Dead Lines

by Greg Bear

Book Overview

This gripping ghost story for fans of Dean Koontz and Stephen King is the most mainstream novel yet from an author who knows how to mix scientific ideas with gripping narrative. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345448383
• ISBN13: 9780345448385
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 299 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

A highly unusual ghost tale

Let me make one thing clear about Greg Bear's "Dead Lines" right from the start. This isn't an action-packed thrill-ride, even though in some ways it might qualify as a thriller. It isn't a gore-fest, although it dips its feet into the pool of horror. It enthralls the reader in its own way, without the need for constant gunfire or blood on every page. It would be sad for someone to go into this book with the wrong expectations, because I've seen people dislike otherwise gorgeous works simply because they were expecting one thing and got another. Peter Russell is a largely out-of-work director and photographer (of titillating films and nude shots) with a gentle fondness for the ladies and a tragic love of the drink he no longer allows himself to have. He's recently-divorced, and only one of his two daughters still lives. Then a chance at redemption arrives: he's offered an opportunity to promote a new telecom company, one that has developed a revolutionary new communications device called Trans. Trans transmits with utter clarity across a newly-discovered bandwidth. His great opportunity is tainted, however: by self-doubt, fear of failure, the recent death of his best friend... and a new darkness that has entered his life. Everywhere he turns he sees things, things he shouldn't see. Dead things and memories of the living. Hungry things. And he isn't the only one... On the surface of it this doesn't sound terrifically unusual. However, the actual book is quite different from others I've read. It doesn't concentrate on the plot so much as Peter Russell, a complex and fascinating person. He's the perfect conduit with which to draw the reader into the story. The plot unfurls and unwinds rather than racing along, free to take some rather unusual twists and turns. This is one of the few books I've read where the reader's attention isn't drawn to the twists, with each one baldly pointed out; instead they're simply a part of what's happening, completely natural and organic. There are multiple mysteries wrapped up in this book's plot, but it's easy to forget to think of them as mysteries because they simply unfold as another natural part of the larger succession of events. Who killed Peter's daughter? What mysterious force at his friend Joseph's odd mansion blocks the Trans from working there? And can anything reverse the horror that is being visited upon the living? So many details in this book ring true and bring it alive. Greg Bear takes the story at least one or two steps further than any other author would, and he does it beautifully. If you don't need constant explosions and chainsaws in order to enjoy your thrillers and horror, if you're looking for a kind of fear that maybe, just maybe, highlights some of the beauty in this world, then I highly recommend Greg Bear's "Dead Lines." Once I started I could barely put it down.

Not as scary as 'Psyclone' but good.

I have read several works of Greg Bear and he is mostly known as an author of scifi but this is more akin to horror. In fact, he dedicates the book to 14 horror writers (most of whom I've read) including Lovecraft, Leiber, Matheson, Straub, Campbell, Koontz and King. The hero, Peter Russell, is not much of a hero, at first. He is a former producer of soft porn who is down on his luck and down on life in general. Bear has Peter take more showers than any character I've ever read about - is he trying to 'wash' away his 'dirty' past? One of his twin daughter's was tragically murdered and now his best friend of 35 years has died. His whole world seems to be falling apart after he accepts the new communication tool - a Trans - a super new cellphone. His journey takes him from his long-time benefactor to a New Age guru to the renovated prison that serves as the birthplace of Trans. Along the way he experiences manifestations of ghosts or phantoms and believes he is going mad. But others are seeing things too, and when he is visited by his deceased daughter, the novel kicks into high gear. Fighting the visions, Peter discovedrs the murderer of his daughter and has a confrontation with the killer and the ghosts of other victims. He finds closure with his dead daughter, rediscovers his living daughter, and heals wounds with his ex. But there is still a job to be done. Trans must be stopped and Peter has to find a way to close the door to the afterlife. The end is inevitable. This was an original idea even though it's development is expected. I had the killer guessed wrong. It was more shocking than I expected but the 'why' could have been explored a bit more. The finale is appropriate. Bear wrote 'Psyclone' which I liked and respected a great deal. This one is good, but just a shade (forgive the pun!) less shocking and horrifying than it was. I felt sorry for Peter, it seems he had such an empty, meaningless life. Perhaps his heroic end makes up for it. The lifestyle of the Hollywood crowd seems seedy and silly and sad. And interesting premise. Well done, Mr. Bear.

Wonderful book

I'm almost half way through the book and I think it's great. There isn't a lot of horror in the book though, just a bit here and there. The book is well written and very enjoyable.

Creepy near-future story of death and telecom

From the moment his best friend dies, sexploitation filmmaker Peter Russell's life is changed. His mentor asks him to see a wise woman with a question about whether someone can continue without a soul--and Peter starts to see ghosts. A strange new telecommunications company offers to hire Peter to come up with an ad campaign for their service but he is so distracted by the ghosts and his friend's death that he has a hard time dealing with even his best job offer in years. The ghost of his dead daughter is the final blow. Murdered two years earlier, Daniella suddenly appears to him, talks to him. Peter gradually learns that others are seeing the ghosts. Something has changed, the way that ghosts normally operate has been disrupted. And it's up to Peter to figure out how to put things right. Author Greg Bear weaves a compelling story of a man's disintegration. Peter makes an interesting character with his history with women, the loss of his murdered daughter, his battle with alcohol, and his tangential relationship with reality. But even a disturbed man can see the truth and Peter is gradually forced to believe that the ghosts he sees are real--and are created by something under human control. But the ghosts are only part of the problem. Because a soulless body can be a danger to itself and everyone around it. DEAD LINES is a creepy near-future SF story as fresh as the telecom meltdown headlines and with the type of atmosphere that will leave you thinking for days.

A Technological Ghost Story

Dead Lines (2004) is a ghost story. Sometime in the near future, a new form of communications -- Trans -- has been developed. Using analog technology over an extremely broadband channel, it provides exceptionally clear sound and promises to allow an almost unlimited number of concurrent conversations without any crosstalk. The only drawback is that this medium is shared with the dead! Peter Russell was a producer of low budget softcore sexploitation films. He got out the business just as the hardcore stuff began to flood the market. Now he is an agent for Joseph Adrian Benoliel, a Hollywood investor and former business partner during his film producing days. In this novel, Peter receives a message stating that his best friend, Phil Richards, has died. Phil's ex-wife Lydia had left a note in the house and Carla Wyss, an old friend, had found the note and called Peter. The note said that Phil had died of a stroke or heart attack. Peter has an appointment with Joseph. After briefly returning home, he drives out to the Salammbo estate in Malibu. When he knocks on the door, a young man named Stanley Weinstein admits him and immediately offers him a Trans phone. After Peter concludes his business with Joseph, Weinstein walks out with Peter; he describes the communications service, offers Peter ten thousand dollars to convince Joseph to invest, and gives Peter the remaining phones in the box to hand out to others. Phil's memorial service will be held at his house in Tiburon. Peter had not been previously aware that Phil had a house in Marin county. After the memorial service, he goes looking for the Phil's old motor home that they had dreamed of using to travel around together on the World's Longest Old Farts Cross-country Hot Dog Escapade and Tour. From the amount of yellow police tape on vehicle and the fingerprint dust, Peter finally knows where Phil had died: behind the wheel of the motor home. Since Lydia had taken the five hundred he had received for running Joseph's errand, Peter is down to his last ten bucks. He calls Trans and discovers that they are located in the old San Andreas prison complex (which is being converted into an office park) and receives an invitation to come by the next day. There Peter gets a tour to the facility built into the old death row building as well as an advance on his commission. During his perambulations, Peter has been having strange experiences. In Peter's house, he sees a translucent image of Lydia having an emotional crisis. After sleeping in his car by the beach while waiting for his appointment with Trans, he is visited by a crystal clear vision of an old man and three children. Moreover, he has weird dreams. Peter learns that he has been seeing wraiths -- visualizations of the living -- and specters -- appearances of the dead -- and realizes that these visions and the dreams have occurred only when a Trans unit is near. He tries to gain more information from the company, but Wein