Rating: 
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: This book is what would happen if Michael Crichton wrote a 2 1/2 hour X-Files movie. Starring the Lone Gunmen. There's plenty of paranoia to go around. What starts out as an intelligent biotech thriller, quickly degenerates into a rather pedestrian conspiracy plot. The main idea, centered around the fact that our bacteria basically rule our behavior instead of the other way around, is interesting. And the science posited here is near-future enough to be somewhat plausible. Unfortunately, the construction of the plot is not done well at all; even the main character is mostly cardboard. He does have his moments, but they are very few and far between. By the time I'd reached the second half of the book, it seemed like I was reading the novelization of an action movie. Characters run here and there, make a few grisly discoveries, run to the next place, rehash what just happened, race to the next scene, etc. Strangely, all this action is completely uninvolving. I know Bear is better than this. Perhaps, in the quest to go "mainstream" with his books, Bear was pressured (or decided himself)to water down his usual style. It was a bad decision.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but could have been better
Review: This would be the least favorite of Bear's books for me, except he wrote Darwin's Children, which is just plain awful.
The book has some intriguing science, plot twists and real historic detail woven into it. It could have been a haunting masterpiece. Unfortunately, somewhere two thirds into the story, Bear loses focus. He tries to accomplish so much, that he seems to forget that it needs to tie together in some fashion for the reader.
I think a really good editor could have made him go back, lop off ninety pages and tighten the whole thing up, and it would have been swell.
As it is -- two thirds swell.
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