[Review] Blood Music by Greg Bear

[hexmix]

Title: Blood Music
Author: Greg Bear
Genre: sci-fi
Content Warnings: body horror

Blood Music explores the quiet, almost dreamlike apocalyptic results of an experiment in genetic engineering gone awry: Vergil I. Ulam, in a panicked and exceedingly rash action, injects himself with blood cells engineered to be "intelligent" in order to attempt to save his research, heedless of the danger to himself and others.

At times haunting and horrific, and at others a slow meditation on individuality and the nature of reality itself, Blood Music creates one of the more interesting apocalypses I've seen, with Bear managing to balance perfectly both the grotesque and the seductive aspects of the "Frankenstein's monster" at the center of his novel.


Blood Music is hard science fiction, which is not usually a genre I read, and I admittedly only picked this one up due to its mention in Scott Bukatman's Terminal Identity, so I do not feel that I can really comment on the actual science elements of the novel, beyond saying that everything comprising the creation of the noocytes (the genetically modified "intelligent" blood cells) felt believable enough to me, as in: I bought that the characters knew what they were talking about.

There is admittedly more that comes up later, involving the construction of reality itself, which was a much more hard sell for me, but as far as I was concerned: cool science.

Ultimately, the narrative follows the apocalyptic spread of the noocytes, alternating between macro- and microscopic views of the fallout from Vergil's genetic engineering oopsie, starting in California, where Vergil's friend Edward and world-famous neurosurgeon Michael Bernard attempt to stop the spread, and from there expanding across America, leading to a surreal, dreamlike landscape peopled by only a handful of survivors living amongst the trillions of noocytes, with no clear immediate reason why they too have not been changed. The second half of the novel switches between doomed America and Germany, where Bernard and other scientists work to discover a means by which to stop the noocytes.

The noocytes themselves are the most interesting aspect of the novel, as well as the most horrific: if there's one thing I'd like to praise Bear for, it's for writing genuinely horrific body horror. There are many aspects of Blood Music which reminded me of the film Annihilation, and they're largely tied up with that aspect: something unseen that nonetheless invades the body, changing it from the inside, breaking down what should have been impenetrable barriers between the individual and their environment.

In the novel, we see this first with Vergil, but as with any disease, the noocytes spread beyond him, a contagion, touching (and changing, and incorporating) each new character we are introduced to in turn. As the noocytes spread, the POV character switches, and around halfway through the novel there are a handful of POV characters that Bear alternates to chapter-by-chapter. Each of these characters is interesting in their own right, as well as being differing levels of sympathetic. For example: Vergil is a self-absorbed misogynist who I never felt very sorry for, but Suzy and Edward are much more sympathetic characters, and I don't think that it is coincidental that the more horrific scenes are shown to us through their POVs; horror always has a stronger effect when you are worried for the characters that face it. (Meanwhile my regular reaction to Vergil reaping what he sowed was just "get rekt idiot.")

Overall, I really enjoyed Bear's writing; there are a few passages that are outright beautiful, and then a few more that are impressively chilling. I also thoroughly enjoyed his attempts at constructing not only the language of the noocytes, but his attempts to convey how a blood cell would think. It's easy to anthropomorphize with things like this, but I do think Bear does a great job of avoiding that, and in conveying an alien mode of thought and speech. This, to me, was probably the highlight of the novel.

As mentioned, there's some things with the science and "theory" which come up in the last fourth of the novel that got a little too out in the weeds for me, however I did love the descriptions that followed; the last few pages are just incredibly well done. The images there are particularly vivid and beautiful.


Overall, it was a very engaging and interesting read, possibly a little dated in terms of the science (it was published in 1985), but I'd honestly recommend it solely based on the descriptions of the changing landscape. I do feel that if you liked Annihilation, this one will be similarly up your alley.

Comments

[tropicsbear]

Sounds fascinating! Adding to my to-read list.

[hexmix]

glad to hear it! :D hope you enjoy it!

[yhlee]

Thank you so much for this book report! :D

I actually liked this a lot but I read the short story first and was extremely startled years later to find a longer novel expansion of the story in the library! Agreed that this does body horror very effectively.

I'm not a physicist (and my husband's in a different branch of physics), but my understanding is that the quantum mechanics stuff in the last fourth is arguably "correct" (or was at the time of writing) but it's just so far out there - with macroscopic effects of quantum mechanical phenomena one would normally...not see at that scale - that I too found it a little tough to deal with.

Also, I completely lost it during the can opener moment toward the end. You know the one. That beautiful moment of grace amid devastation.

Have you read Greg Bear's Queen of Angels? It was the first novel of his I read and still one of my favorites, with a vision of the near-ish future that's by turns hallucinatory, beautiful, and creepy: the advent of nanotechnology (it may have been one of the early sf novels to treat nanotech), a murder mystery delving into the mind of a sociopath, and probably what is a dated treatment of vodoun and the history of Haïti. I will caution that some people bounce off the stream-of-consciousness prose but it weirdly suits the material IMO.

[hexmix]

I have absolutely zero background in any scientific field so I'm really glad to know this about the quantum mechanics stuff; it's one of those things where I was just having to go on vibes hahah. I also noticed that the novel was based on a short story only after the fact; I am admittedly interested to read that as well, just to see how Bear expanded on it.

I haven't read Queen of Angels, in fact Blood Music was the first work of Bear's that I've read, but honestly that is such an interesting description I had to immediately add it to my to-read list. I'm also big on weird/experimental prose, so stream-of-consciousness is definitely a positive for me :) Thank you so much for the recommendation!

[yhlee]

I only have a lay knowledge of QM but I don't think Bear does anything here that's "scientifically" controversial in that regard. It's just that QM is already so freaking weird!

Blood Music is a rare case where I think the novel improves on the short story! I thought the short story was pretty great (it won an award? awards?); it focuses very narrowly on...Virgil? Jerkass noocyte scientist dude. But the novel really shines in exploring the ramifications (both for the world and for individuals) of the premise IMO.

If you enjoy Queen of Angels, my other Greg Bear faves are The Infinity Concerto and The Serpent Mage, which are a fantasy duology. Caveat that it does reference Christian (?) religion mythos stuff A LOT, but it's a somewhat creepily beautiful portal fantasy about a young man who gets sucked into Sidhe and the titular "infinity concerto" that has the power to reshape reality. I'm trying to think if Bear wrote any other fantasy that I know of! In any case, the prose is very beautiful and the whole thing is a very eerie, powerful evocation of Sidhe, and it was interesting to see Greg Bear do something that wasn't sf.

[hexmix]

Ah, that makes sense; I was thinking the short story would probably center Vergil due to length/scope. I also agree that the novel is the strongest where it's showing the global effects of the noocytes; those are definitely some of the most memorable scenes for me.

I'll definitely look into those two as well! I'm curious to see how Bear writes fantasy, but I'm also just a sucker for a good story about the Sidhe c: Thank you again for the recommendations!