Vitals (Hardcover)

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Review
'Vitals is the ultimate conspiracy theory. A collusion between our governments, the dark secrets of our hearts, and a force older than time. You'll be blown away by its ferocious intelligence, astounding research and insight, and terrifying logic. Read it with the light on. Prepare not to sleep easy.' Stephen Baxter 'At a time when bold enthusiasts proclaim that the keys to immortality lie within human reach, Bear cautions, in Vitals, that a strange and frightening world may await us if we dare open that door. The best book about immortality since Aldous Huxley's After Many a Summer Dies the Swan' David Brin

Ever since he published Blood Music in 1986, Greg Bear has staked out for himself the bio-tech field as the setting for his increasingly technical and up-to-date stories. The question assailing science fiction writing and writers these days is whether the rapid advances in technology are rendering their stories obsolete before they even get to print. Vitals showcases the debate admirably. Bear's research, his exposition and the moral dilemmas and their implications are straight out of tomorrow's headlines. With a focus on ageing as the final frontier Bear has tackled a subject that is close to everyone's heart: the question of whether humans will ever be able to achieve immortality. The book's central premise is that ultimately humans are vast, cooperative bacterial colonies and, handled properly, bacteria can be programmed to live forever. Into this concoction Bear throws sibling rivalry, a world-wide conspiracy, a doomed love affair, some low-grade philosophising about twins, nature and immortality and more cutting-edge bio-research than any reader can comfortably handle. Indeed, such is the load of the latter that it's a full 90 pages before the story gets under way and then it only manages to amble rather than fly towards its end. Impeccably researched, with a plot which would have Hollywood studio execs reaching for their chequebooks, this should have been a book which leaves the reader with a wild buzz of excitement about what lies ahead. That this does not happen is entirely due to the cast of characters and their interaction. Bear's heroes come across as two-dimensional scientists and cardboard-thin stock figures, their motivation as suspect as their dialogue. The science may be spot on but it is ultimately the characters and their story that seduce the reader into suspending their disbelief and entering a book's world. Bear sets himself an ambitious task and then fails to bring it off. Let us hope that in future offerings he will manage to get back on track and write the kind of book that built his reputation again. (Kirkus UK)

Starburst
‘A chilling air of highly infectious paranoia ... alarmingly proficient cross-genre thriller makes The X-Files feel curiously tame...' --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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9 Reviews 5 star:  (1) 4 star:  (1) 3 star:  (3) 2 star:  (1) 1 star:  (3)           Average Customer Review 2.6 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   4 of 4 people found the following review helpful: 3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of interesting biology, but..., 23 Jul 2003 By  Morten Steinhauer - See all my reviews This review is from: Vitals (Mass Market Paperback) After reading Blood Music (the novel) and Darwin's Radio, I bought Vitals and thought I was going to have a good time reading interesting things about biology. The book started well, and I was looking forward to learning the secret about stopping the aging process in humans. The thriller aspect was there as well (who is "programming" humans, and who is trying to keep the secret from Hal Cousins, and why?), until the story goes over the top, so to say. It seems to me that the author had to many ideas he wanted to stuff in the book with too few pages to do it on. The fact that there are two "I" persons telling the story is not confusing.. but it isn't exactly helpful for the plot, in my opinion. If you haven't read anything from Bear, don't start with this one. Save it until later. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   5 of 6 people found the following review helpful: 1.0 out of 5 stars Unreadably awful, 4 Nov 2003 By A Customer This review is from: Vitals (Paperback) I couldn't actually complete this book, giving up in disgust 2/3 of the way through. Possibly a clever plot idea hides within this book somewhere but the jerky plotline makes this very hard to find. What made the book hardest to read though were the poor characterisations, each character being indistinguishable from the next. I was left not knowing and, worse, not caring who each was and what they were up to. A very poor book. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   3 of 4 people found the following review helpful: 1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth reading, 10 Feb 2004 By  Anthony Douglas (UK) - See all my reviews This review is from: Vitals (Paperback) I agree with other reviewers though I struggled through to the end of the book. The basic premise could have been interesting, but the conspiracy stuff got a bit "X Files"/"Alias". The characters were cardboard cut outs, especially the women. The writing style was jarring. And the plot got itself so tangled up that it made no sense in the end. Perhaps Mr Bear knew what the story was but he didn't manage to communicate it. Give it a miss Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 9 customer reviews...		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 3.0 out of 5 stars Unbalanced I've been a fan of Bear for a while, but Quantico failed to engage me, and unfortunately Vitals left me cold about half way through. Read more Published on 28 Jun 2007 by Mr. G. Battle 3.0 out of 5 stars Good book until the lazy ending A epic of contemporary hopes and fears. Good build up with many twisting subpolts and then............. the author got bored and wanted to finish the book quickly. Read more Published on 29 Dec 2005 5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting conspiracy plot I must say I was gobsmacked to see negative reviews posted here. I read this book during a two-week holiday and it was easily the best book out of the five I read. Read more Published on 21 Dec 2004 by Gruff Davies 2.0 out of 5 stars A missed opportunity I perservered and managed to finish it. The idea is great (I won't spoil it), and he obviously did some research but Bear should have given this concept to an author able to... Read more Published on 3 Dec 2003 by n_m 1.0 out of 5 stars The Rule of Paranoia This could have an exciting, gripping techno-thriller. This could have been a deep examination into the hows, whys, and moral correctness of immortality. Read more Published on 5 Sep 2003 by Patrick Shepherd 4.0 out of 5 stars A Vital Read Greg Bear's Vitals is a science fiction thriller with just a hint of horror thrown in for good measure. Read more Published on 10 April 2003 Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews › See all 9 customer reviews...

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