Rating: 
Summary: Legacy
Review: I purchased "Legacy" mainly because I had read Eon and Eternity...and was hoping for a book that would give me the good stuff that Bear is capable of and didn't fully deliver in Eternity. Be Warned though: Legacy abandons a great deal of the fascinating elements of EON. The thread linking these books is very thin - that was disappointing...but the quality of Legacy goes beyond either of the other two books. It reminded me a great deal of the grand adventure novels of an earlier age. Even a little taste of Charles Dickens in places, though you might have to look hard. You can allow yourself to get caught in the storytelling as long as you aren't too upset by the fact that this novel drops much of the fururistic science fiction in favour of a nostalgic seafaring epic with elements of the fantastic that are natural wonders rather than technological ones. Bear shows his craft well in this book, and I kept thinking "What a spectacular film this would make!" Each new twist had me smiling to myself in appreciation of the way that he had interested me in a world that I was initially dishearted to find after reading the other two related books in this series. Drop the expectations of another "EON" and you may find yourself loving this book more than the other two. A pleasant surprise to be sure. Though I still hope for another book in the series to continue the EON series and make up for "Eternity"'s weak spots.
Rating: 
Summary: Very rich novel in the Asimovian "world-building" tradition
Review: I purchased this book because it was advertised to be a prequel to Eon, which I thoroughly enjoyed. In fact, the link to Eon is contrived, at best; however, as a standalone novel, Legacy is quite good. The intricacy of the world Bear creates is impressive. Some readers seem to have found the detail boring, but I found them essential to the fabric of the novel (without giving Bear too much credit, suggesting that he lighten up on the detail would be like suggesting that Melville should have left out all of that burdensome detail about whaling or the rules of the King's navy). Bear seems to have inherited the role of grand world-builder within the SF literature. This novel, like Blood Music and Eon, plays out events on a grand and ever increasing scale. More so than Blood Music and Eon, Legacy develops good old-fashioned characters and human themes within the context of a fantastic world. This book was a bit different, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'd recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed other works by Bear, Asimov, or other authors within this genre.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best
Review: I think this is one of Greg Bear's best books and one of the best SCI FI books ever. This book has a crafted literary quality that many others do not.
Rating:
Summary: I loved the book. Not really connected to Eon.
Review: Or at least the connection to Eon is superflous and not at all necessary for the telling of this story. I loved the book. This is very close to a story that I'd like to write myself, only from a different point of view, that of the Ecos.
Rating:
Summary: Ok, but not one of his best...
Review: Starting off in the universe of Eon & Eternity, the story quickly moves into a different universe becomes the story of contact & adaptation to continent spanning lifeforms. Not exactly sentinent but endowed with a chemical based intelligence. The colonists live on the planet amongst the elements of these life-forms much as bacteria do in our bodies. The plot revolves around the interaction between the colonists (in the midst of a civil war), and their interaction with the native life forms.
I found the book to be interesting, but a bit too slow paced to equal his best efforts.
Rating:
Summary: Greg Bear's enduring Legacy of fine writing
Review: When I first started reading Legacy I was a little disappointed, as I had expected it to be a straight sequel to Eon and Eternity, and had wanted to learn more about the Jarts. However, I found myself becoming swiftly involved in this well-written tale of human colonists struggling to survive in and coexist with a truly alien biosphere. The adventure progresses well, turning first into a sea journey that could almost have come from the pages of Joseph Conrad, and finally into a confrontation with the human forces that are corrupting and ultimately destroying this new world. The book's main triumph is the depiction of alien life forms that, refreshingly, fail to conform to the Earthly division of the plant and animal kingdoms, consisting of vast 'ecoi' that contain colonies of plant-like 'phytids' and mobile 'scions' that act as messengers and scavengers, much like blood cells and hormones in the human body. This is good - why indeed should we expect to find alien analogues of Earth biota everywhere we go, from trees and flowers up to humanoids and dinosaurs?! In an infinite universe, after all, the possible varieties of planetary ecology should be infinite. The human world of the colonists, with its divisive conflicts and deep-rooted unease, is also very well described. In fact, the only note that doesn't ring quite true, I find, is the fact that Olmy is able to blend so well into this insular society so quickly, with minimal preparation. In reality, he would have revealed himself to be a complete outsider the moment he opened his mouth, and would swiftly have been imprisoned or worse. But this is a minor quibble; to sum up, Legacy is science fiction at its best, with a near perfect balance of characterization and ideas.
Rating: 
Summary: Gives Eon and Eternity a bad name
Review: While he gets high marks for imagination about this planet with a thinking landmass/bioshpere, his storyline and his characters just don't cut it. This is despite the fact that the protagonist later appears in significant roles in Eon and Eternity. His experince here is supposed to affect his outlook in the other two books. Granted I read them in the wrong order as this prequel came much later, but it doesn't work for me on any level.
Rating:
Summary: Davey Jones and some wierd plantlike things
Review: While I was able to make it thru the entire book, I'm thankful that I didn't spend hard cash on it, and instead checked it out of a library. The story of Olmy started out in a very good way, in a nice hard-style sci-fi environment that started to grab my imagination. But that changed once he came to Lamarckia via the Way. After that, I could have been reading a sappy hard-life novel of some people in some jungle somewhere, with a major sea travel thrown in. I didn't care about the secondary characters in the story, I didn't care about the had times on board a sailboat, and I didn't care about the large plant-like creature, who was the only interesting point about the story apart from the Way and the technological environment from where the story began.
Through the entire book I was expecting some sort of discovery of some sort of large-scale ecologic intelligence, (like Jerry Pournelle's STARSWARM) but there's no payoffs for all of your determined reading. Things are vaguely explained, hinted at, and in the end I realized that there was just no substance to the mystetries that Mr. Bear tried to hook me with. Here's a paraphrase of the entire book: Some guy from a very interesting place goes on a vague mission of discovery to a very wierd place. There, he becomes part of the hard-knock life. Eventually he falls in love with a girl because she's "simple" while working as a deck-hand on a sailing ship. while sailing they see wierd things and suffer more hardships. Then a war happens with small numbers of people using primitive cannons and other weapons, then he's rescued somehow and is back in the interesting place talking about his experience.
Rating:
Summary: Davey Jones goes to plant world
Review: While I was able to make it thru the entire book, I'm thankful that I didn't spend hard cash on it, and instead checked it out of a library. The story of Olmy started out in a very good way, in a nice hard-style sci-fi environment that started to grab my imagination. But that changed once he came to Lamarckia via the Way. After that, I could have been reading a sappy hard-life novel of some people in some jungle somewhere, with a major sea travel thrown in. I didn't care about the secondary characters in the story, I didn't care about the had times on board a sailboat, and I didn't care about the large plant-like creature, who was the only interesting point about the story apart from the Way and the technological environment from where the story began. Through the entire book I was expecting some sort of discovery of some sort of large-scale ecologic intelligence, (like Jerry Pournelle's STARSWARM) but there's no payoffs for all of your determined reading. Things are vaguely explained, hinted at, and in the end I realized that there was just no substance to the mystetries that Mr. Bear tried to hook me with. Here's a paraphrase of the entire book: Some guy from a very interesting place goes on a vague mission of discovery to a very wierd place. There, he becomes part of the hard-knock life. Eventually he falls in love with a girl because she's "simple" while working as a deck-hand on a sailing ship. while sailing they see wierd things and suffer more hardships. Then a war happens with small numbers of people using primitive cannons and other weapons, then he's rescued somehow and is back in the interesting place talking about his experience.
| 
