Customer Reviews

Queen Of Angels

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

The reader who is about to pick up "Queen of Angels" should understand one thing about Greg Bear: he writes hard sci-fi (sci-fi which is typically laden with "tech talk"), and he writes the hardest sci-fi probably in existence today. The effect of this can be bewildering to the neophyte, especially considering the variety of his narrators. One of them, while close, is not even human, and that can easily drive away the most committed of readers.

However, dear reader, may I suggest that you persist to the end? Bear writes the most satisfying conclusions in sc-fi today, and the ending of "Queen" is among these. The ending, though, is not the best part. Neither is Bear's vision of mid-21st Century Southern California, which can be vexing. What is most fascinating about this novel is the evolution of its characters, and the effects of their modern world upon them. Not even the advanced therapy taken on by Mary Choy, Bear's wunderkind gumshoe, can protect her from the slings and arrows embedded in the human psyche. In fact, the most human character in the novel is Richard Fettle, the vaguely Luddite disciple of Emmanuel Goldsmith, the one whose life is only indirectly touched by technology, and who consequently seems to be able to access his primal self best of all, and who therefore can best understand Goldsmith's motivations most readily.

What may intrigue the reader of this novel the most is the "character" AXIS, an artifical intelligence which directs a craft in the exploration of an Earth-like planet around Alpha Centauri, and which may have been constructed too well for its own good. One imagines while reading this what may become of a child who is sent on a similar mission, and the conclusion of insanity makes perfect sense. The contrast between AXIS' increasing skewed observations and portrayal of the overwhelming media coverage of the mission was especially fun for me to read.

In "Queen", Bear continues his pattern of 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 work. Bear understands that in sci-fi, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and thus he has endeared himself to me.

Many people might have a hard time reading Queen of Angels because of its complexity, in both style and plot. I, too, found myself struggling at parts, occassionally even putting the book down for days at a time, so that I could fully grasp the images Bear was trying to convey. However, I think his unique way of writing this book did more to elaborate a detailed and incredible world than to alienate the reader. You will either love this book (being able to accept how he is handling his story) or despise it (not wanting to be actively involved in the reading). For those who have read Greg Bear before: this is something different and singular. Don't expect anything similar from any other book he, or anyone else, has written. For those who have not read Bear yet: don't think this is an example of his normal work. Queen of Angels stands alone as a unique and intricate work of art, successfully and intelligently exploring the avenues that it pursues, and is to date, the most amazing science fiction book I have ever read. Any difficulty one might have with accepting that it is not as easily digestable as most other literature must come to the realization that readers of science fiction can't expect to be breastfed all their lives.

Queen of Angels isn't the easiest book to read, and fans of throw-away space opera may find it hard to get through, but if you've got a bit of an attention span and want more from science fiction than most of it is willing to give us, you'll find this novel to be among the best ever written in the genre. I'll happily put it in the company of Dune, Neuromancer, Gateway, and Foundation.

This book must have been extremely difficult to write. In a novel in which the actual plot and characters are secondary to the point being made, Bear explores the nature of crime and especially punishment to a harrowing degree.

Equally impressive is Bear's ability to change his writing and grammatical styles completely, depending upon which character currently has the focus of the book's attention.

The fact that this is a SF novel is secondary to its actual purpose (a comment upon society and the human mindset), in the same way that the story and plot of a Vonnegut novel are secondary to the satire and indictment being perpetrated by the author.

Some readers may find it difficult to deal with the varying styles of writing in the book (one character, for instance, uses hardly any punctuation and a lot of proposed (by Bear) future slang to think about the world.

The novel does, however, change the reader: this, to me anyway, is its major selling point.

Since many of the reviews are well written, I thought I'd just add a few more thoughts. Bear's novel is, as the back cover brags, incredibly ambitious. The different plot lines are brimming with fascinating ideas that make you reflect deeply on the process of writing, the human condition, our own society, and where it's headed. This is perhaps the best that can be said of any science fiction work.

I found Bear's division of the future world seductive. We do indeed seem to place overreliance upon therapy in today's culture, and our justice system, with it's property based-punishment, may one day meet out purely psychological torture. (Some might say it does already.)

Bear's is a grim dystopian vision, and I must say that I appreciate the innovation but that I think it is all too easy to say that "thing's are getting worse." The only reason why I didn't find Bear's rehashing of this theme boring is that his vision contains intricacy.

As a black reader, I found the character of Emmanuel Goldsmith (the murderer) to be somewhat convincing and effectively able to portray the themes confronting black society today: the nasty process of assimilation with its accompanying globalized atomization. (No one admits that when you learn to speak and act like the majority you'll also want to wear headphones on the subway.) The journey into Emmanuel's Country of the Mind was one of the most fascinating stories I've ever read.

That said, Bear made the post-modernist mistake of referring to the process of writing while doing a hackneyed job of it himself. The characters of Richard Fettle and Nadine don't really seem to take off, and it is only Martin Burke that comes across as believable. I gave Bear artistic leeway and props for his courage in deciding to use four separate narrative styles. Yet futuristic grammar is annoying, and I found it even more frustrating that the four plot lines never fully intertwine. He seems to have constructed such a thoroughly convoluted web of idea-based writing that he couldn't come up with a way to combine them and threw in a literary device that tried to explain everything in a few pages. I felt let down.

That said, I think Bear's book is filled with so many incredible ideas that I recommend it. Don't expect to coast along until Book 3, but open your mind to some crazy thoughts and you're in for a compelling ride.

How this novel has been overlooked by so many sci-fi fans, not to mention the Hugo and Nebula awards committees, is beyond me. This is one of the greatest novels of the 20th century in any genre. Read it more than once, and discuss it with your friends (a fair amount of technical knowledge can help you understand some of the more arcane parts, but is not strictly necessary).

"Queen of Angels" is a vivid and deeply philosophical novel about how a future society deals with the crime of murder, as seen through the eyes of a policewoman, a psychiatrist, and a poet. Bear is without living equal in his ability to create convincing future worlds and extrapolate the effects of technology on the human spirit. Along the way, he challenges the reader's fundamental perceptions of self, humanity, mental illness, and justice.

This book is a good introduction to Greg Bear. It has a more-or-less-sequel, "Slant", which is also very good, although I thought the ending of that book was a little too pat. Fans of end-of-the-world fiction will love his "Forge of God" and "Anvil of Stars", which are better than anything Niven and Pournelle have done. Anything by Bear is guaranteed to be an enjoyable read at minimum, and several of his novels are complex and moving enough to stand with the best fiction of any age. I promise, if you are a thinking person, you will not regret reading this book.

I read this book some years ago, and I have come to the conclusion that it is the best book I have ever read. Other reviewers have already explained, and sweetly reminded me, of just what makes this book special. The parallel realisation of a soulless Goldsmith and a soul "ful" AXIS is a central theme to this book I feel. Having said that, I noticed a few bad reviews. I am sure if I had given up after a hundred pages, I might have given it one or two stars out of desparation, but its just the kind of book you have to read to the end, and only then does the true value of this work become clear.

This is the best Greg Bear book I've read. It's not as accessible as BLOOD MUSIC (his other really good one), but in many ways it's more impressive. A reviewer's blurb on the cover of my paperback edition calls it "...possibly the most ambitious novel ever written..." which sounds like the most ridiculous hyperbole, but I wouldn't call it completely off the mark.

For some reason, the author wrote several sections in a deliberately obtuse fashion, which forced me to reread the first couple pages of many chapters. I haven't quite figured out the intent behind this literary "technique", but plowing through the difficult parts of this one actually pays off.

The novel's obsessive focus on the themes of crime and punishment (mostly punishment), looked at from the perspectives of different characters in different situations, impressed me much the same way Frederik Pohl's novel GATEWAY did (which dealt with the themes of survival and guilt). It really sticks with you after reading it.

A fantastic book that effortlessly examines complex matters such as artistic creation, space exploration, future technology and its impact on human societies, global tensions, serial murder and consciousness itself. Bear's genius is to link several stories thematically--particularly striking is the way a psychologist's exploration into the mind of a mass murderer parallels an artificially intelligent space probe's exploration of an uninhabited planet. Populated by strong and interesting characters (such as the murderer Emmanuel Goldsmith, a black poet; Martin Burke, the psychologist who uses nanotechnology to delve into "The Country of the Mind"; as well as detective Mary Choy, an Asian genetically altered to appear African American), Bear uses a variety of styles to tell his tale. There is awe and terror and desire here; insights into the nature and origins of evil, of the human need for justice, and the urge to travel far from Earth. The complex and at times experimental structure of the novel may turn off some readers, and I initially found it difficult to follow. Once the book had me in its spell, however, I was lost without it. This is my first Greg Bear novel, and it is certainly not my last. My highest recommendations.

It's slow. It doesn't use a lot of commas. I love it anyway!

This is certainly Bear's best book, and his most fascinating (maybe second to the perfect "Blood Music"), conceptually. This book carries three major "strands"... the effect of nanotechnology on a future society; the nature of intelligence (natural & artifical) and the soul; and a mystery novel about a poet who murders 8 friends.

This book is a fabulous success. The plot is complex, and each of the four main characters -- the dectective hunting the poet, the AI going insane from loneliness at Alpha Centauri, the scientist studying the poet's mind, and a friend of the poet who himself is going slowly mad -- add something to this incredibly dense and wonderful novel.

Don't let the idiots bog you down... prepare to be amazed!