Customer Reviews

Dead Lines

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I've been a Greg Bear fan from 'The Wind from a Burning Woman" right on up to "Darwin's Children." So I was eager to read this horror tale, described on the book jacket as "spine-tingling, provocative, and heart-wrenching."

Unfortunately, the book is none of these. Rather, it's an uneasy mix - not blend - of modern technology and old-fashioned haunting, with a little possession thrown in on the side. There's even a murky hint of Stephen King's "The Langoliers" - the suggestion of supernatural entities cleaning up behind the scenes.

It takes major suspension of disbelief to buy into the story's premise: new cellphone technology taps into a previously undiscovered source of energy which somehow involves the afterlife. Then Bear tries to tie together three story lines connected only by forced coincidence: the protagonist's chance involvement with the new technology; the recent murder of his daughter; and the dark past of his enigmatic employer. The result is unconvincing.

Most importantly, the book just isn't scary. The characters never become fully realized people we care about. Though strange and frightening things happen to them, we're not involved enough to be scared for, or with, them. At one point, the protagonist, Peter Russell, fails to recognize a familiar person at a key moment in the story - a failure not believable by any stretch of the imagination. A real person would never have done this.

Much as I'd like to, I can't recommend this book. For good horror, read Peter Straub or Owl Goingback. For quality Bear, read 'Darwin's Radio" and "Darwin's Children', or even his older works such as 'Blood Music." But stay away from this one.

Dead Lines (2004) is a ghost story. Sometime in the near future, a new form of communications -- Trans -- has been developed. Using analog technology over an extremely broadband channel, it provides exceptionally clear sound and promises to allow an almost unlimited number of concurrent conversations without any crosstalk. The only drawback is that this medium is shared with the dead!

Peter Russell was a producer of low budget softcore sexploitation films. He got out the business just as the hardcore stuff began to flood the market. Now he is an agent for Joseph Adrian Benoliel, a Hollywood investor and former business partner during his film producing days.

In this novel, Peter receives a message stating that his best friend, Phil Richards, has died. Phil's ex-wife Lydia had left a note in the house and Carla Wyss, an old friend, had found the note and called Peter. The note said that Phil had died of a stroke or heart attack.

Peter has an appointment with Joseph. After briefly returning home, he drives out to the Salammbo estate in Malibu. When he knocks on the door, a young man named Stanley Weinstein admits him and immediately offers him a Trans phone. After Peter concludes his business with Joseph, Weinstein walks out with Peter; he describes the communications service, offers Peter ten thousand dollars to convince Joseph to invest, and gives Peter the remaining phones in the box to hand out to others.

Phil's memorial service will be held at his house in Tiburon. Peter had not been previously aware that Phil had a house in Marin county. After the memorial service, he goes looking for the Phil's old motor home that they had dreamed of using to travel around together on the World's Longest Old Farts Cross-country Hot Dog Escapade and Tour. From the amount of yellow police tape on vehicle and the fingerprint dust, Peter finally knows where Phil had died: behind the wheel of the motor home.

Since Lydia had taken the five hundred he had received for running Joseph's errand, Peter is down to his last ten bucks. He calls Trans and discovers that they are located in the old San Andreas prison complex (which is being converted into an office park) and receives an invitation to come by the next day. There Peter gets a tour to the facility built into the old death row building as well as an advance on his commission.

During his perambulations, Peter has been having strange experiences. In Peter's house, he sees a translucent image of Lydia having an emotional crisis. After sleeping in his car by the beach while waiting for his appointment with Trans, he is visited by a crystal clear vision of an old man and three children. Moreover, he has weird dreams.

Peter learns that he has been seeing wraiths -- visualizations of the living -- and specters -- appearances of the dead -- and realizes that these visions and the dreams have occurred only when a Trans unit is near. He tries to gain more information from the company, but Weinstein denies any connection. However, the inventor of the device, Arpad Kreisler, is beginning to suspect otherwise.

In this story, Peter is faced with the spiritual realm underlying ordinary reality. Trans is providing an interface with this realm which allows the dead to manifest in everyday life. Peter is probably the only one that can stop the intrusions.

This story is being marketed as a mainstream novel, but it is really science fiction with a fantastic premise. As with Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction, the souls of the dead have come back to confront and possess the living. If Trans is not terminated, the whole world could be taken over by the dead.

Highly recommended for Bear fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of supernatural presences in the ordinary world.

-Arthur W. Jordin

This is a strange book that promises to be about ghosts. There are ghosts in the way there is food in My Dinner With Andre. They may be there, but they are not the story. Instead we meet a film maker and photographer who is at a very low point in his life. He has no real work (other than odd jobs for a rich eccentric), no wife, one of his children was murdered and he is a recovering alcoholic. Things really could not get much worse.

But things do change when a chance encounter at the rich eccentric's house puts him in touch with a start-up telecom company. They have a new product that is to cell phones what cell phones are to two cans and a piece of string. Unfortunately the bandwidth the devices use pass through the realm of the dead. Sounds spooky, right? Wrong. For a ghost story, we don't get any noticeable ghost activity until the second half of the book (around page 175). Most of the story reads like a seedier version of Bradbury's WHO KILLED CONSTANCE. Strange characters and countless references to the film and photography industry make this more of a tribute to or a eulogy for the industry than a ghost story.

The ghosts in the book (mostly off-stage) do cause the main character to start asking questions. He questions himself, his family, his career and mostly what really happened to his dead daughter. But while there are ghosts in the book it is not a ghost story. While there is a serial killer in the book it is not a thriller. It is more just a simple look at a man's life and how it cam to reach this low point. Oh, there are a few minor revelations, but really nothing special. If you liked Bradbury's WHO KILLED CONSTANCE you might like this one but if you are looking for Straub's GHOST STORY or a book version of Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, then you will be disappointed.

Unfortunately I was put off right at the start of the book as I read s number of descriptive flaws in the first three pages. I found it inexcusable for an established author such as Bear to get minor details so wrong.

Not too long ago, I had the opportunity to see Greg Bear speak (at Comic-Con, an annual convention for sci-fi/fantasy enthusiasts such as myself). To be honest, I don't do a whole lot of genre reading. I'd never head of the guy. But it seemed like he was quite the name--George R.R. Martin and Peter David, among others, were showing him deference. Apparently, Bear had won some fairly prestigious awards, such as a couple of Nebulas. I decided that it was past due to end this ignorance of mine, so I promptly went to the nearest bookseller and picked up a Greg Bear book to read. Any book, just to sample the author. At random.

Which, it turns out, was a mistake.

For the book I wound up with was Dead Lines. I've managed to finish Dead Lines, which was, sadly, a struggle... it is the story of Peter, a flawed man who has seen better days, who gets a small chance at redemption (perhaps) when his one-time best friend unexpectedly dies, throwing Peter into a world of new-age cell phones and the afterlife. Uh, at least that's part of the story. It's kind of convoluted, complete with ominous psychic-predictions, shady telecom executives, estranged family and old, unsolved murder mysteries. For all of that, strangely, it's also kind of boring.

You see, this isn't Bear's best work. Or at least, that's what the other reviewers here on Amazon seem to be saying (and it certainly must be true, given the awards and everything). Bear is known for his sci-fi, and this is an attempt at horror. Only problem is that, there's really nothing scary about this book. Actual threats to the main character only come into play near the very end of the novel, during the final sequence, and that sequence isn't written very grippingly, to be quite honest. The main character is flawed--which is cool--but he's almost too flawed to be likable, which is a problem. The other characters don't get a whole lot of development, and will probably soon be forgotten after the novel's end. The pacing is too slow, and the twists and turns aren't profound enough to carry the weight themselves.

This is a slow novel that doesn't really have a lot to say in the end. The characters aren't particularly moving, or deep, and the action sequences are infrequent and stilted in their execution.

Finally, let me say that I was also disappointed in the overall lack of distinct style. Even if this is a departure for a normally great author, I might expect there to be something engaging or characteristic about the author's voice. Bear's didn't grab me. Again, maybe that's just this book... but, a lot of times, I was reading the prose thinking "what's the big deal about this guy?" There seemed to be nothing very original or insightful or enveloping about his manner of description or dialogue or characterization, etc. Just seemed like a modern day genre author, competent at laying out elements but without any real individual spin.

In the end, a friend of mine recently reminded me that the true test for books of this kind is: is it hard to put down? Does it scream at you, when you wake up in the morning, to put off all other responsibilities so that you can come back to the world? Resolve the crises?

Does it keep you awake, late into the night? Sealed off against the darkness into a fortress of yours (and the author's) imagination?

This one was harder to pick up than it was to put down.

A shame. I'll keep an open mind; one day (doing some research first!) I'll try another Greg Bear novel. But, for those of you who might be in the same position I was, do yourself a favor and try another one of his books, first. Chances are high that it will be better.

This is book quite a change of course for Greg Bear. I have read many of his books and tremendously enjoyed such masterpieces as Moving Mars and Eon. Typically, his books fall into two categories: The ones set on other worlds and the techno-thrillers on earth, often set in California. This latter category reads quite a bit like Michael Crichton, except that with Crichton's books the perils of technology are eventually controlled and everything turns out okay, whereas with Bear, the consequences tend to be persistent and devastating. This book is belongs to the second category. It is set in familiar coastal California, but explores some altogether new territory. Technology and the supernatural collide, although not always convincingly. A new type of cell phone causes disruptions that allow the dead to be perceived by the living. You will learn the difference between a wraith and a specter. The book reads like something from Tim Powers (see Earthquake Weather). The central character is exquisitely drawn. The mood is melancholy. Unexpected plot twists keep the reader intrigued. Finally, all the pieces come together. Still, this is not one of the author's best. The bottom line is: if you like hard science you will probably hate this new offering from Greg Bear. If you have enjoyed the works of Dean Koontz, Stephen King or Peter Straub, you may enjoy this book as well.

The plot wasn't bad, nor the main character. The story flowed, but was lackluster towards the end. The plot and feel of the book just takes a dive 2/3 of the way through. Although the very end wasn't bad, the conclusion of the 'situation' was terrible. Hard to follow at the end, and understand what was going on.

I'd give this book 2 1/2 stars instead of 3.

The idea has wonderful merit and great potential, however the story suffers from poor flow and poor writing that would have benefited more from being a short story than an actual novel.

The other problem as I see it is that he tries too hard to make an sympathetic character out of Peter (an attempt which fails) and doesn't focus enough on the how and why of the Trans. Other than a couple of mentions, in which he spouts off something vaguely metaphysical, there is no real understanding of 'why' the Trans does what it does.

As for _Dead Lines_ being a horror story, it's really, uh, not. In fact, the suspense is pretty lacking also. Even the sense of mystery surrounding the plot is nearly transparent, so that the sense of discovery surrounding the death of the protagonist's little girl is worthy of no more than a tired yawn...as is the ending. This, coupled with the lack of emotional connection with the reader, makes this novel worthy of a miss.

Bottom line: wonderful idea, horrible execution.

I've not read Greg Bear's other work, but--genre aside--as an example of his writing talent, I don't know how he's managed to make a name for himself. I'm not really saying that I have given up on him as a writer (no one could really be that successful and THAT bad...could they?) but if this is Greg Bear, I'll give him pass in the future.

Your basic tale of the wall between our world and the spirit world being ruptured, with all manner of messy leakage in consequence. It's a good story, reaching Straubian heights of spookiness at times. The murder mystery within the story is surprisingly twisty and touching, also.

But the best thing is the hero himself, an ex-pretty boy and washed-up nudie director, wading through the detritus of his marriage and career. He is very well drawn, and the reader can feel his ramshackle state of mind, as his world starts to *really* unravel.

The best line in the novel is, "What is it with ghosts and the foot of the bed? I think you guys really like it down there!"

_Dead Lines_ is a bit of a departure for Greg Bear, not at all like his better known works such as _Eon_, _Queen of Angels_, and _Hammer of God_. Though it seems to be usually labeled as science fiction in bookstores I am not sure I would call it that, as it is more akin to horror or even fantasy, in many ways the tone broadly similar to the (much superior) earlier work of his, _Songs of Earth and Power_, which was an excellent modern fantasy and one I highly recommend.

The main character of the book is Peter Russell, once a noted sexploitation director in the 1960s, 1970s, and early to mid 1980s along the lines of Russ Meyer. The hard core porn industry and personal problems other than that forced him out of the B-movie business and for the last few years he had instead been the friend and go-to errand guy for an eccentric, wealthy, married couple, Joseph and Michelle Benoliel. Peter was a recovering alcoholic, the alcoholism brought upon by his grief over the murder of one of his twin daughters and his subsequent divorce.

Things seemed to be looking for Peter as an entrepreneur approached him with a device that was going to revolutionize telecommunications. This company had developed a hand-held cell phone-like device called a Trans, one that had startlingly clarity of voice transmission and unlimited range on Earth, no matter if one was underground, in the air, or even they said on the Moon. Given a number of devices to hand out to friends and family members to promote the new product, Peter was excited, hoping to make a better living, even get back into directing a little as the company wanted commercials made to promote the new product.

Unfortunately, the inventor of the device, Arpad Kreisler, had tapped into something he didn't understand. Arpad found a new source of bandwith that unlike what was used for cell phones and the like was not true radiation and had an infinite capacity to send unlimited amounts of information without any degradation due to distance.

To put it in a nutshell, this new realm that he found, one that had not previously been explored or accessed, is what appeared to be the realm of the dead, more or less, the place where spirits (souls?) go but also a repository for imagery and thoughts of living people in addition to the dead. The Trans units somehow both blocked the natural degradation of spirits and memories of living people (particularly strong memories like grief) that are associated with a certain place and at the same time made them visible to those within a certain distance of a Trans unit (and particularly those with some connection to the phantoms and ghosts that they saw).

When Peter started seeing ghostly images of living people, of actions that they had performed in the past, as well as odd shadowy creatures that he thought at first might be the trick of the light and of the eye, he thought he was going crazy. It wasn't long though before he realized that they were real and may in fact be a consequence of the Trans units and their use. Others soon started seeing the ghosts as well.

The remainder of the novel dealt with Peter's interactions with the ghost of his dead daughter, Daniella, and discovering and confronting her killer, his coming to terms with his living daughter Lindsey and his ex-wife Helen, and stopping the Trans units from causing any more damage.

I am not entirely sure what to think of the book. It wasn't particularly scary. There was some mildly creepy imagery but nothing truly scary, though I haven't read a lot of horror and I don't know if a book can be as scary - at least to me - as a movie can. I know some reviewers have had trouble with Peter as the protagonist, though I found him sympathetic enough and in the end he was heroic. I thought that the author could have explored the effects of the Trans a bit more, perhaps shown what they effect they had outside the city where the main characters lived, but not sure if that would be possible given how the book was set up. Some of the ecology of the realm of the dead was mildly interesting though not particularly well explored either. I thought the entrepreneurs, particularly the businessmen (as opposed to the inventor) were a bit unbelievable; they had their start-up based in a prison the state of California was no longer using, were proud to have their main Trans servers (or whatever they were called) located in the gas chamber, and wanted to feature the prison in commercials made to promote Trans. I just have a hard time picturing anyone doing that and found that a bit unbelievable. I also thought that the inventor, Arpad, could and should have played a bigger role, though in the end the book seemed as much the story of Peter and his life as it was about the ghosts that the Trans had brought forth into the mortal world.

Other reviewers have disparaged Bear's "Dead Lines" as neither horror nor thriller. The protagonist is neither hero-nerd nor unkillable berserk, placing him squarely in a class that many potential readers may not identify with: a once confident, genuinely nice guy, creative and not overtly violent; the antithesis of the male-geek fantasy image. Failure to categorize the book is understandable, but dismissing it afterwards is not.

The prose is compelling without being frightening, and possessed of the same fevered lucidity as the better works of Tim Powers, Neil Gaiman, and Gene Wolf. The author gives us a richly-developed vision of a world that might be just below our noses, if we but knew how to see it.

Perhaps some of the interesting characters and concepts of the book could have been more thoroughly explored. But let's face it, not every book needs to be an eleventeen-volume Robert Jordan epic. Bear succeeded in telling his story adequately with a minimum of overhead, and I found his style clean and refreshing. I wish I could write so well, and will recommend the book to my more-literate friends.