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VITALS
by Greg Bear
Del Rey Books, January 2002
336 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0345435281


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

With VITALS, Greg Bear continues a new type of book that he first created with DARWIN'S RADIO: published in 1999, won the Nebula in 2000. Some have called DARWIN'S RADIO "speculative fiction," and others, "hybrid sci-fi/thriller." I think I prefer to skip any attempt at classification and simply call VITALS a heart-stopping good read.

VITALS is somewhat less cerebral than DARWIN'S RADIO. It's also shorter. Yet VITALS will break your brain ... in a good way. I can't recall a more complex puzzler of a plot. The same story is told from several different points of view, depending on where the person currently telling the tale came into it. You have to read closely, always remembering whose part you're in, who the

"I" is telling this part of the story. Section by section that changes, and what is happening looks different to the different narrators.

One character does have more page time than any other. His name is Hal Cousins. Hal is about thirty years old and does advanced biological research into the potential of certain bacterial organisms for prolonging human life. Poor Hal regularly turns from big-brain to beggar, because his work requires that he raise huge amounts of money. The organisms he seeks are very deep in the ocean (or so he believes), and only the richest men can afford the deep submersible vehicles Hal needs to harvest the biological material. He has no sooner spotted exactly what he's been after for so long, when his deep-sea pilot freaks out and tries to tear up the little sub. Tries to tear up Hal too. Hal's hurt but he prevails. Thank goodness, because worse lies ahead: All the crew members up on the ocean surface in the big mother ship have gotten sick, and they also go nuts, like the pilot. Instead of pulling Hal out of the water they start bashing up everything around, each other too. Somebody finds a gun, with the usual result. The illness doesn't affect Hal himself. Why?

The police are suspicious. The rich man who has been his sponsor tells Hal to get lost. Immediately if not sooner. So there he is, over the moon about his discovery of these weird things on the bottom of the ocean at one minute, then cast down and left with nothing the next. No wonder Hal's confused. And angry. Crank up the tension another notch: He soon realizes that he's in danger, but he doesn't know why or from whom. Nothing makes sense anymore. He wants to continue his work, and he's also desperate to understand what's

really going on.

Hal has a brother, an identical mirror-twin, named Rob. These two haven't liked each other since probably inside the womb. They seem to have come into the world bonking each other. Even though Hal and Rob parted company as soon as they went to different colleges, they ended up making similar life choices. Guess what? Rob studies bacterial communication as a means of extending the human lifespan. Very similar, if not identical work to Hal's ... but Rob seems to have gotten further than Hal. The big problem is, Rob is dead. Somebody shot him. Rob was also nuts before he died; or at least, he certainly seemed that way over the telephone with Hal, and (Hal learns at Rob's-closed casket funeral) to Rob's estranged wife.

The story goes on from there, and it's a breathless ride to the end. VITALS is a book that cannot be read quickly, which is kind of a shame because it's also such a page-turner that I didn't want to put it down; yet I couldn't read it in one sitting because, as I said early on, the puzzle is a brain-breaker. It's not just the puzzle, either -- below the surface fast-moving thriller stuff, there are some deep philosophical questions that are hard to avoid when reading this book.

As in DARWIN'S RADIO, the science of VITALS is plausible. Likewise, though it gave me the shudders, it's do-able ... all too much so when you read the notes at the end about what has already been done.

I recommend you read VITALS on a rainy Sunday ... or some other day when you're not likely to be interrupted. If you start at noon, giving time for some walking-around breaks to rest your head, you might finish before your bedtime. Whatever. As long as you read it!

r

Reviewed by Ava D. Day, March 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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