- Unbound: 448 pages
- Publisher: Seal Books (May 16 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0770428169
- ISBN-13: 978-0770428167
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.7 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 227 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,768,236 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Philip Kerr applies his smart, suspenseful thriller style to science fiction in The Second Angel. In 2069, Earth is devastated by climate change, killer plagues, and scarce resources. P2 is a deadly (but curable) virus that infects almost the entire population. The cure is clean blood, which is in critically short supply and is affordable only to the very rich, who live in protected enclaves and engage in market speculation on the price of the vital fluid. On the moon, sex hotels and high-security prisons share turf with the First National Blood Bank, where uncontaminated blood is kept. Enter Dana Dallas, a crack security systems designer and member of the wealthy, healthy elite. When he finds out his infant daughter needs clean blood to survive, he starts a chain of events that will make him the sworn enemy of some very dangerous people. Dallas teams up with several shady characters to try and break the bank, and Kerr sprinkles the text with "historical" footnotes to help the reader understand the social context of the action. A mostly annoying narrator--part of a badly connected subplot-- explains the immunological and social importance of blood. While Kerr's ideas and plotting are terrific, his execution is rather stilted. A thug who says things like, "I believe that meaning can be established. Yes, I think it was Sir Karl Popper who said that," might have been a funny character--if everyone else in the book didn't talk that way. --Therese Littleton
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Quantum physics collides with metaphysics in this futuristic thriller, and sends its plot careening into wildly unpredictable territory. In the year 2069, most of the earth's population is infected with P2, a slow-acting parvovirus that inevitably brings ghastly death. A small, uninfected sliver of humanity lives in secluded aseptic environments and stores uncontaminated blood reserves on the moon in a bank whose impenetrable security system has been designed by architect John Dallas. But after Dallas challenges the decision to deny blood to his sick daughter, he's viewed as a potential security risk. When a botched attempt to kill him leaves his wife and child dead, Dallas schemes to break into the blood bank and destroy his employer's business?a stratagem that will force him into dangerous confrontation with protective nanotechnology, radioactive defense mechanisms and a transcendentally evolved artificial intelligence that oversees the bank. Kerr's (A Five-Year Plan) blend of science and intrigue merits comparison to the work of Michael Crichton, and his protagonists?a team of infected desperadoes who will use the heisted blood to cure themselves?will put readers in mind of Donald Westlake's tales of likably larcenous bank robbers. Once off the earth, however, the narrative deteriorates into a dilettantish display of SF cliches that includes fuzzy computer technology, speculative epidemiology, and an overlong adventure in virtual reality. Ultimately, Kerr depends on an omniscient Outer Limits-type control voice and intrusive historical and scientific footnotes to pull the tale's chaotic elements together. Though its suspense is as taut as a tourniquet, this excursion into philosophical science fiction could stand a transfusion of logic. Agent, A.P. Watt Ltd.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
What A Fantastic Sci-Fi Book,
By A Great Teacher (Marysville, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Second Angel, The (Hardcover)
I love the genre of sci-fi, read them all, not fantasy, but hard core sci-fi. This book was one I just could not put down. It was so well written, it challenged my intelligence, was not so hokey you couldn't believe the story. I will admit that I was able to guess who was the narrator near the end (was only one thing that could have been present at all meetings), but it did not detract from the enjoyment! I can't believe this book didn't make at least a Hugo! If you are a true hard core sci-fi fan, or a real puter geek, this book is for YOU!
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Letdown for Phllip Kerr,
By The backdrop against which the story is set has some interesting aspects. There's a computer generated assistant who is also a marital aid as well as a deadly Aids-like virus that has infected over 80% of the Eath's population, making unifected blood a commodity more valuable than gold. The polt, however, unfolds slowly, stalls and never really regain momentum. Annoying grammatical embellishments like the numerous footnotes (bizarre in a work of fiction) and the "author-narrator" repeatedly injecting himself into the story serve mainly as irritating distractions. Overall, this is a disappointing work from an author who has produced many excellent works in the past.
2.0 out of 5 stars
What a disappointment!,
By Philip Kerr has written some wonderful novels (the Berlin Noir trilogy), but this book is definitely a disappointment. The idea in itself is not bad at all, but the action in the book is rather slow (which is killing for a thriller), with lots of technical footnotes describing the situation in the future, some semi-philosophical ranting and the end holds a very unsatisfying twist. A missed chance.
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