Vergil Ulam, brilliant, unorthodox, has exceeded every ethical guideline for genetic research to engineer blood cells that think for themselves. When his illegal experiments are discovered, he makes a desperate attempt to save his work – by injecting himself with his own creation.
He’s infected. What he carries is contagious. Deadly.
Moving from the smallest blocks of matter to forces that could transform the universe, Greg Bear’s Blood Music is dazzling, apocalyptic, utterly engrossing – a timeless SF classic.
Each hour, a myriad of trillions of little live things — microbes, bacteria, the peasants of nature — are born and die, not counting for much except in the bulk of their numbers and the accumulation of their tiny lives. They do not perceive deeply, nor do they suffer. A hundred trillion, dying, would not begin to have the same importance as a single human death.
Within the ranks of magnitude of all creatures, small as microbes or great as humans, there is an equality of “elan,” just as the branches of a tall tree, gathered together, equal the bulk of the limbs below, and all the limbs equal the bulk of the trunk.
We believe this as firmly as the kings of France believed in their hierarchy. Which of our generations will come to disagree?
