[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

[hexmix]

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