12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
From Darwin's Radio to infernal cellphones, June 19, 2004
By A Customer
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.
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15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Technological Ghost Story, June 1, 2004
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
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Non-Chilling Ghost Story, July 6, 2005
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.
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