bear outdid himself with this one. He turned what appeared to be headed for another dystopia on its head and managed to salvage a rather happy ending. His creative ingenuity salvaged the so-so plot-his content definitely outshone the package. The comparison of the human brain to colonies of bacteria was stunning-how the mind operates by using molecular language. His story shows how the shape of society may rely on its language, e.g., being "happy" or being "rich" can become a kind of drug and staying so can stifle initiative.

Bear's levels of conflict rise as high into the sky as his Omphalos, a utopian temple turned sour. His character Schnee has combined the neural nets of bees, wasps, ants and bacteria laden loam to create an ultimate biological computer capable of spreading prions of infectious RNA material throughout the globe-an ultimate biological weapon. Her tourette like virus, while forcing victims to utter obscenities also makes their brains work faster. Schnee sought revenge on and recognition from her old boss Nathan who had discounted her ideas. AI Jill, a conventional computer, finds herself in a death struggle with AI Roddy, a biological computer. Every character he uses either has an opponent or is engaged in a fierce struggle for their own identity.

We've heard of the quantum computer, the molecular computer, the DNA computer but who has even thought of a bacterial computer? And no writer gives a better model of how data flow can create designs to makes nanotechnology work. Bear seems to rip a crack in the biosphere-noosphere and peer into the future. Futuristic ideas abound-his speaker Torino explains how the earth has become a gigantic single cell. And as man creates self aware AI computers man's own personality is subject to fragmentation. All in all, enough new ideas to make Bear a trailblazer for future writers.

I can't believe I haven't reviewed this on here yet! Slant is one of my top-five favorites. I read it while I was camping in rainy Door County, and I averaged a hundred pages a day (it usually takes a week to do that much). It was totally engrossing. Sure, the plot wasn't overloaded with suspense or action or anything like that (until the climax, when things speed up a little), but the density of the near-future world that Bear creates is incredible. The words he invents, the language he uses to describe things, all the references to other books and people such as "Alive Contains a Lie" by Kiss of X (a book that one of Slant's character's is reading), and the realistic, every-day characters made me feel like this novel was actually taking place in the future.
The plot deals with a group of rich snobs using nanotechnology to reverse medical and psychological therapy and create chaos in America; the policewoman, a self-aware AI, and a psychiatrist who become involved; a team of saboteurs seeking to infiltrate and destroy Omphalos, the group's giant headquarters; a middle-class family, and a prostitute, who are also entangled. The book moves at a steady, reasonable pace which adds to the realism. There are no action heroes (or even regular heroes) - everyone is a normal person who becomes imbroiled in strange events. The science, while complex, is written clearly and concisely, and never gets in the way of characters or story. Bear's five or six plots only come together loosely towards the end of the book, but are strongly tied together thematically.
As for the ending, which other reviewers have complained about, it didn't bother me. I guess I don't care much for endings anyway -my own fiction supports that. Some of the plots are left to come to their own conclusions, or for the reader to decide. This is another part of the realism I experienced - in real life there is no explosive climax to every "episode" of our lives, everything just keeps on moving.

This is a fascinating book, and I will gladly read it a third time as soon as I have the opportunity.