Rating: 
Summary: This book is not science fiction any more...
Review: Has anyone considered just how real this book could get? I read the Analog version of it, and the book is expanded from that. I loved the book, it was different from other 'aliens from space' books, with a creation from Humanity running amok..Get ready for this: "MIT's computer scientists, for example, are pursuing the idea of building -- or possibly growing, if the E. coli experiments pan out -- vast numbers of almost identical processors that might act as sensors or even as the task-performing devices called actuators. "We would like to be able to make processors by the wheelbarrow-load," said Harold Abelson, an MIT computer scientist." Chip Designers Search for Life After Silicon By JOHN MARKOFF July 19, 1999 Is the real dangers worth the risk? Has MIT talked with the center for disease control? Can you ship them copies of this book! The book is good. But to see it on the 11PM News would be a real horror, not science fiction...
Rating: 
Summary: Is Reality Immutable?
Review: I had read the original short story upon which this novel is loosely based some time ago. I was curious where Mr. Bear could take the story in a longer form. Well, he took it into the realm of a near-epic. The concepts regarding the nature of reality presented in the book do, however, deserve to be explored in greater detail. Are you listening, Mr. Bear?
Rating: 
Summary: Glaahhh!!! They published this pile of bupkus?
Review: I only made it seventy pages before I couldn't read any more. I tried to skim another 70 pages but I couldn't even stand that. This is bar none, the WORST sci-fi novel I've ever read.
Rating:
Summary: a gripping and inventive novel
Review: I read this novel yesterday - literally read it in one sitting - maybe not so good for my productivity at work today (I was up until 4 in the morning reading it) but this was one I couldn't put down. Good writing and a gripping idea. This is NOT a conventional "horrific plague" novel, although it appears to be so at the beginning. I do agree that there are problems with characterization. The logic of his idea leads Bear to introduce and kill off (sort of) a series of main characters, so they don't have much chance to develop. Despite this problem, characterization is one of the stronger points in Blood Music's first half, although it gives way in the second half to development of a visionary idea. I DID feel sufficient sympathy with the characters to feel them as real and to care about what happened to them. The power of Blood Music is that it starts off as a "plague" novel and by novel's end has brilliantly turned this premise on its head. Over the past decades, I haven't read much science fiction, including several sci fi novels with good reputations that I started but didn't see any reason to finish. Blood Musicis my first intro to Greg Bear, and based on its quality and the grudging respect that even some of its carping critics have for Bear's other novels, I plan to read more of his stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: I've read better; I've read worse...
Review: I think much of the comments provided by other readers are accurate and sum up pretty clearly the strengths (and weaknesses) of the book. Intriguing concept and frightening but plausible possibilities. Terrific and horrifying ideas about what things could be like. However, the lack of any real or sympathetic characters is a definite drawback. I think the book isn't reflective of the true capabilites of Greg Bear as his other works are much better.
Rating:
Summary: Better than 4, not quite 5 stars
Review: Although I don't think this is one of the greatest books I have ever read, I would happily recommend it to anyone who is willing to give sci-fi a try and appreciates a touch of the surreal. Some aspects of this book are astonishing; it's an imaginative tour-de-force. I do accept some of the criticisms put forward by the more sceptical reviewers but I feel they may have missed the point with regards to the characters. The characters don't need to be fully drawn out - they're not the point of the novel. Blood Music is pure, wild scientific extrapolation, thank god. It certainly makes a change! I think 4and1/2 would be my rating.
Rating:
Summary: Not quite visionary, not quite SF.
Review: Despite the votes wildly in favor of this book (by net.rabid.greg-bear.weenies like eelrat), I have to agree with the minority voice here. Flaws in the book are: 1. Where is the plot? 2. Where are the character developments? I am not saying this is a BAD book (I've read much worse) and I am not sure that it qualifies as real SF, but seriously folks, let's all decaffinate before posting rabid reviews in either direction.
Rating:
Summary: Greg Bear 1; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 0
Review: I'm going to try really hard not to dwell on the injustice inflicted on this fine novel by the ballot-stuffing geeks of Bethlehem, PA. "Blood Music" is dazzling, imaginative, and full of surprises. It also takes what could have been a shrill and horrific cautionary tale and invests it with a weird, sensual beauty that reminded me of J.G. Ballard's "Crystal World." I realize that for many SF fans (and, quite possibly, the entire population of Bethlehem, PA), this is far from a recommendation. Here's another they won't like: Bear's writing style in this book is the finest of his career ("Queen of Angels" runs a close second). Here's a third they won't care for: the visionary spell this book casts is probably the closest any writer has ever come to capturing the awesome imagery of Max Ernst's paintings of the forties, such as "Europe After the Rain" and "The Fascinating Cypress." Obviously, this book is not for everybody (no great book is for EVERYBODY). Some of the greatest novels you'll find for sale on Amazon are flooded with reviews that are hysterically PRO or hysterically CON (check out the reviews of "Gravity's Rainbow" sometime!). When the novella version of "Blood Music" was originally published (in Analog, I believe), it won both the Hugo and Nebula and was wildly popular. When the novel appeared, a lot of its original fans balked at the way it "went mystical" in its second half. But I believe it's that second half that has given this novel its staying power, and will keep it in print in people's conversations on science fiction for years to come.
Rating: 
Summary: Not what I expected.
Review: I was sort of expecting a medical thriller/disaster book, but that's not what its about. There are some glaring lacks here, which are: First: No real character development what so ever: The main ``character'' (if that label applies here), is not human and is difficult to sympathize with. The other characters in the book all become superfluous as the ultimate deus ex machina (that ends all plots as we know it) gains control. Second: This book has no plot! There is no ``hero'' or ``villain'' here. There are no characters that the reader can identify or sympathize with. It would have been a good medical thriller had the story been more about PREVENTING the disaster, and not about the silly humans losing control as the world goes wacky. It almost reads like a disaster movie, except that the main disaster can't happen at all. Third: This book is NOT SCIENCE FICTION!! If you doubt this, just change the newly created cells into "demons" and the biochemist the "conjurers." It's a tried and stale tale of "science" gone awry. Technobabble not withstanding, the main plot device used is DEFINITELY NOT PLAUSIBLE in any sense of the word, and makes it difficult for the reader to suspend his belief, unless the reader is from Washington DC, in which case he/she will accept anything that has quantum mechanic technobabble as plausible fact. I was sorely disappointed in this book. I hope Bear's other books are better.
Rating:
Summary: I reread it, and now its worse than before.
Review: This is a silly book masquerading itself as a "serious" novel. If you doubt this, just change the newly created cells into "demons" and the biochemist the "conjurers." It's a tried and stale tale of "science" gone awry. Bear (and some of the readers here) seriously have misunderstood the nature of quantum mechanics and the wave/particle duality of nature. Unfortunately, using light as the means of observation, there is a minimum amount of error in the information received from the observed, that is, the light that is shined on the observed changes its position and/or velocity in a non-simple manner. This however does NOT imply that the universe (and the laws of physics that govern it) "snap" like a rubber band. And Heisenberg's uncertainty principle does NOT REQUIRE a-priori ``randomness'' in the universe. The quantum nature of energy and matter can be better explained by taking account of vacuum fluctuations in space/time, without the need for strange holistic metaphorical "connection" between the observer and the observed. Sadly enough, Bear (and many of his readers) seems to be a fan of these kinds of sloppy magical thinking. In Moving Mars, for example Bear (perhaps displaying more of his inclinations then he intended) explains (through his physicist character) that "he" spent time working on "observation based physics" or "cartoon physics" (e.g the Coyote doesn't fall to the canyon bottom until he realizes that there is nothing supporting him.) Mathematics (which describe the laws of physics) do not work that way. "It" has no care for conscious or unconscious "awareness" of the object. To be fair, in order to SHOW that "conscious" observation changes the LAWS of reality, One would first have to work out a mathematical model of intelligence (thus the brain) and the trillions of chemical interactions that make up the process that we call thought, not to mention the uncountable number of external stimuli that bombard us every second. And then one would have to show a connection between the intelligence model and the physical laws, which clearly presents logical and philosophical dilemmas not easily answered without dogma. i.e. build a mathematical model to show that the very laws of mathematics used itself changed. What does that say about the analysis itself?? This stupefying complexity causes problems even for the most gung-ho mathematician, and an honest attempt would require computing resources far beyond what is available today (or in any conceivable near future). Imagining a fantasy universe with silly rules is a fine way for writing fantasy fiction, but is poor choice for one who so resolutely commands authentic sounding technobabble like Bear. Truth is stranger than fiction, as it is said. All in all, this book is NOT SCIENCE FICTION.
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