Quantico [UNABRIDGED] (Hardcover)

~ Greg Bear (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 355 pages
• Publisher: SFBC (January 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582882177
• ISBN-13: 978-1582882178
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,170,971 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Colds aren't fun,but reading Bear is, November 8, 2006

By	Alissa (NJ) - See all my reviews

I had a hard time getting a hold Greg Bear's Quantico when it first came out, primarily because it didn't come out here initially. The book set mostly in the U.S. and written by an American author had a British release first. Yes, the internet is wonderful for these things, and if I had really, really wanted to I could have paid dearly to ship a British copy to my Pennsylvania doorstep, but thankfully for me the book eventually had an American release, albeit an unusual one. Thanks to my former membership(I had to cancel my membership as deadlines are not my strong suit and so kept winding up with books I didn't want) in the Quality Paperback Book Club, I was able to pick up a hardcover (yeah, I know, it doesn't make sense to me either) book club edition of the book.
Like anything by Bear it was worth the wait, but sadly reading the book went far too quickly. It's hard to put down one of Greg Bear's books once you pick it up, and I read most of Quantico while home with a nasty cold. It does alleviate a case of the sniffles better than any cold medicine I've ever come across.
Bear writes in a style that's comparable to Michael Crichton, but without being quite so obnoxiously political. Crichton's latest "novel," State of Fear had a bibliography and an explanation for why it could be more or less true. Even though it was filled with made-up characters and action and things we would normally associate with a novel, it won the Amercian Association of Petroleum Geologists 2006 Journalism award. It was a bit like a reverse A Million Little Pieces. Of course, that isn't to say that all scientists praise it as work of journalistic excellence. Read what one climate scientist has to say about it here. Unlike State of Fear, Quantico does not have 34 pages of notes and resources.
What it does have is a great plot, a near future setting and a healthy amount of suspense. Speed things up to a few years in the future, when America is still (surprise, surprise) struggling to overcome a terrorist problem and still not able to get its act together from a political/intelligence/law enforcement point of view. References are made to a second big terrorist attack that occurred labeled 10/4 and the FBI is scrambling to right the wrongs of the world while also appeasing a democratic president who doesn't trust them. Throw in some religious fanatics, the possible answer to the original anthrax mail scare and something big going on in the holy land and you've got the recipe for a perfect science thriller.
So, not hard to see why this was one to make my day spent on the couch with a box of tissues go by so fast.