Product Description

Vergil Ulam's breakthrough in genetic engineering is considered too dangerous for further research. 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. Bear's treatment of the traditional tale of scientific hubris is suspenseful and a compelling portrait of a new intelligence emerging amongst us and changing our world irrevocably.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #72768 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

About the Author
SALES POINTS * #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

Customer Reviews

Strong Ideas Overshadow Weak Execution
One of the most memorably tongue-in-cheek creations of Douglas Adams was a madness booth--designed to make its victims insane, simply and effectively, by displaying them "to-scale" beside the rest of the cosmos.

In many ways, it's the same trick Bear's best novels play on a reader's mind, forever putting it in contexts too vast to afford the thing any significance at all: "Queen of Angels" concerns a therapist who literally delves into his patients' subconscious, while "Eon" and its sequel plunge characters into an infinite number of alternate universes.

"Blood Music" represents yet another disturbing tour of an alarming theoretical Bearscape--that of an earth whose population has, after a singular biological catastrophe, come to share the same vaguely protoplasmic, continent-sized body.

It could do with a sense of tone, a touch of poetic irony, a memorable character or two, and perhaps even a dollop of Barthelmian humor, but the central idea itself is so unquestionably remarkable that the novel's trashy-ness is, for once, actually overwhelmed by its ambition.

Like it or not, you will be thinking about "Blood Music" long after you put it down. And you should definitely pick it up.

Eerie.
With an apocalyptic vision at its heart, Blood Music is escapist reading with high drama, though its excitement has been somewhat muted by time and the magnitude of the real events which have transpired since its publication in 1985. Here a genetic experiment goes awry, and the whole world is endangered. .

Though only seventeen years have passed since its publication, the book feels old--eerily so. Gene therapy is now a reality. The Soviet Union, which here rattles its nuclear sabers in an effort to dominate the world, seems like a very old enemy. Strangely, a number of particularly vivid scenes here take place in a ravaged World Trade Center, images so similar to the reality of 9/11 that I found them painful to stumble upon in a piece of light fiction. Suzy McKenzie, a lonely survivor in New York, sets up home in the World Trade Center lobby, and Bear’s descriptions of her explorations through the desolate upper floors and of the collapse of one of the towers conjured up nightmarish (real) images.

Bear’s narrative is fast-paced and suspenseful. With an acute sensibility and eye for detail, Bear creates stark images. His characterizations of Vergil and Suzy are often touching, however, and the dialogue between Vergil and his mother will bring smiles to the faces of many parents. Structurally, the novel is very loose, with characters who come and go, and ultimately the novel feels almost as chaotic as Bear’s vision of devastation. Bear’s immense potential, obvious here, finds its true fulfillment in his later, more carefully controlled, novels. Mary Whipple

Good book, taking SF in new directions
I found this book very interesting. SF is normally concerned with the outside i.e. space or the inside of your mind. This goes into the area of microbiology. Quite an original and bold step for an author to take.
It is quite a science based book, but that does not make the book less enjoyable, in fact the opposite. It keeps you turning the pages until the end.
I found the style very simiar to JG Ballard,But with extra science, if that helps.
A very modern and contemporary novel. In these days of cults trying to clone humans, the book seems to be a prediction of the future ...