Book: Vitals
May. 16th, 2010 10:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livAuthor: Greg Bear
Details: (c) Greg Bear 2002; Pub HarperCollins 2003; ISBN 0-00-712975-0
Verdict: Vitals is exciting and biological, but not really quite my thing.
Reasons for reading it: I enjoyed Bear's Blood music and I'm generally in favour of hard SF written by people who actually know some biology.
How it came into my hands: Library.
Vitals started out with a really creepy opening sequence which seemed to imply there was a worldwide conspiracy of evil mitochondria. Absolutely beautiful concept, the idea of the monster being right there inside our cells, controlling our acess to energy, and depicted in a manner more plausible than my summary makes it sound. Unfortunately, that idea didn't really get developed; the middle part of the book got bogged down in some backstory which didn't move very fast, and when it did pick up the pace again it had turned into a fairly generic thriller. The culprit wasn't evil mitochondria after all, but a cabal of Russian mad scientists with mind-control agents. The mind control stuff was cuter than some, again having some decent biological speculation behind it, but that kind of plot is really a terrible cliche, and years after the end of the Cold War, evil Russian agents are a fairly tired sort of villain.
I don't read a lot of thrillers, but as far as I can judge this was towards the more nuanced end of the scale. The characterization was really interesting, with Hal Cousins as a successfully unpleasant yet sympathetic protagonist. I partly liked him because he comes across as a plausible scientist, which is rare even in the traditional style of SF where the geek saves the day. The thrill was largely psychological and based on insinuation, not relying on lots of blood and explosions. The thing with the retired Vietnam vets busting the bad guys' fortress had a level of realism, it wasn't just gratuitous machismo. There were lots of plot twists and people not being who they seemed, and the bad guys had actual motivations, rather than just cackling evilly while trying to bring down the west.
The most impressive part of the book is that once you know about the mind control plot, you are really never sure whether something is actually happening or is a product of induced hallucinations. The situation was conveyed in a very effective, genuinely discomfiting way. I was a bit disappointed by the ending which resolved this unreliable narrator situation in a way that was too definitive and seemed to undermine the premise of the book.
Given how much this isn't my kind of book it's hard to judge, but my impression is that if you generally enjoy thrillers, Vitals is a pretty good example of the genre.
Details: (c) Greg Bear 2002; Pub HarperCollins 2003; ISBN 0-00-712975-0
Verdict: Vitals is exciting and biological, but not really quite my thing.
Reasons for reading it: I enjoyed Bear's Blood music and I'm generally in favour of hard SF written by people who actually know some biology.
How it came into my hands: Library.
Vitals started out with a really creepy opening sequence which seemed to imply there was a worldwide conspiracy of evil mitochondria. Absolutely beautiful concept, the idea of the monster being right there inside our cells, controlling our acess to energy, and depicted in a manner more plausible than my summary makes it sound. Unfortunately, that idea didn't really get developed; the middle part of the book got bogged down in some backstory which didn't move very fast, and when it did pick up the pace again it had turned into a fairly generic thriller. The culprit wasn't evil mitochondria after all, but a cabal of Russian mad scientists with mind-control agents. The mind control stuff was cuter than some, again having some decent biological speculation behind it, but that kind of plot is really a terrible cliche, and years after the end of the Cold War, evil Russian agents are a fairly tired sort of villain.
I don't read a lot of thrillers, but as far as I can judge this was towards the more nuanced end of the scale. The characterization was really interesting, with Hal Cousins as a successfully unpleasant yet sympathetic protagonist. I partly liked him because he comes across as a plausible scientist, which is rare even in the traditional style of SF where the geek saves the day. The thrill was largely psychological and based on insinuation, not relying on lots of blood and explosions. The thing with the retired Vietnam vets busting the bad guys' fortress had a level of realism, it wasn't just gratuitous machismo. There were lots of plot twists and people not being who they seemed, and the bad guys had actual motivations, rather than just cackling evilly while trying to bring down the west.
The most impressive part of the book is that once you know about the mind control plot, you are really never sure whether something is actually happening or is a product of induced hallucinations. The situation was conveyed in a very effective, genuinely discomfiting way. I was a bit disappointed by the ending which resolved this unreliable narrator situation in a way that was too definitive and seemed to undermine the premise of the book.
Given how much this isn't my kind of book it's hard to judge, but my impression is that if you generally enjoy thrillers, Vitals is a pretty good example of the genre.
