Rating: 
Summary: Best Hard SF Novel of the 80's
Review: Along with Benford's "Timescape," the best and most relevant hard SF novel of the 80's. If Hollywood ever gets up the nerve to make a legitmate science fiction film, one that embraces determinism and an idea driven plot, this is THE novel it should adapt. Fast paced, viciously intelligent, and relentless in its assualt on societal preconceptions of "reality". Kubrick should have snatched this one up years ago
Rating:
Summary: Hard science Childhood's End
Review: For those few among you who don't know that my little title blurb means, Arthur C Clarke once wrote a nifty little book where the human race basically combined into this singular "Overmind" sort of thing and eventually left the planet to explore the Universe and join it. Sound familiar. Blood Music reminds me of Greg Bear reading it and actually trying to explain the science behind something like that (in Clarke's book it was said that it was part of evolution and natural mutation) and he does a fairly good job. The science in the beginning is mostly microbiology and for a science major like me it's a bit offputting because frankly I read this books to take a break from all the stuff they cram down my throat every day, being reminded of it isn't the first thing on my list when I pick a book. However the science is handled pretty well, and consider that the book is almost thirteen years old (if not older) I imagine if Bear went into detail about his science, it would make the book look out of date today, sort of like those books from the thirties that predicted by now we'd all have flying cars and hyperspeed. But the actual plot of the book ain't too bad, the suspense moves along well, most of the initial characters don't make it to the end of the book for a variety of reasons and that can be annoying if you're just getting used to them but it's all part of the plot. I think the scenario (barring Clarke) is one of the more interesting ones that have come across in SF and his marriage of hard science and what amounts to philosophical theories along the lines of nirvana comes across well even years later. Some of the scenes are a bit odd (I only wish I could pick up a girl that fast) but all in all it's a classic book that deserves to be read and discussed. It's thought provoking and entertaining and you can't ask for much more than that from a book.
Rating: 
Summary: Predictable, or is it?
Review: I am a big fan of Greg Bear, but only recently got around to reading Blood Music. Okay, there's one big nit here. Bear knows a lot more about biology than computability, so the "intelligent cells" idea is not very plausible. Adding computational theory to the science, including how DNA could be similar to a Turing maching would have made it work better, but there are some important speed issues that would have to be dealt with. But, if you get past that and accept the Asimov "big lie" idea and get on with the book, this is a fabulous read. What I really liked is how well Bear set me up. The first half of the book sets up what you know is going to happen. It's all completely predictable. Then, Bear tosses a massive wrench into the works, doing the unexpected again and again. I realized that, had this been a Stephen King novel, my predictions would have been right, but Bear is better than that and has a much larger imagination. What follows is an expansion of the story to Bear-sized proportions (and if you've read much Bear, you know how big that can be). I highly recommend this book to people who like their science fiction to include more science and less (or no) magic.
Rating: 
Summary: Should have been left at Novella Length
Review: Book Review by C. Douglas Baker Blood Music starts off with a promising concept and treats
it in a relatively sophisticated manner. Through the use of
recombinant DNA research, Vergil Ulam, creates a sentient single
cell organism. These organisms subsequently begin to build a
society to fit their needs. This means changing the molecular
structure of living creatures, including human beings, to suit
them. Thus begins (and ends) Blood Music. The better aspects of Blood Music involve the exploration of
the possibility of intelligent single-cell organisms. The scenes
where organisms actually "talk" or communicate with Vergil and
later Bernard had great potential. Unfortunately, most of the
novel reads like a second rate horror flick. I have not read the
novelette that won a Hugo so I suspect the more carelessly
conceived aspects of the novel were left out. The "blob" that
takes over New York city and the "ghosts" that appear to convince
Suzy to "join" them are simply trite B-movie devices. It's hard to recommend reading the entire novel. Only the
first third and second third are worth the effort.
Rating:
Summary: A Black Hole of Thought
Review: Bear's transcendental, BLOOD MUSIC, is an amazing masterpiece of philosophical thought. It is made even more remarkable by the 1984 publishing date. In it Bear foresaw the final end of individuality, Orwell's prophecy in his equally remarkable book. Unfortunately characters and worlds dissolving into the noosphere don't make for good literature. The lead up is terrific, but forsaking one's characters, allowing them all to fall into a techno-Hell, a techno-Sartrean NO EXIT, must leave most readers aghast.
As the reader attempts to follow this brilliant story, each character eventually loses his/her individuality, ego, self. They are all sacrificed to achieve the ultimate end which is to inhabit a bloodless, bodiless Nirvana world and as a member of the noocyte team to function only as a single cell in the collective whole.
The story is open to so many interpretations it is almost pitiful. We might be watching a VANILLA SKY where the intellectual framework to separate dreaming from reality has been removed. Perhaps we are being lectured on advanced information theory where all matter becomes a message or to play on Marshall McLuhan, all matter is the medium. In this story, every position is represented by one character or another. The reader can identify most easily with Susy, the one character who, given the opportunity, chose not to surrender herself to the runaway evolution of human genes.
Many questions are provoked that each reader must answer for himself.
Will man ever listen to the "music" within his own body? In accepting the biocomputer-clockwork of the human cell, must man disavow his own self? Will man's constructed dichotomy between the animate and inanimate have to be flushed away? Is there really a place for the old man within the approaching Brave New World?
Rating: 
Summary: Bear hates women?
Review: You're never quite sure where Bear is trying to go with Blood Music. It starts off as your standard geek loner scientist who can't get a date creates a "plague" that will make him God. Reminds me a touch of Herbert's White Plague with some Spider Man thrown in. Bear is famous for his "hard" sci fi and he ends up writing a pretty good, believable template for every super hero creation back story, from Spider Man to the Hulk. About a 1/3 the way through the book branches off into your standard deadly plague/survivalist story. Parts of it read a lot like William Heine's "The Last Canadian" (1977). Then it branches into some metaphysical tripe about existence and whether the universe guides the mind's perception and development or if the mind guides the universe's development. And then it's all over in a blink. And you're left wondering, wtf happened?
Written in the mid'80s before the fall of the Berlin wall and the WTC, the book has a certain dated feeling but that's a minor quibble. The genetic stuff you'd swear Bear wrote it yesterday and that's a plus. My only major quibble, besides the odd, abrupt, stupid ending is Bear really sucks at writing women characters. All his female characters are either stupid or bitchy. Oddly too he spends a lot of time dealing with the virus creator's mother, making her the folksy overly critical moral center. She survives the plague but then she drops out of the story and we have no idea of her fate.
Not bad bit of sci fi but I sure hope in the intervening decade Bear has learned to write better women characters and dumped his textually apparent belief their either stupid or bitchy.
Rating:
Summary: Should have been left at Novella Length
Review: Book Review by C. Douglas Baker Blood Music starts off with a promising concept and treats
it in a relatively sophisticated manner. Through the use of
recombinant DNA research, Vergil Ulam, creates a sentient single
cell organism. These organisms subsequently begin to build a
society to fit their needs. This means changing the molecular
structure of living creatures, including human beings, to suit
them. Thus begins (and ends) Blood Music. The better aspects of Blood Music involve the exploration of
the possibility of intelligent single-cell organisms. The scenes
where organisms actually "talk" or communicate with Vergil and
later Bernard had great potential. Unfortunately, most of the
novel reads like a second rate horror flick. I have not read the
novelette that won a Hugo so I suspect the more carelessly
conceived aspects of the novel were left out. The "blob" that
takes over New York city and the "ghosts" that appear to convince
Suzy to "join" them are simply trite B-movie devices. It's hard to recommend reading the entire novel. Only the
first third and second third are worth the effort.
Rating:
Summary: A disappointment
Review: One of Bear's more popular works from the Eighties, "Blood Music" tells of the takeover of the living world by a thinking, reproducing nanotechnological being. What throws another interesting curve into the mix is that the character you presume will be the central character for the whole novel is in fact killed off before the midway point. A major idea/fear expressed in this book, and in Michael Crichton's new novel "Prey", is that the end of human life on earth will probably not come about as a result of conventional weapons of mass destruction, but rather from more subtle and insidious biological science that we don't have enough perspective to know to NOT tamper with. Good book - a breezy yet thought-stirring work. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Biotech/Nanotech Books Ever
Review: Greg Bear originally wrote Blood Music as a short story but then later expanded it into a full-length novel. It is one of the classic and seminal works of biotech/nanotech fiction (for a more recent take on this subject, check out Kathleen Goonan's Queen City Jazz). This is a book that has everything for the sci-fi fan; great characters, great plot, great science, and a mind-blowing ending. This is a must-read!
Rating:
Summary: Exhilarating Adrenaline Rush & Great Speculative Fiction!
Review: Looking for a book so good you drop everything else and get behind on all that stuff you should be doing? This is one of those books! This had the same derail-my-other-projects distraction factor as King's "The Stand," Case's "The Genesis Code," Preston's "The Hot Zone," and assorted other favorite thrillers. Reading "Blood Music" felt like a ride on a really fast train. Even when I had a good idea of where we were going, the ride there was exhilarating. "Blood Music" is also a great piece of speculative fiction. Lovers of hard SF will appreciate the solid science foundation. People who don't care about hard SF for its own sake will find "Blood Music" all the more creepy because it is oh-so-believable. Greg Bear is excellent. If you have not read him, this is a great start. If you like him and missed this, buy it now. If you wait, you'll be sorry you did when you finally get around to reading "Blood Music." If you read this and would like more Greg Bear, try "The Forge of God." For more plague fiction by someone you may not have read, try Connie Willis's "The Domesday Book."
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