Mariposa

by Greg Bear

Book Overview

In an America driven to near bankruptcy by crushing foreign debt and susceptible to outside forces, the Talos Corporation stands out as a major success story, training soldiers and security forces... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1593154976
• ISBN13: 9781593154974
• Release Date: November 2009
• Publisher: Vanguard Press
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Lots of complexities

Mariposa by Greg Bear is a story laden with complexities. There are a lot of characters of and a lot going on. It's one of those books where you have to mentally keep track of who is where and what's happening. This only adds to the mystery and suspense of the story, allowing you to exercise your brain while enjoying it all. Basically the government is on the verge of financial collapse and the various security agencies are competing against each other for survival. There is also a rogue computer and a hand full of people coping with the fact that the eugenics treatment used to save them is turning some of them into psychopaths. It's like reading four books at the same time, though everything is well connected and the randomness of events keeps the suspense tuned on high throughout the story. The science is especially well handled with real, almost real and yet to come, all seamlessly melded together, leaving you to wonder which things are already developed and what is yet to come.

The Final Price

Mariposa (2009) is the second SF novel in the Quantico series, following Quantico. In the previous volume, FBI agents followed the intelligence into Saudi Arabia, searching for the biologicial weapons. They moved through the Haj while looking for the carrier trucks. Amidst death and destrution they found the vehicles and OWLs dropped from the sky. In this novel, Alicia Kunsler is Deputy Director of the Bureau East. She maintains her office in the almost deserted Quantico. Rebecca Rose was a Special Agent in the Bureau. She is now on an indefinite furlough as she recovers from PTSD -- posttraumatic Stress Disorder -- from the Mecca mission. William Griffin is a Special Agent of the Bureau. He was also on the Mecca mission. Fouad Al-Husam is a Special Agent of the Bureau. He is descended from Egypian heritage and was also on the Mecca mission. Jane Rowland works for Spider/Argus, a recently created agency that monitors the flow of data. She was on the Mecca mission. Edward Benjamin Quinn is Vice resident of the USA. He had served as an officer in Iraq before entering politics. Nathaniel Trace is a computer geek. He is one of the Turing Seven programmers working for Mind Design. He had developed PTSD in combat within Arabia Deserta. Chan Herbert is director of Mind Design and boss of the Turing Seven. Known as the Quiet Man, he led the effort to develop the Jones series of competers, a new and better type of data processubg machine. Terence Plover is a researcher who realized that seroprixoline -- an antiicancer drug -- might also benefit persons suffering from PTSD. Price underwrote studies with the drug. Axel Price is the CEO of Talos -- a personnel training company -- and other related ventures. In this story, Quinn killed his wife and then went upstairs to read to his daughter. The Secret Service soon arrived to take him away. Now the homocide is national news. Trace in staying at the ziggurat in Dubai where he is programming some of the Jones 2.0 at the heart of MSARC -- Mutual Sreategic Asseet Recovery and Control -- system for the International Financial Protection Corporation. He is experiencing something strange, including lessing of affect and vivid perceptions. Trace takes a sedative and lies down, but the effects continue. Then he gets a phone call from the Quiet Man, who asks him where he is and whether Talos knows his location. Trace tells the the Quiet Man about his weird feelings and Chan suggests that they are the results of the Mariposa treatments. Then he orders Trace to leave Dubai immediately. Trace arrives in Californa using the name Robert Sangstrom. The Quiet Man suggests that he meet with Plover at the COPES security conference in the LA conference center. So Trace calls Plover. Kunsler sends Griffin to check on Plover. When he arrives at the house, it and eleven others are only blackened shells. The fire had killed Plover's wife, but his body was not found within the house. Rowland arr

super thriller

The United States stands on the brink of a financial collapse much worse than the Great Depression or the Bush Recession. Axel Price, CEO of Talos Corp, sees an opportunity to take power and plans to seize it. FBI agents including Rebecca Rose are pulled back from leave, Fouad Al-Husam working undercover at the Talos Campus in Texas may have been exposed, and Will Griffin stand in his way, but to Price they are gnats. Rebecca and others have their own issues having been tested to see what the effects of the ultra powerful drug Mariposa are. At the same they deal with the pending Price financial disaster and personal issues, the Feds struggle with Jones Zero supercomputer that seems to have gone rogue and only one of its creators Nathan Trace can stop Price from taking control, but the megalomaniac in turn knows who is the only real threat. The amazing thing about this super thriller is the underlying technology explained throughout is effortlessly interwoven into the fast-paced never decelerating story line. Action-packed throughout with a strong cast, MARIPOSA is a terrific tale as the audience anticipates a High Noon showdown between the CEO, three Feds, and the supercomputer creator. Harriet Klausner