|
|
|
Reviews by Larry D. Woods
Sequels are a time-honored literary device, and "Slant" by Greg Bear is a tantalizing sequel to "Queen of Angels." In A.D. 2050 microscopic machines of nanotechnology have cleaned America after the Sour Decades. Disease, hunger and want are being eliminated while art and LitVid fluorish.
Everyone is obsessed with sex and sanity. Wealth and power no longer count. As 2050's best-selling book about bitter love, "Alive Contains a Lie" says, "Never underestimate the ubiquitous power of sex." As to sanity, you are either a high natural, untherapied, therapied but right, or an untherapied down and outer. Regardless, you can probably transform -- that is, rebuild yourself with customized physical features in a society where temporary personnel services have become a womb-to-tomb security blanket for jobs, health care and therapy.
Author Greg Bear does wondrous work with the sweep of his imagination and the interaction of probably his most memorable characters. Bear won the Nebula Award with "Moving Mars," and "Slant" should be a strong contender for the Hugo and Nebula.
In "Dreaming Metal" by Melissa Scott, the theme is also artificial intelligence as author Scott returns to the setting of her earlier novel "Dreamships." Persephone is a world where Celinde Fortune is an entertainer. In the Empire Theater an illusionist can make good money, but other acts attract threats of violence and destruction. Celinde unites two advanced computer chips in a new manner to assist in her act and also achieves an unexpected result: a form of computer life that simulates true artificial intelligence. The price for her discovery may be her death as Melissa Scott again creates a world of stimulating characters trapped in a bizarre world.
"Patriot Future" by Milton Johns is a near future "Bladerunner" world where national debt, unemployment and discrimination have supposedly been eliminated by the New Liberal Party. Matt Sheridan is a narcotics detective struggling to combat a new controlled substance called "jazz." Simultaneously Matt infiltrates a rebel political movement and when the truth about jazz -- its origin and its distribution network -- is disclosed, Matt must determine the identity of the true patriots in this exciting first novel.
Larry D. Woods is an attorney and an avid collector of science fiction.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.
Support your