Rating: 
Summary: It is a GOOD BOOK, for all of its complexity
Review: Many people might have a hard time reading Queen of Angels because of its complexity, in both style and plot. I, too, found myself struggling at parts, occassionally even putting the book down for days at a time, so that I could fully grasp the images Bear was trying to convey. However, I think his unique way of writing this book did more to elaborate a detailed and incredible world than to alienate the reader. You will either love this book (being able to accept how he is handling his story) or despise it (not wanting to be actively involved in the reading). For those who have read Greg Bear before: this is something different and singular. Don't expect anything similar from any other book he, or anyone else, has written. For those who have not read Bear yet: don't think this is an example of his normal work. Queen of Angels stands alone as a unique and intricate work of art, successfully and intelligently exploring the avenues that it pursues, and is to date, the most amazing science fiction book I have ever read. Any difficulty one might have with accepting that it is not as easily digestable as most other literature must come to the realization that readers of science fiction can't expect to be breastfed all their lives.
Rating:
Summary: Voodoo People ...
Review: Nothing in Bear's previous works prepared me for the nature of this book. In marked contrast to the majority of Bear's novels, Queen of Angels does not deal with speculative evolutionary biology or quantum physics. Yes, it pays to be up to date on the latest articles on nanotechnology and Jungian archetypes, but perhaps more than any other book of Bear's, Queen of Angels is a work that could pass as highly-respected contemporary literature.
The back cover of the edition I own quotes a Washington Post Book World critic saying that Queen of Angels may be the most ambitious book the critic has ever read. I can't say I disagree.
On a surface level the book is a whodunnit, except for the fact that we know who the killer is. Emanuel Goldsmith, a notorious poet, suffers an apparent mental breakdown and slaughters a group of his acolyte friends in cold blood.
Structurally the book contains four threads following the exploits of an equal number of protagonists involved in the murder case. The individual storylines are linked thematically, with only tenuous physical connections established between the main characters; in a move that may alienate some of his regular readers, Bear forces the reader to put the big pieces in place and find the elusive meaning behind it all. It is almost as if Bear is throwing down the figurative gauntlet to see who among his large fan base can handle the one aberration in his oeuvre.
The author deals with his cast without any remorse, reveling in the intimate, embarrassing details of their mundane existence in a style reminescent of James Joyce's 'Dubliners'. Mary Choy, a 'transform' cop formerly white now the blackest black; Martin Burke, a cutting-edge psychotherapist fallen from grace; Richard Fettle, an aspiring if mentally brittle poet; Jill, an Artificial Intelligence without self-awareness: all the main characters try to build a new, sustainable 'self' while carrying some deep psychological fracture within themselves. The eye of a needle awaits every one. Each storyline ultimately ends in partial redemption, but it is only the reader, enjoying a god-like perspective, who can reconstruct the trail of events behind the bloodbath.
Bear's thesis:
Some people may walk through their lives exhibiting all the traits of an intelligent person while still missing true self-awareness, the essential 'I'. Without contact to other intelligences, self-modeling (read: self-awareness) in evolutionary terms can be demoted to excess-baggage status, a quirk of nature. And without full self-awareness, there can be no social responsibility for one's actions regardless of how criminal they may be.
These theories are further explored in Slant, an inferior and loosely-connected sequel to Queen of Angels.
After finishing the book, I spent a full hour contemplating what I had just read while the implications of Bear's theories started to sink in. Trying to pin down my 'thoughts behind the thoughts', analyzing my internal monologue. Searching for clues in a desperate attempt to convince myself that I was truly self-aware and not just some collection of maintenance routines. Queen of Angels had hit me like no other book since.
'I think, therefore I am' - is that admissible evidence in court?
Rating:
Summary: One of the best I've read
Review: One of the best SF books that I have read in a very long time. Bear deals with issues of race, sexuality, gender, body image, justice, and human self awareness in some very complex ways. The historical allusion in the text definitely adds much to the understanding of the characters and the novel as a whole (he references Margaret Sanger, Greek mythology, W.E.B. DuBois, and many others). This is a read not to be missed! I loved this one so much that it has to become a part of my permanent collection.
Rating:
Summary: What all good science fiction should strive to be!
Review: Queen of Angels isn't the easiest book to read, and fans of throw-away space opera may find it hard to get through, but if you've got a bit of an attention span and want more from science fiction than most of it is willing to give us, you'll find this novel to be among the best ever written in the genre. I'll happily put it in the company of Dune, Neuromancer, Gateway, and Foundation.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating, but certainly not an easy read.
Review: Queen of Angels, while an exemplary work of science fiction, is hardly a 'light' read. I recommend it strongly, but with certain reservations.Greg Bear excels at creating revolutionary concepts in this novel - but does not excel in explaining the world he's presenting to the reader. Many familar terms are created with completely new meanings in this novel- and throughout the novel they are are inadequately explained -- "combs", "transforms", "hellcrowns", to name a few. Only by extremely close reading to the text and the attitudes implied towards these words by the characters can the reader attempt to discern the meaning of these words in the context of this work. In some ways, Bear assumes a little too much of his average reader and the length to which they are willing to struggle with his strange new world on few clues to the nature of its society. Structurally, the novel is unique in that it tells four stories that are tangentially related, but in extrodinarily different prose styles. Mary, the PD officer's story is told in matter of fact prose. A conflicted poet's story is told in bursts of strange unpunctuated text, much like a stream-of-consciousness. An AI's gradual awakening to self awareness is awash in the wonder of discovery, and the bitterness of loneliness. (And this sideplot could have been a separate novel unto itself, as it encounters the major plotline only in a weak tangent.) And lastly, the psychologist's exploration of a man torn apart from deep psychological wounding and his own crimes against others. Each story is a worthwhile read, but some read far more easily than others. Each chapter alternates between one character and the next in orderly succession. Bear's is a complicated world, and he could have easily doubled the length of this work. As is, the editing of this work has pared it down to such a minimalist extent that many details get lost to the reader when they are not explained adequately. The central mystery of the novel - why would an esteemed poet kill eight of his dearest friends - is enough to keep a determined reader going, however. And Bear rewards that reader with his fantastic vision of the internal workings of a wounded mind, a fully-realized AI's desparate loneliness in deep space. For his concepts, I would gladly give this author five stars. However, the dense text and the effort needed to read it warrant it less than it may otherwise deserve.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic ideas, disjointed writing
Review: Since many of the reviews are well written, I thought I'd just add a few more thoughts. Bear's novel is, as the back cover brags, incredibly ambitious. The different plot lines are brimming with fascinating ideas that make you reflect deeply on the process of writing, the human condition, our own society, and where it's headed. This is perhaps the best that can be said of any science fiction work. I found Bear's division of the future world seductive. We do indeed seem to place overreliance upon therapy in today's culture, and our justice system, with it's property based-punishment, may one day meet out purely psychological torture. (Some might say it does already.) Bear's is a grim dystopian vision, and I must say that I appreciate the innovation but that I think it is all too easy to say that "thing's are getting worse." The only reason why I didn't find Bear's rehashing of this theme boring is that his vision contains intricacy. As a black reader, I found the character of Emmanuel Goldsmith (the murderer) to be somewhat convincing and effectively able to portray the themes confronting black society today: the nasty process of assimilation with its accompanying globalized atomization. (No one admits that when you learn to speak and act like the majority you'll also want to wear headphones on the subway.) The journey into Emmanuel's Country of the Mind was one of the most fascinating stories I've ever read. That said, Bear made the post-modernist mistake of referring to the process of writing while doing a hackneyed job of it himself. The characters of Richard Fettle and Nadine don't really seem to take off, and it is only Martin Burke that comes across as believable. I gave Bear artistic leeway and props for his courage in deciding to use four separate narrative styles. Yet futuristic grammar is annoying, and I found it even more frustrating that the four plot lines never fully intertwine. He seems to have constructed such a thoroughly convoluted web of idea-based writing that he couldn't come up with a way to combine them and threw in a literary device that tried to explain everything in a few pages. I felt let down. That said, I think Bear's book is filled with so many incredible ideas that I recommend it. Don't expect to coast along until Book 3, but open your mind to some crazy thoughts and you're in for a compelling ride.
Rating:
Summary: Good but with a weak ending
Review: The beginning's description of a swollen, dark, crowded LA in an age of omnipresent government surveillance is fascinating. The future portrayed is interesting, but Book 2 bogs down, and the quotes at the beginning of each chapter become annoying. Mary Choy's story dies at the end, with vodoun playing a pathetically tiny role. Also, Bear's minimalist style with which he starts the book, i.e., very few commas and lucid sentences, disappears. The ending and the depiction of Goldsmith's fate is weak. Martin Burke's story is the best in the middle and end, but is anticlimactic. The story has to jump around, so the exploration of Goldsmith's Country of the Mind has to all be in one chapter, near the middle. The terror of it is dampened by the rest of the book
Rating:
Summary: As good as, or better than, "Moving Mars"
Review: The reader who is about to pick up "Queen of Angels" should understand one thing about Greg Bear: he writes hard sci-fi (sci-fi which is typically laden with "tech talk"), and he writes the hardest sci-fi probably in existence today. The effect of this can be bewildering to the neophyte, especially considering the variety of his narrators. One of them, while close, is not even human, and that can easily drive away the most committed of readers. However, dear reader, may I suggest that you persist to the end? Bear writes the most satisfying conclusions in sc-fi today, and the ending of "Queen" is among these. The ending, though, is not the best part. Neither is Bear's vision of mid-21st Century Southern California, which can be vexing. What is most fascinating about this novel is the evolution of its characters, and the effects of their modern world upon them. Not even the advanced therapy taken on by Mary Choy, Bear's wunderkind gumshoe, can protect her from the slings and arrows embedded in the human psyche. In fact, the most human character in the novel is Richard Fettle, the vaguely Luddite disciple of Emmanuel Goldsmith, the one whose life is only indirectly touched by technology, and who consequently seems to be able to access his primal self best of all, and who therefore can best understand Goldsmith's motivations most readily. What may intrigue the reader of this novel the most is the "character" AXIS, an artifical intelligence which directs a craft in the exploration of an Earth-like planet around Alpha Centauri, and which may have been constructed too well for its own good. One imagines while reading this what may become of a child who is sent on a similar mission, and the conclusion of insanity makes perfect sense. The contrast between AXIS' increasing skewed observations and portrayal of the overwhelming media coverage of the mission was especially fun for me to read. In "Queen", Bear continues his pattern of forcing his reader in over their heads, and not insulting us by explaining everything, but, rather, allowing us to "swim" and form our own pictures of the action. This pattern can be, at best, off-putting, and, at worst, infuriating, but the result in "Queen" is, in my opinion, well worth the work. Bear understands that in sci-fi, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and thus he has endeared himself to me.
Rating:
Summary: Caught after 2/3 of the book
Review: This book includes some fascinating ideas about future nano-technology and the secrets of self-awareness that well compensates the sometimes completely confusing language. But with his next book, Moving Mars, he really struck me !
Rating:
Summary: Quite amazing
Review: This book must have been extremely difficult to write. In a novel in which the actual plot and characters are secondary to the point being made, Bear explores the nature of crime and especially punishment to a harrowing degree. Equally impressive is Bear's ability to change his writing and grammatical styles completely, depending upon which character currently has the focus of the book's attention. The fact that this is a SF novel is secondary to its actual purpose (a comment upon society and the human mindset), in the same way that the story and plot of a Vonnegut novel are secondary to the satire and indictment being perpetrated by the author. Some readers may find it difficult to deal with the varying styles of writing in the book (one character, for instance, uses hardly any punctuation and a lot of proposed (by Bear) future slang to think about the world. The novel does, however, change the reader: this, to me anyway, is its major selling point.
|
