Queen Of Angels

Queen of Angels #1

by Greg Bear

WHY? That crime and that question lead a biotransformed policewoman to a jungle of torture and forgotten gods; a writer to the Bohemian shadows of a vast city; and a scientist directly into the mind - into the nightmare soul - of the psychopath himself. This is science fiction at its best: a detective story, a story of virtual reality entrapments and the coming to consciousness of an Artificial Intelligence . . .

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Cyberpunk, Mystery, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fantasy

474 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Greg Bear was an American writer and illustrator best known for science fiction. His work covered themes of galactic conflict (Forge of God books), parallel universes (The Way series), consciousness and cultural practices (Queen of Angels), and accelerated evolution (Blood Music, Darwin’s Radio, and Darwin’s Children). His last work was the 2021 novel The Unfinished Land. Greg Bear wrote over 50 books in total.

(For a more complete biography, see Wikipedia.)

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book blew my brain and left my skull a cracked, smoking husk containing nothing but remnants of wows and questions.


Don’t be dissuaded by my cowardly 3 star rating, fans of thoughtful, “big idea” science fiction that seeks to unravel the primordial question of “who we are” and the modern obsession of “what we are becoming” should definitely give this novel a go. My rating is based more on the admission that I think this story got away from me at some point and my not being entirely sure whether that’s I am not my fault or that of the Bear. This is either a work of singular genius that pierces and peers into complexities of humanity’s conception of identity and the nature of consciousness...or a hodge-podge of astoundingly clever ideas vomited onto paper and loosely held together by a simple yet meandering plot without sufficient narrative structure.

In essence, either me or the Bear lost focus on this one. Smart money is on me but until I know for sure...3 stars it must be.

Of one thing I am certain of with crystal clear clarity...Greg Bear is a mental goliath. A humbling, brilliant idea man who operates on a plane of genius that I can only hope to occasionally visit through works like his and other masters of the imagination millieu. He’s the kind of thinker that makes you feel small and inadequate about your own mental package.

Brain envy....great!!


PLOT SUMMARY:

In the world of 2047 (just before the binary millennium), nanotechnology and other technological advancements have transformed society through a collection of treatments commonly referred to as “therapy.” A majority of the population of the United States have undergone some combination of neurological reconfiguration to address mental defects that lead to anti-social behavior or that make them more able to perform their job functions. Therapied individuals are given preferential treatment and there is growing bias against the untherapied.

In addition to the therapied there is also a group known as “high naturals” who have an acceptable mental makeup without the need for therapy. These people are becoming increasingly rare.

The central plot revolves around a series of brutal murders committed by a famous poet and high natural, Emmanuel Goldsmith. Murder is almost non-existent in the current society and the both the nature of the murders and the fact that the victims were friends and relatives of friends is a shock.

Mary Choy is a high natural law officer put in charge of tracking Goldsmith down. Mary largely acts as our guide to the world of 2047 and shows us a dystopian view of a world thinking it is on the road to utopia. Her thread will take us from L, where vigilante organizations hunt down the untherapied (with tacit assistance from the powers that be), the to Hispanola, a not-so-pleasant-as-it-seems future country made up of the the former countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

A second thread, far less interesting to me, follows Goldsmith’s friend, Richard Fettle. Fettle is also a high natural and an artist and through him we are exposed to the world of the artist whose eccentricities and non-conformist proclivities make them increasingly marginalized in the brave new world. Some nice moments here but if there was going to be trimming of the book, I would have focused it hear.

A final guide to the central plot is Martin Burke, a pioneer of psychotherapy who developed a technique allowing him to enter a person’s psyche and directly interact with their psyche. This mental construct is known as "Country of the Mind" and is a VR world that reminded me of the movies Dreamscape and The Cell. Burke is brought in to probe Goldsmith (assuming he is caught) in order to determine why he decided to go on a murder spree.

Completely separate from the main plot is a fascinating exploration of AI as a computer prose sent to Alpha Centauri develops sentience and we are witness to its birth pangs as it tries to come to grips with its new status.

THOUGHTS:

Again...


There is so much going on in this novel and Bear does not give the reader much in the way of training wheels to be able to keep up. There are few info dumps or catch up summaries and I found myself having some difficulty trying to tie the various revelations into a coherent “Ahhhhh...I get it.” Bear's depiction of the story's world is brilliant and felt like a blend of Blade Runner, Brave New World and some John Brunner to add a sense of pessimism to the tale.

The novel touches on questions of identity (in both the main and the AI story-line) and the effect of rampant biotechnological reconfiguration. Another strong thread running through the whole story is the nature of justice and I really liked what Bear did with this but it was also where I found myself doing the most head-scratching. Again, probably my fault.

Overall, there is much to like about this novel. There is even more to be intellectually impressed with about Greg Bear’s preternatural brain power. There is also a narrative that seemed very hard to follow at times and made me long for a AAA guide to the territory.

3.5 stars. Highly Recommended.

[Althea Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Queen of Angels has been described as Greg Bear's most ambitious work, and ambitious it certainly is. But ambition does not necessarily equal success.
The book takes a murder-mystery type story - a famous and successful poet of the 21st century unexpectedly murders eight of his closest friends - and turns it into a musing on the nature of awareness and identity. The question is approached through various perspectives
- that of a policewoman who has opted for physical transformation through nanotech, costing her friends and family,
- a poet friend of the suspected murderer, a somewhat unhappy individual who has opted not to have the nanotech-enabled 'therapy' that is common in society
- a therapist who has lost his career due to political scandal
All these individuals try, in their own ways, to make sense of these murders and why they may have happened.
Interspersed with this story is the story of the gradual awakening to self-aware consciousness of an AI which is an interstellar probe, and its counterpart on earth. This story is really only thematically linked to the main plot.
Bear discussed many interesting issues here, however, my enjoyment of the book was greatly diminished by the writing, especially during the part having to do with the poet. Attempting an experimental poetic? type of language Bear eschews the use of commas parentheses inserting phrases words into sentences randomly a flow-of-consciousness perspective or just pretension you decide.
It does make it slow to read, because the reader has to sort out all the phrases, decide where the commas should have been, and then decide what meaning(s) the author was getting at.
I like commas. Of course, I had a professor once yell at me for my propensity toward using them too liberally, so this could be a personal issue! ;-)

[Ric · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know it's a bit late in the game, but I am now a fan of Greg Bear. Ok, so I did 5-star Eon, Mariposa and Blood Music, but Queen of Angels is the first of his works that made me want to read more of his backlist.

Why? Because the book is just chockful of mind-expanding ideas, presented in a pleasantly unpredictable collage. Ideas such as --- the thin line between sanity and the rest of the "abnormal" states - neurosis, psychosis, detachment, possession, psychopathy; society's attempts to control normality via nanotech and drugs; the geopolitical trajectory marked by America's financial insolvency, decline and diminishing global influence; rise of vigilantism as a response to striation of beliefs and belief structures; development of consciousness in a complex digital entity, more. It starts out as a seemingly strait forward murder mystery with the killer known, like the TV series Motivations, and ostensible question is why did he do it. But then the narrative heads off to Alpha Centauri in search of alien intelligence, Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Rep) on the economics of exporting terror, and most weirdly, in the "country of the mind". Bear must have been on some good stuff when he wrote this.

Queen is set at the digital millenium (about 2047), a time step in front of its prequel, Mariposa, but stylistically, worlds apart. The titular "angels" are the next evolution of humankind, helped along by technology to have the mind set of being able to do "what it wants." And the "queen"? Is perhaps the most profound concept offered by this novel.

It is a tough read. I would barely grasp one idea when Bear is off on another scene, like going through the Louvre on the final hour of business. But I took hold of enough gosh-wow SF to find the overall reading experience exhilarating, demanding and ultimately rewarding.

5 stars, and now just a question of where to go: Slant, Darwin's Radio, The Forge of God, or very early Bear with Hegira.

[Dan Sutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my opinion, this is the finest novel ever written - by anyone. This novel is so much more than the sum of its parts, and is so beautifully constructed and written that one is left with a sense of wonder that anyone would even attempt to write it... and with a sense of awe that the ambition required to do so succeeded in every sense. The book is both so fiercely intelligent and so intellectually and emotionally challenging that the reader is left exhausted: it has a shattering effect upon the psyche. A magnificent achievement. It's fun to look at the reviews which give it only one or two stars. None of the people who wrote them can spell or punctuate correctly. This should tell you something.

[Nadine May · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is a must for psychologists who are science fiction readers! I found it difficult to get into this book at the beginning, but knowing this author's skill to make you think, I persevered and got my reward.
The country of our mind is truly an incredible reality where we create our own illusions. I perceive our 'Soul' to be the culmination of our consciousness experiences in or out of our human body, and this novel takes the reader through the psyche of a serial killer!

Bear continues forcing his reader in over their heads, and not insulting us by explaining everything, but, rather, allowing us to "swim" and form our own pictures of the action. This pattern can be, at best, off-putting, and, at worst, infuriating, but the result in "Queen" is, in my opinion, well worth the effort. Bear understands that in sci-if, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and thus he has again endeared himself to me.

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

Greg Bear is clearly trying out a different writing style for this book, but I'm not sure how it is supposed to set the tone or inform the reader how these characters think. In reality, it is extremely annoying and tiring.

He fails to use punctuation, like commas, in any of the character train-of-thought. There are enough run-on-sentences in these pages to make your eyes bleed. It is exhausting to decipher it all, and the story just isn't worth all the work.

[prcardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Storyline: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Writing Style: 2/5
World: 4/5

Wow! And just in case that did not adequately convey the sentiment, WWWwwwwwwooooooowwwwww!!!!!!!! It is a treat to read something so stamped through with ambition. All the more so when that ambition is matched equally with effort and purpose. I have read other Bear works that were more passively enjoyable but nothing about them prepared me for this.

This was purposeful. A sit-up-and-take-notice purposiveness where word choices matter, timely clues drop, perspectives shift on a precise schedule. You have to deem it either pretentious or astounding; there is no middle ground. It is in its mysteriousness this pulses most strongly. Everything is shrouded in secrecy. It is not even clear what all is being shrouded. Character identity, the world backdrop, the relationship between perspectives, and the very purpose of the book—these are all going to be slowly revealed in Bear’s own carefully constructed timetable. The story is plaited with bold confrontations with race, inequity, and the implications of technological development. No component is accidental, no theme mere adornment.

Though deserving of a certain awe, there are elements that keep this from being magisterial. Some of the detractions are simply the antipodes of positive features. Bear is writing for a future distant enough to require a different people, culture, and dialect. This is part of Bear’s worldbuilding, and he’s intent on making his denizens and their world distinct from ours. In doing so the language is jargony, the syntax unwieldy. There are occasional sentences that are incomprehensible, regardless of how many times they are reread, and many of them require that rereading for comprehension. The mysteriousness, too, while having an artfulness, was often uncomfortable. In his grand designs I think Bear forgot to consider how a reader new to the environment would be approaching the story and just how much a lack of even basic information makes it difficult to relate to, visualize, and understand characters. Bear does get around to these revelations, but not necessarily in an order and a place that was pleasant or satisfying for the reader. Some of the bigger themes, too, were not as cogently linked as a book with this level ambition demands. Finally, it is ultimately a dark, somewhat disturbing story with some heinous events. I am uncomfortable with this sort of emotional experience as entertainment, and I do not think Bear’s ending fully justified its presence.

This is a book that is going to stay with me a long time. It was remarkably current. It could have been published this year rather than almost three decades ago. There is nothing here that requires a sequel, but I’m delighted to see that he wrote more books in this series. Right now, there are no books I’m looking forward to more than Heads, Moving Mars, and Slant. This volume has set some wonderful possibilities, and given what he did in Queen of Angels, I am ready to trust him again with a new story.

[Moraz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite surprised with this work of Greg Bear. While I never read something of his that disappointed me, this is such an excellent intelligent work that I feel lucky to have read it. The story line is rich and holds the tension all along. As it is told from many POVs, it is up to the reader to patch them into coherent unfoldment of events. Interesting thinking about Art and especially literature, but above all is the thrill of tracing the awakening of the AI characters. Definitely recommended.

[Nicolas · Rating 5 out of 5]

L’histoire

La reine des anges nous raconte une tranche de vie de différents personnages, gravitant tous autour d’un unique poète : Emmanuel Goldsmith. Celui-ci aurait, dans une espèce de folie destructrice, tué huit personnes, en se transformant en un serial killer d’autant plus étonnant que les thérapies permettent, en ce millénaire numérique qu’est l’an 2048, de réfrener assez facilement ces pulsions homicides. Pourtant, plutôt que la facilité, Greg Bear choisit ici de nous faire suivre différents personnages qui gravitent autour de Goldsmith : un médecin, qui souhaite explorer son paysage mental (à la manière de Jennifer Lopez dans ce splendide film, The Cell),une splendide femme policier qui … fait son boulot et enquête sur ces meurtres et souhaite le mettre en prison, et l’un des anciens amis du poète, qui essaye de revivre. On suit donc en parallèle les chemins de ces différents individus, qui ne se croisent jamais, dans un décor incroyable de tours terriblement hautes réverberant la lumière sur une banlieue de Los Angeles dans une perpétuelle pénombre, sur un monde où les nanomachines ont permis l’arrivée de nouveaux esclaves du confort, les arbeiters, où la Terre entière se passione pour un vaisseau semi-conscient parti explorer une planète dans un système solaire lointain.

Mon avis

A mon sens, ce roman est excellent, peut-être même le meilleur de Greg Bear : loin des étrangetés d’Eon ou Eternité, il construit ici un monde du futur proche réaliste (aux postulats de base près) qui permet à ses intrigues de prendre toute leur ampleur : entre l’enquête de la policère (dont l’apparence même est un très joli exemple d’invention sur un thème mille fois rebattu) dont la conclusion sera assez étrange, les expérimentations médicales qui me permettent de dire qu’on n’en est encore qu’au début de nos questionnements éthiques, et cette lancinante question de la conscience qui permet de donner un sens à ce nouveau mlillénaire numérique, le panorama dressé est très complet. Il est par ailleurs servi par des personnages dont les demi-teintes sont un régal. En effet, aucun d’entre eux n’est caricatural. Si leurs aspirations sont très hautes, les moyens qu’ils mettent (comme par exemple le médecin) à les réaliser n’ont peut-être pas la même ampleur, mais révèlent en tout état de cause une profonde connaissance de la nature humaine. On le voit, ce roman est riche de nombreuses qualités qui ne tiennent pas qu’à son côté pavé. Il pose de nombreuses bonnes questions, sur l’éthique comme je l’ai dit (avec le droit de s’immiscer dans l’esprit d’autrui), les libertés individuelles, et enfin, celle que personnellement je préfère, et que je vous laisse méditer : le jour où nous rencontrerons une conscience non-humaine, saurons-nous la reconnaître ?

[Daniel Bensen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Way back in high school, I listened to this audiobook narrated by the prolific genius George Guidall. He's still the best thing about this book, which I wouldn't have revisited except that a reporter for the Economist mentioned it. I thought I might have missed something the first time around, but no, it's still just as dull and pointless as before. There's a vague sketch of a plot and a vaguer glimmer of a theme. Something about where evil comes from? Multiple personalities? Voodoo gods? You could easily read the first and last three chapters and get all the most fun and important points.

[Snakes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ll pretend like I understood what happened. Mankind discovers life elsewhere in the universe, AI becomes self-aware, man and machine are fused both physically and mentally, and an investigator tries to solve a murder in a dystopian future. How do they all tie together? I honestly don’t know. But it was interesting enough to finish.

[Mike Franklin · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the not too distant future humanities first interstellar probe, controlled by an artificial intelligence that is just teetering on the precipice of self-awareness, is approaching Alpha Centauri after a 15 year flight. Meanwhile back on Earth a poet suddenly, with no apparent motive, kills 8 of his followers. This act launches three separate threads; one follows the police detective investigating the killing, one follows a psychiatrist investigating the mind of the poet/killer and one follows one of his followers who managed to escape his intended fate.

Despite the latter three threads having a common starting point there is virtually no link at all between them; the protagonists of each thread never meet up again and their actions have no effect at all outside their own thread. The only tenuous link between them and the first probe thread is a common theme of ‘self’; its meaning, origin and artificial generation. And it really is tenuous. Other authors have written books with multiple threads that have no connection other than some common visceral and/or philosophic themes; books like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas or Roberto Bolano’s 2666 spring to mind and they handled these disparate threads in a manner that reinforced the central theme admirably. But I’m afraid Bear fails in this completely and the whole thing felt like three completely separate stories tangled up in each other and, sadly, not very good stories at that. The only thread that, for me, deserved any degree of acclaim was the interstellar probe one which could have worked very successfully as a stand-alone novella or short story.

Add to this Bear’s attempt to be a little experimental in his writing style which made the writing uncomfortable and difficult for this reader and more effort than was justified by any reward the book attempted to give. For example, for some reason he leaves out so many commas that I sometimes had to re-read passages several times to mentally put those commas back in and make sense of it. But this seemed to happen so randomly that at first I thought they might have been scanning errors, this being an older book and my edition being a digital one, but the almost complete absence of any other typos seems to suggest that is an unlikely explanation/excuse. Whatever, the result for me was that I was ready to quit after the first hundred pages and now wish I had. I persisted because I was intrigued by how those threads would come together but since they never did I was only disappointed.

The book took me ages to read because I simply had little inclination to return to it and ultimately did not reward my persistence. For me I’d have to sum Queen of Angels up as simply pretentious and I only gave it two stars instead of one for the probe thread which was an interesting take on the possibility of AIs achieving self-awareness.

[Dylan · Rating 2 out of 5]

If there's one unifying problem in bad science fiction, it's the tendency to overload books with too many ideas. Queen of Angels is a perfect example of this mistake. After the poet Emmanuel Goldsmith murders eight of his friends with no apparent motive, the novel picks up four different threads of plot

1) Mary Choy, a policewoman pursuing Goldsmith.
2) Martin Burke, a therapist attempting to figure out why Goldsmith committed the murder.
3) Richard Fettle, a friend of Goldsmith grappling with his own demons.
4) Jill, an artificial intelligence being pushed towards self-awareness as she analyzes the findings of an experimental space probe.

You may wonder what Jill's story has to do with the other three. Frankly, I do too. All of Jill's sections of the novel could have been cut, and it would have had little influence on the other three threads. This problem repeats in the other plot threads. There is little connection or interaction between Choy and Burke's stories. Fettle could have been cut entirely with no alterations to the other three threads. Honestly, I wish he'd been cut, given that he does little other than 1) whine and 2) act like a prick.

Choy's sections of the novel are compelling and interesting, packed with good ideas that I'd like to see expanded on at length. Burke's story makes for an interesting thriller, but every time Bear attempts to discuss psychology or neuroscience, it becomes increasingly clear that he knows very little about either field, making the technical exposition slow the already-cumbersome plot.

I think I would have enjoyed Queen of Angels were it 3 separate novellas, one each for Burke, Choy, and Jill. But as-is, no story is given enough space to flower, Fettle is dull at best, and the technical exposition in Burke's story is just embarrassing. I really wanted to like Queen of Angels- there are some really interesting ideas here- but I just couldn't.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another reviewer Stephen, "This book blew my brain and left my skull a cracked, smoking husk containing nothing but remnants of wows and questions."

I totally agree. It's an interlacing cyber-fi story of 4 groups of 'people' having what in common? That's my question. My initial thought was it's a modern rendition of Crime and Punishment. This is a major theme, though it's been too long since I met Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov to do a comparison justice {uninyended pun). I do think there may be something to this.

Another major theme deals with the nature of sentience, or self-awareness. And a 3rd about government surveillance of all individuals.

My problem is I have not figured out how these 3 thread are related from this novel alone. Was it unclear? Is the author free-associating ideas? Did I just not get it? Perhaps its sequels will help my confusion.

7 of 10 stars

[Pat · Rating 1 out of 5]

So part of this future society has been 'therapied' - enhanced and perfected by nano-technology - and half hasn't. Some people get murdered and boring police-type woman has to find the person who did it. They know who did it - exciting future technology did that in the first 5 minutes - they just can't find him. Meanwhile, in space, an AI becomes aware and writes some really bad poetry.

I really wanted to like this but just couldn't get into it. The 'newspeak' & setting was frustrating & the characters so dull it was really hard to care. I could see what Bear was trying to do but it just wasn't for me.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 5 out of 5]

review of
Greg Bear's Queen of Angels
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 1-4, 2018

For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

Ok, I might as well just add Bear to my personal pantheon of great SF writers & be done w/ it. I keep hesitating to put him there b/c the writing's just a tad bit too.. college-correct. But the ideas are always amazing & he's done a great job w/ this one, this is probably one of my favorites of the 20 bks I've read by him so far.

A central character is a man who murders his friends & acolytes in a seemingly calculated spree of death. He's a writer. His writings are quoted throughout. One of the nice touches is a footnote to the opening epigraph by him on p 3:

"1 Permission to Quote Unattributed Passages: International Artist's Rights Committee, World © Emanuel Goldsmith 2022-2045."

Another central character is a "PD", wch I initially took to mean "Police Department" or "Police Detective":

"She could not wash away the sight of eight young comb citizens in various stages of disassembly. Last night, the first investigation team had gone to the third foot of East Comb One in response to neighborhood medical detectors picking up traces of human decay. In the first two hours the team had mounted a sniffer, performed assay and scanned for heat trails. Then the freezers had come and tombed the whole apartment. Senior in her watch, Mary had been assigned this rare homicide at seven hundred. Spin of the hour.

"Layer by cold solid layer, forensics would now study the scene corpses and all and take as long as they wished. From the large scale to the microbial everything would be sifted and analyzed and by tomorrow or the day after they would know something about everyone who had been in and out of the apartment over the last year." - p 4

As usual, Bear's imagination is far-reaching & thorough. He pursues a multitude of well-worked-out possibilites for the near-future & makes it all cohere. The above 1.5 paragraphs give a taste. He imagines housing, He imagines forensics. I thought PFD meant the 2 things listed above but, as it turns out: ""You are a Public Defender in Los Angeles["]" (p 126) Mary's a "Public Defender". This no longer means a state-pd lawyer for the defense, it means a cop. But the whole legal system has changed dramatically in a more humane direction—& this is controversial. Bear's reimagining of the 'justice' system bears examination by 'Injustice System' Activists of today.

Just as I'm interested in a future where permission can be granted "to Quote Unattributed Passages" so am I interested in a future acronym of "O.V.F. & I.—Once Very Famous & Influential". (p 13) Thickening the plot, is a search for intelligent life in the universe by an unmanned vessel. Tech details are provided:

""By cutting through the galaxy's magnetic field and generating this electricity, AXIS relied on the law of conservation of energy to decelerate even more quickly without the use of onboard fuel. The power drawn from its vast wings was more han sufficient to dispel the cold of deep space; but AXIS waited for proximity to Alpha Centauri B to begin to grow its biologic thinker system.["]" - p 20

Goldstein, the murderer, who was 1st & foremost a writer, is quoted throughout. His writing tends to a Draconian perception of humanity:

"Examiner: "I remember Mr. Bormann. You've been before this court before, have you not?"
Bormann: "Yes."
Examiner: "For outrages against your own kind."
Bormann: "Yes."
Examiner: "What crime is he accused of this time?"
Clerk: "Outraging Hell, sire." - p 21

As is so often the case w/ just about everything, the extent of the perceiver's knowledge determines what they get out of something. In this case, the reader may just respond to the name "Bormann" as a fictional one. OR they may hearken back to "Martin Bormann":

"Bormann joined a paramilitary Freikorps organisation in 1922 while working as manager of a large estate. He served nearly a year in prison as an accomplice to his friend Rudolf Höss (later commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp) in the murder of Walther Kadow. Bormann joined the Nazi Party in 1927 and the Schutzstaffel (SS) in 1937."

[..]

"Bormann was one of the leading proponents of the ongoing persecution of the Christian churches and favoured harsh treatment of Jews and Slavs in the areas conquered by Germany during World War II."

[..]

"After Hitler committed suicide, Bormann and others attempted to flee Berlin on 2 May to avoid capture by the Soviets. Bormann probably committed suicide on a bridge near Lehrter station. The body was buried nearby on 8 May 1945, but was not found and confirmed as Bormann's until 1972; the identification was reaffirmed in 1998 by DNA tests. Bormann was tried in absentia by the International Military Tribunal in the Nuremberg trials of 1945 and 1946. He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_...

The treatment of criminals in Bear's not-so-far-distant-future involves giving them therapy, reshaping their personalities. Much of the novel revolves around aspects of this. Martin, another main character, the "O.V.F. & I." one is a brain researcher.

""Do you know Emanuel Goldsmith?" he asked Martin.

""I know of him," Martin said. "If we're talking about the same man."

""We are. The poet. He murdered Mr. Albigoni's daughter three nights ago.""

[..]

""Would you be willing to help him?"

""How?" Martin avoided taking a sip from his drink though he fingered the glass.

""Mr. Albigoni was—is—Mr. Goldsmith's publisher and friend. He bears him no ill will." Lascal's voice did not skim so easily over this prepared statement." - p 29

That's quite the dramatic premise, eh?! Society is split between the therapied, who tend to be more financially prosperous, & the untherapied who tend to live in the shade of the exclusive high rise housing Combs where the therapied live.

"Here and in the stablize deep sunk pads of Malibu was where the notyetchosen waited for vacancies with the combs. Vacancies were becoming more and more rare as rejuvenators plied their controversial trade, turning good citizens into multicentarian eloi." - p 37

Again, what the reader knows or doesn't know effects the perceived inflection. "Eloi" is a reference to the delicate & spoiled people of H. G. Wells's The Time Machine. They lead an easy life where they're well-taken care of w/o any wear & tear on themselves. This is made possibly by the Morlocks, the working class who live underground & manage all the infrastructure that makes the Eloi's life possible. There is a price, tho. Sometimes the Morlock take the Eloi underground to eat them or some such. Wells's story was a sort of Socialist warning to elites that sooner or later the exploited working classes wd revolt & get their revenge.

Now imagine the Eloi, as Bear does, as people rich enough to afford tretaments that enable longevity. Are we there yet? We might be closer than one might think. Imagine parents who live long lives spending all the family money on being kept alive. Money that might've once gone to the children to help them thru precarious old age is kept instead for the oldest while the children die off in deprivation. It seems to me that medical practice, in the US at least, revolves largely around taking every cent from old people for things like extremely expensive drugs to keep their internal organs going when they might otherwise be ready to give up the ghost. The patients won't die until the medical system has drained the family coffers.

Bear's imagining of forensics in 2047 is one of my favrote things about this novel:

"All nonhuman debris were within normal levels in the metabolic carpet. Goldsmith did not smoke or use powder or aerosol drugs. Guests brought in detritus consistent with their travel-paths through apartment and points of origin. Clothing and other fiber matches consistent with above conditions and patterns. Analysis of nondomestic nontailored microbes consistent with above conditions and patterns. Routine searches based upon direct human cell evidence and analysis of territorial mitochondrial drift and evolution of nonsymbiotic/nonparasitic microbial traces expected to soon give leads on homes (breakdown by known microbial environments) of all unknown visitors to the apartment." - p 70

This bk was published in 1990. It's mostly about 2047 but, of course, there's some history leading up to then. One of the most fun things, for me, about reading SF is seeing wch predictions come true (when applicable) & wch don't. Some predictions are mainly wishful thinking about the possible but implausible. It's 2018 as I write this:

"["]in 2017, five nations, headed by the young technological giant China, decided to build the first interstellar probe. Reluctantly, the United States was persuaded to join" - pp 80-81

The "Reluctantly" part is perhaps the most accurate. After all, the US refused to sign or ratify the following:

"
• 1930 - Forced Labour Convention, not ratified
• 1948 - Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, not signed
• 1949 - Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949, not signed
• 1950 - Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, not signed
• 1951 - Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, party to only the 1967 protocol
• 1951 - Equal Remuneration Convention, not ratified
• 1954 - Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, not signed
• 1958 - Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, not ratified
• 1960 - Convention against Discrimination in Education, not ratified
• 1961 - Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, not signed
• 1962 - Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages, signed but not ratified
• 1964 - Employment Policy Convention, 1964, not ratified
• 1966 - International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, signed but not ratified
• 1966 - First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, not signed
• 1969 - Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, not ratified
• 1969 - Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, signed but not ratified
• 1972 - Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, signed but withdrew in 2002
• 1977 - American Convention on Human Rights, signed but not ratified
• 1977 - Protocol I (an amendment protocol to the Geneva Conventions), not ratified
• 1977 - Protocol II (an amendment protocol to the Geneva Conventions), not ratified
• 1979 - Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, signed but not ratified
• 1979 - Moon Treaty
• 1981 - Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981, not ratified
• 1989 - Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, not signed
• 1989 - Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed but not ratified
• 1989 - Basel Convention, signed but not ratified
• 1990 - United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, not signed
• 1991 - United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, not signed
• 1992 - Convention on Biological Diversity, signed but not ratified
• 1994 - Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel, signed but not ratified
• 1996 - Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, signed but not ratified
• 1997 - Kyoto Protocol, signed with no intention to ratify
• 1997 - Ottawa Treaty (Mine Ban Treaty), unsigned
• 1998 - Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, unsigned [2]
• 1999 - Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, not signed
• 1999 - Criminal Law Convention on Corruption, signed but not ratified
• 1999 - Civil Law Convention on Corruption, not signed
• 2002 - Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, not signed
• 2006 - International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, not signed
• 2007 - Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, signed but not ratified
• 2008 - Convention on Cluster Munitions, not signed
• 2011 - Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, signed but not yet ratified
• 2016 - Trans-Pacific Partnership, signed but not yet ratified
• 2017 - Paris Agreement, signed but not ratified"

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

Not exactly an impressive track record for a nation that supposedly values "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". I suppose that's 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness unless somebody wants to get rich off of sex slavery or cluster bombs or polluting the environment or whatever'.

I've criticized Baer's writing for being too "college-correct" by wch I mean he doesn't break the conventions but he still has some flare w/ language when he fdares wax poetical:

"Mary Choy debarked from a pd interjag minibus and glanced up briefly at East Comb One, upright stack of narrow horizontal mirrors with four sectors aligned into silver verticals, preparing to reflect hours from now the lowering westerly sun on the sixth jag where E Hassida lived. The city lay beneath uniform pewter clouds pushing in from the sea, decapitating the combs. There might be no usable sun this evening perhaps even rain but still the combs arranged themselves as if motivated by guilt for their shadowing presence." - p 82

Did you ever think about that? Highrises that block out the sun from the 'low-lifes'? What about highways that bisect neighborhoods or go entirely too close to houses that were once peacefully located, that're now subjected to constant noise? Not to be too obvious or anything but that stuff only happens in poor neighborhoods where the victims are too poor to effectively resist in legal fashion.

Another thing that usually interests me in SF is descriptions of imagined future technology. Eevn tho I'm not really that much of a tech-buff it's fun to imagine what might be ferasible:

""I'm reading about your triple focus receptor. It picks up signals from circuitry established in the skin by special neurological nano. It's designed to track activity at twenty-three different points around the hippocampus and corpus callosum."" - p 92

Martin, "O.V.F. & I.", is a pioneer of this brain research who's had his career unfairly cut short by politics.

""Radical therapy was only fifty percent effective until you made the procedures more precise." Albigoni raised his dull eyes to Martin's and smiled faintly. "Thereby putting the final touches on a transformation of law and society in the last fifteen years."" - p 95

[..]

""I still do not understand what is meant by Country of the Mind."

""It is a region, an unceasing and coherent dreamstate, built up from genetic engrams, pre verbal impressions, and all the contents of our lives. It is the alphabet and foundation on which we base all of our thinking and language, all our symbologies. Every thought, every personal action, is reflected in this region. All of our myths and religious symbols are based upon its common contents. All routines and subroutines, all personalities and talents and agents, all mental structures, are reflected in its features and occupants, or are reflections of them."" - p 97

More about the writer/murderer: "Goldsmith like Ezra Pound in an earlier age had established by being a Yardley apologist a reputation for inept and perhaps dangerous political dabbling that had made secure his literary standing." (p 102) I found that comparison interesting. Pound was eventually imprisoned in a mental hospital in the US b/c of his support of Italy during WWII. I don't think that support made his "literary standing" "secure" tho. On the same page, Bear has Goldsmith using the pun "eRace". Bear wd've used that no later than 1990 when the bk was published. I've always liked the term when I've encountered it at political protests.

"ERACE, also known as Eracism is an anti-racism organization created in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1993 by Brenda Thompson, Black, and Rhoda Faust, White, in response to racially charged statements in letters to the editors of the Times-Picayune series "Together Apart/The Myth of Race". They created the ERACISM bumper sticker and started free, bi-racial, facilitated ERACISM discussions." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ERACE

Interestingly, Bear's coinage of the word predates the 1993 attribution quoted above.

One idea that, to my disappointment, doesn't get explored further is: "legal implications of decl. dead retaining citizenship status upon reincarnation" (p 111) Imagine the legal wrangles regarding inheritance over that! Artists cd particularly benefit b/c their work might be worthless while they're alive, become very valuable after they die, & then, upon reincarnation, they cd finally collect the bucks.

Bear's near-future imaginings has much to hold my attn. A major part of it is "a complex of computing and thinking systems" (p 112) trying to detect their having a sense of self:

""Are you unified?"

""I do not think I am."

""Is that a true opinion, or a colloquialism?"

""I am of the opinion that it is a true opinion."

""Good. Return to keyboard, please."

"!JILL> Done.

"!Keyb> Thank you for notifying me, Jill, but I'm afraid this is a false alarm. I don't think that you are truly self aware.["]" - pp 112-113

Here's a part of Bear's future that I find more likely than others:

"Breakfast built itself quickly in the oven, a film of reddish nano drawing material from dimples and side troughs in the glass dish and rising like baking bread. In most homes nanofood prepared itself out of sight; not in Ernest's.

"In three minutes the red film slid away, revealing think brown slices with a breadlike texture kippers applesauce scrabled eggs flecked with green and red. The oven automatically heated everything to it desired temperature then opened its door and slide the meal out for their inspection." - pp 136-137

In the future where such nanofood cooking happens there'll be a few catches: 1. If the owner of the oven allows the automatic updating it won't be long before a new oven will have to be purchased or it won't be able to cook the food anymore; 2. This'll take no longer than 3 mnths; 3. If the new oven isn't purchased the nanofood will be in the shape of the Pillsbury Dough Boy but it'll be made entirely out of shit & will be animate & immortal. Now imagine THAT contesting your ownerships. The nano companies will get yr money no matter what.

Bear uses Goldsmith to take a stab at Islam, something that I continue to think is as needful as stabs at Christinanity. We cd do w/o these 2 gangs.

""What's the book?" Martin asked.

""The Qu'ran," Albigoni said. "A special edition I published fifteen years ago. It was the only boom he had with him."

"Martin looked over his shoulder at Lascal, "He's been reading it all along?"

""Off and on," Lascal said. "He called it 'the religion of the slavers.'["]" - p 176

Indeed. True dat.

[Carmelo Medina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es una novela de 3,5. confieso que me costó un montón de páginas meterme en la novela y que estuve a punto de abandonar la si no fuera porque la trama de la inteligencia artificial que cobra conciencia de sí misma era muy interesante. Está novela desarrolla cuatro tramas que darían para una novela independiente en una sola y la verdad es que el resultado es bastante espectacular. Te traslada a una sociedad futura muy bien ideada y huye de uno de los defectos que suelen tener los escritores de ciencia ficción que solo se centran en la evolución de la humanidad en Estados Unidos. Me han dado ganas de seguir con la serie de libros y hoy en día eso es todo un halago en el actual mundo editorial.

[Stephen Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

BEST WRITTEN GREG BEAR BOOK I'VE READ SO FAR, STILL ONLY 3 STARS

[Nicholas Barone · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book that seems at times like it could be great, but falls just short. Bear's Queen of Angels (originally published in 1990) is set at the end of the year 2047 in a USA where the advent of nanotechnology has allowed for the development of advanced medical and neurological treatments. Most physical disease has been eliminated and even mental/neurological/psychological disorders can be treated with nanotech therapies. These therapies allow everyone to life well adjusted lives. Therapies have also introduced a new social class structure with the Naturals (those who don't require therapy) and the Therapied (those who have undergone mental therapies) on top, and the Untherapied (those who refuse therapies) as the new lower class.

The novel follows the stories of 4 main characters:

Mary Choy is an investigator for the LAPD. She is a natural and a transform (she has undergone a nanotech procedure to dramatically alter her body). Her tale follows her investigation of a multiple murder apparently committed by Emanual Goldsmith, an untherapied, and famous, poet.

Richard Fettle is an untherapied poet, and Emanual Goldsmith is his best friend. Fettle refuses therapy because he feels it will alter his self and stifle his creativity. His tale shows how Fettle attempts to cope with accepting that the man he knew could murder 8 of his students.

Martin Burke is a therapied scientific pioneer. He is the primary developer of advanced techniques that allow him to insert his consciousness into the subconscious of his patients, allowing him to diagnose and treat complex mental disorders. Unfortunately, political backlash caused his practice to be shut down. Now he is being offered the chance to reopen his practice if he will agree to delve into the mind of Emanual Goldsmith to find out why he committed murder.

Jill is an advanced computer thinker. Its main function is to emulate AXIS - a similar thinker that controls an unmanned space probe that is exploring the Alpha Centauri system. Since AXIS's reports take 4 years to reach earth, Jill helps the project controllers figure out how AXIS will react to various scenarios. Jill's tale follows its attempts to understand self awareness, and perhaps to achieve it.

The overall theme of the novel is the nature of the mind and consciousness, and Bear has many interesting insights here. Bear's setting is fully fleshed out and fascinating - this is perhaps the strongest aspect of the novel. The biggest weakness for me was the pacing - I flew through some sections and couldn't wait for more, other sections dragged and didn't feel like they were advancing the story much at all. This however, was not enough to ruin what I would consider to be a very good book.

[Benjamin Atkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Queen of Angels is quite simply, the most staggering science fiction project I never saw coming. I had read Eon, and Blood Music. But Queen of Angels is character driven, filled, nay, bursting with ideas from every few pages. I do not give brief summaries, well yes I do, because I can not help myself but no spoilers. This far too short novel, relative to it's gravitas deals seriously with the evolution of the human soul, as it navigates its way through an exponentially changing Universe. One one level it is a first rate detective story,on the level of Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon, it is also a fundamental ontological treatise on the eternal question "where are we going?, is all this"progress" really advancing us or imprisoning us. The novel has rich three dimensional characters, especially, the lead female protagonist, who is somewhat an archetype of the "Dragon Tattoo" tough-chick motif, except, Queen of Angels got there first. Sorry, Stieg. More importantly, the main character is so much more, she is presented as very tough and has all the tradecraft necessary to do her job, but she is also just a human being trying to find meaning in jaw-droppingly beautiful piece of world-building by Bear. It is his best novel to date. Please read it, I would give it a galaxy of stars if were allowed to.....

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and at times profound book, characters felt real in a way that often similar books lack.

Quick summary: Near future, society is mostly similar, but for the most part current judicial punishments have been replaced by extremely effective neurological therapy, which is also used to fix various mundane personality flaws. For the most part people are happy sane and healthy. [I do love that what would be an awful dystopoian cliche in the hands of many writers is handled in a properly nuanced way]. But not everyone is happy with this, vigilantes called the selctors enforce their own retributive justice via neural headsets that simulate eternities of torture, bohemian artists remain proudly untherapied for the sake of authenticity.

The plot is set into motion when a famous poet commits a series of girsly murders, and runs in parallel the stories of the police investigator, a disgraced psychologist analysing him, an old friend of his struggling with the aftermath and the story of the first self aware artificial intelligence investigating life on a nearby star and how the people of earth are reacting.

The story touches on the nature of guilt, punishment and self awareness, as well as issues of race and politics in a extremely clever and non-didactic way. [Apologies if that is vague, but trying to edge around spoilers.]

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really neat story. It was a triplet of stories all surrounding what it is to be human and a bit of humanity. The science in this science fiction wasn't nearly as difficult to parse as some of the more recent works I've had to auger through but it was a good set of stories. Ones I could get under the skin of. The polish in movements, scenes, ideologies all seemed well laid out.

If you want to see a transform detective from future LA, a scientist that can delve into the human psyche--and the horrors that might lurk in a killer, a pre-sentient AI, or a strange delving into Vodoun in a new Haiti. Read.

If you want to really understand what happens in the end.. I have no idea, and neither will you. I thought book 2 would pick this up a bit more but it's substantially further in the future.

This is a point in time, reference in the moment book. Enjoy it without expectations or aspirations and I think you'll enjoy it as I did.

[Vít · Rating 4 out of 5]

Je to scifi pro "starší a pokročilé", složitá konstrukce s řadou úrovní, plná psychologie, nanotechnologií a voodoo (ano, opravdu). Místy je to trochu obtížnější čtení, ale stojí za to se tím prokousat. Posuďte sami - představte si svět, ve kterém je naprosto normální upravovat psychiku lidí, kteří nějak vyčnívají, kde psychologická terapie nahrazuje vězení či popravy. Kde si můžete prohlédnout psychickou "krajinu" druhého člověka. Kde se Haiti živí vývozem teroristických jednotek a mučících přístrojů do celého světa. Kde se nanotechnologie používají k výrobě naprosto všeho, mimo jiné také pro kosmetické úpravy lidského těla... Je to docela nářez.

[Barbara Howe]

DNF. I tried, I really did--twice--but I just couldn't get through this. The run-on sentences, missing commas, plus signs thrown in for no reason I could detect, uninteresting poetry and other random bits with no apparent relationship to the main story, etc. make this difficult to wade through.

I'm willing to put up with some amount of linguistic experimentation in pursuit of an interesting story, but the characters and the plot never grabbed me, and the sheer amount of grammatical rule-bending seemed more like an exercise in schoolboy self-indulgence than as successful communication of complex ideas.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was too much going on in this book (too many seemly unrelated story lines), and I found it a struggle to get through. The ideas were interesting, but weren't explored in too much depth. I found the writing a little difficult to get through because of lack of commas and proper punctuation (no doubt done on purpose, but it still bothered me). In general the book was okay, but I would not recommend it to a friend.

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not to my tastes at all. It chucks out a huge number of concepts and character storyline but I felt never really explores them well enough.
It also seems to be trying to do an experimental style but it often just comes off as pretnetious rather than innovative.
Finally it tries to do some exploration of race which may have been interesting at the time but now feels dated.
I do give it some props for trying but a failed experiment for me.

[Phorc Ewe · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nope. Can't do it. Sort of feels like it was written in another language, poorly translated into English, and then printed as is. I don't enjoy reading books that give me a headache.
I loved Eon, Eternity, and a few of his others, but this series isn't happening for me (I also accidentally read Slant before this not knowing it was the 4th in this set).

[Xabi1990 · Rating 2 out of 5]

3/10. Media de los 5 libros leídos del autor : 6/10.
Otro representante de la CF Hard, una de las figuras de los 80. Tiene varios Nébula y Hugo. De los que he leído me quedo con “Vitales” o “Marte se mueve”. Esta novela, la galardonada “Reina de los ángeles”, toda vuestra, me pareció un bodrio.
Cosa curiosa, porque la colección Nova no me solía fallar.

[Sterling Paramore · Rating 1 out of 5]

Greg Bear was one of my first great introductions to sci fi (Forge of God/Anvil of Stars were phenomenal.

This book is garbage. Unreadable. I made it 50 pages in and just couldn’t read it anymore. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to read a book in a nonexistent English dialect with no commas.

The story seemed interesting but I just can’t read this anymore

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's amazing that this was written in 1990, as everything feels so modern - transhumanism, the surveillance state, nanotechnology. Any near-future cop story will invite comparisons with Blade Runner (the movie, not Do Androids...), and this stands up really well. If you're looking for solid science fiction set in a time where everything is changing, this is a good choice