Queen of Angels

by Greg Bear

Book Overview

In a society enjoying peace, prosperity and technologically engineered mental health, Emanuel Goldsmith, a famous poet, commits gruesome murder. Three people investigate the crime--one a therapist who will enter Goldsmith's mind to search for answers. A mesmerizing work set in a tomorrow that is less than a century away.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446514004
• ISBN13: 9780446514002
• Release Date: July 1990
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 420 Pages
• Weight: 1.41 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

As good as, or better than, "Moving Mars"

The reader who is about to pick up "Queen of Angels" should understand one thing about Greg Bear: he writes hard sci-fi (sci-fi which is typically laden with "tech talk"), and he writes the hardest sci-fi probably in existence today. The effect of this can be bewildering to the neophyte, especially considering the variety of his narrators. One of them, while close, is not even human, and that can easily drive away the most committed of readers.However, dear reader, may I suggest that you persist to the end? Bear writes the most satisfying conclusions in sc-fi today, and the ending of "Queen" is among these. The ending, though, is not the best part. Neither is Bear's vision of mid-21st Century Southern California, which can be vexing. What is most fascinating about this novel is the evolution of its characters, and the effects of their modern world upon them. Not even the advanced therapy taken on by Mary Choy, Bear's wunderkind gumshoe, can protect her from the slings and arrows embedded in the human psyche. In fact, the most human character in the novel is Richard Fettle, the vaguely Luddite disciple of Emmanuel Goldsmith, the one whose life is only indirectly touched by technology, and who consequently seems to be able to access his primal self best of all, and who therefore can best understand Goldsmith's motivations most readily. What may intrigue the reader of this novel the most is the "character" AXIS, an artifical intelligence which directs a craft in the exploration of an Earth-like planet around Alpha Centauri, and which may have been constructed too well for its own good. One imagines while reading this what may become of a child who is sent on a similar mission, and the conclusion of insanity makes perfect sense. The contrast between AXIS' increasing skewed observations and portrayal of the overwhelming media coverage of the mission was especially fun for me to read.In "Queen", Bear continues his pattern of forcing his reader in over their heads, and not insulting us by explaining everything, but, rather, allowing us to "swim" and form our own pictures of the action. This pattern can be, at best, off-putting, and, at worst, infuriating, but the result in "Queen" is, in my opinion, well worth the work. Bear understands that in sci-fi, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and thus he has endeared himself to me.

Greg Bear's best, and that is really saying something

How this novel has been overlooked by so many sci-fi fans, not to mention the Hugo and Nebula awards committees, is beyond me. This is one of the greatest novels of the 20th century in any genre. Read it more than once, and discuss it with your friends (a fair amount of technical knowledge can help you understand some of the more arcane parts, but is not strictly necessary). "Queen of Angels" is a vivid and deeply philosophical novel about how a future society deals with the crime of murder, as seen through the eyes of a policewoman, a psychiatrist, and a poet. Bear is without living equal in his ability to create convincing future worlds and extrapolate the effects of technology on the human spirit. Along the way, he challenges the reader's fundamental perceptions of self, humanity, mental illness, and justice.This book is a good introduction to Greg Bear. It has a more-or-less-sequel, "Slant", which is also very good, although I thought the ending of that book was a little too pat. Fans of end-of-the-world fiction will love his "Forge of God" and "Anvil of Stars", which are better than anything Niven and Pournelle have done. Anything by Bear is guaranteed to be an enjoyable read at minimum, and several of his novels are complex and moving enough to stand with the best fiction of any age. I promise, if you are a thinking person, you will not regret reading this book.

It is a GOOD BOOK, for all of its complexity

Many people might have a hard time reading Queen of Angels because of its complexity, in both style and plot. I, too, found myself struggling at parts, occassionally even putting the book down for days at a time, so that I could fully grasp the images Bear was trying to convey. However, I think his unique way of writing this book did more to elaborate a detailed and incredible world than to alienate the reader. You will either love this book (being able to accept how he is handling his story) or despise it (not wanting to be actively involved in the reading). For those who have read Greg Bear before: this is something different and singular. Don't expect anything similar from any other book he, or anyone else, has written. For those who have not read Bear yet: don't think this is an example of his normal work. Queen of Angels stands alone as a unique and intricate work of art, successfully and intelligently exploring the avenues that it pursues, and is to date, the most amazing science fiction book I have ever read. Any difficulty one might have with accepting that it is not as easily digestable as most other literature must come to the realization that readers of science fiction can't expect to be breastfed all their lives.

Quite amazing

This book must have been extremely difficult to write. In a novel in which the actual plot and characters are secondary to the point being made, Bear explores the nature of crime and especially punishment to a harrowing degree.Equally impressive is Bear's ability to change his writing and grammatical styles completely, depending upon which character currently has the focus of the book's attention.The fact that this is a SF novel is secondary to its actual purpose (a comment upon society and the human mindset), in the same way that the story and plot of a Vonnegut novel are secondary to the satire and indictment being perpetrated by the author.Some readers may find it difficult to deal with the varying styles of writing in the book (one character, for instance, uses hardly any punctuation and a lot of proposed (by Bear) future slang to think about the world.The novel does, however, change the reader: this, to me anyway, is its major selling point.

What all good science fiction should strive to be!

Queen of Angels isn't the easiest book to read, and fans of throw-away space opera may find it hard to get through, but if you've got a bit of an attention span and want more from science fiction than most of it is willing to give us, you'll find this novel to be among the best ever written in the genre. I'll happily put it in the company of Dune, Neuromancer, Gateway, and Foundation.