1971: Major Operation (White, James)

Conway vs. Meatball: surprises galore (3/5)
From August 10, 2011

Major Operation is a Sector General novel (the third of twelve) comprised of five novelettes: "Invader" (1966), "Vertigo" (1968), "Blood Brother" (1969), "Meatball" (1969), and the self-titled "Major Operation" (1971). This is the fourth Sector General book I've read and while the whole alien emergency scenario gets a little old, James White still pulls a few surprises to entice the reader. These surprises are just enough to pull the reader through the sometimes predictable jungle of medical emergencies littered throughout the pages. This is especially true in Major Operation, where a planetary mystery evolves into a medical mystery and back.


Rear cover synopsis:
"Star Surgeon Conway, Nurse Murchison, and the doctors of Sector General were used to big problems and wonderfully strange patients--yet even tentacled Chalders, elephantine Tralthans and the spidery empath Dr. Prilicla were baffled.
The denizens of the weird planet included wheelshaped rolling sentients without hearts, leechlike healers without brains, and vast carpets of withering flesh. One of the species had invented a quasi-living tool that could change galactic medicine... if only Conway and his staff could find it.
He knew that to solve the mystery he would need all the alien talents of Sector General's interstellar staff to mount an unparalleled major operation."

Invader - 4/5 - Some curious incidents involving surgical mistakes and miscounted tools have led Conway to investigate a few theories. These theories are only that and Chief Psychologist O'Hara thinks Conway may be creating mass hysteria. His investigation uncovers a scout ship which has recently returned in a damaged condition from a planet called Meatball. Through Conway's persistence, a unique and rather useful life form has emerged on the ship. 40 pages

Vertigo - 4/5 - A research team is dispatched to the orbit of Meatball, where they witness an orbit craft freshly launched. The team attempt to stop the craft's rotation but the occupant emotes panic and resumes it's gyrations. Requiring much engineering and some brainstorming, the team figure out how to snare the craft and allow it to dock in the research ship. 27 pages

Blood Brother - 3/5 - Conway attempts to upload the memories of the rotating alien but finds the experience too extreme, even though he has subsumed alien memories before. To understand the dire stress of the planet Meatball and to observe the strictly solitary lives of the aliens, a culture contact team will go planet-side, including Conway. Once down, things never go quite as planned and Conway is attacked and yet saved by the same entity in the sea below. 35 pages

Meatball - 3/5 - Once the study of the exotic doctor organism found on the seafloor is at a satisfactory conclusion, a pathology team, including the pulchritudinous DBDG Murchison, take a trip down to the surface to try to understand the giant massive animal/vegetable being which sprawls across the surface of the planet Meatball, which is now known as Drambo since communication with the wheelie-alien had been successful, if not a tad bit annoying. 33 pages

Major Operation - 4/5 - The pathology team, assisted by military-cum-surgeons and miners-cum-surgeons, attempt surgery on an epic scale on the densely layered carpet of life on the face of the planet. Every attempt to help the entity is met with resistance since it lacks the senses of sight, hearing, taste and smell. The doctor-like organisms help those who emote friendliness but attack those with ill-will. The military and medical staff must find a fast solution to cease the human loss and save the life of the patient. 48 pages

For those used to the Sector General series, you won't be perturbed by the casual mentioning of DBDG, SRJH, TLTU or ELNT descriptions of alien life forms or the recurrent cafeteria theme and the usual difficulty Conway has on finding an appropriate seat and an appropriate meal. Many of the same characters make their appearance (especially Conway, Murchison and O'Hara while Thornnaster and Prilicla take on supporting roles). There seems to be a generous amount of tongue-in-cheek humor and some restrained sexual tension between the married couple and even in the general words written by White. Curious.

For the new reader of James White, this is great introduction novel. For the more weathered White reader, it has the same-old, same-old feel as all the other Sector General novels. Unique science fiction but just so-so for James White.

1970: In Our Hands, the Stars (Harrison, Harry)

Simple Linear plot with espionage and predictability (3/5)

I admit I haven't read either of Harrison's most popular series of The Stainless Steel Rat or Deathworld and that I desperately need to get a hold of a copy of each sometime. While I wait to stumble upon dog-earred copies of both, I bide my time by fingering through some of his lesser known work. Harrison's plague from space novel, The Jupiter Legacy (1970), was simple but entertaining. One of his short story collections, Prime Number (1970), was equally as short and entertaining (the 1978 and 1987 Sphere editions with some excellent art work). The same description can also label this novel (alternatively titled The Daleth Effect).

Rear cover synopsis:
"The Daleth Effect: It started in a small way when a test bench disintegrated. Within weeks it produced a power that could life man to the stars. And within months it was the centre of a desperate power struggle--with Earth as the prize."

Israeli atmospheric tests reveal to Artie Klein that there are gravimetric anomalies during a chance solar flare. He investigated the phenomena to a greater degree and found a "wholly inexplicable force operating that seemingly reduced the probe's weight, but not its mass." (50) He assigned the Hebrew letter "Daleth" to the force and applied his mathematics in the lab to produce the Daleth Effect. However, his first successful test run also blew a hole in the wall of his laboratory.

Immediately realizing all implications for this technology, Artie finds his consciousness and flees Israel because he suspects the government would apply his invention to wartime activities rather than peacetime activities. Once in his birth country of Denmark, Artie unveils his modulated sort of energy to the Ove Rasmussen, the Nobel Prize winner for physics and local professor, who helps Artie apply his technology with the help of Captain Nils, a jet-setting SAS commercial airline pilot with a wife, but a playboy lifestyle.

Unwilling the share the Daleth Effect with either the American or Soviet embassies, a double agent gets wind of the gravity defying tests and shares the secret with both sides. At first, the rumor of a submarine landing on a moon to rescue stranded cosmonauts seemed ridiculous, but later sightings of levitating ships confirms the truth about the science. Artie struggles to keep his technology for peaceful Dutch commercial interests, but both sides of the Iron Curtain reconnoiter to benefit militarily.

As a science fiction lover, it surprises me that I kind of dislike the wondrous discovery of a easily applicable science which can send man to the stars. The Daleth Effect is easily attached to any metal hull and, instantly, the craft (be it a submarine, barge, or hovercraft) can repel gravity and hurl itself off the earth. This sort of cop-out is done with earlier science fiction like E.E. "Doc" Smith's The Skylark of Space (1928) and James Blish's Earthman, Come Home (1955). I guess I prefer to experience the research of the technology rather than just having it handed to me in the first chapter.

Like the previous Harrison books I've read, this was light reading with a straight forward linear plot with random burst of humor dotted within the twenty-five chapters. Harrison's skill with dialog outshines his lacking capacity to pen narrative passages with a "sense of wonder", therefore, most of the novel is composed of plot maneuvering dialog and verbal announcements of the character's emotions. Everything is as transparent as it can get, which leads me to believe it might have been aimed for a younger audience.

It's not bad. It's just overly simple with touches of betrayal to one's country and one's spouse, a little bit of second guessing, and a pinch of excitement for the conclusion. Ah, the conclusion! I thought the ending would have been as straight forward as the rest of the book, but the last 15 pages of the 217 page novel threw me for a bit of a loop. Good unexpected conclusion!

Besides Deathworld and Stainless Steel Rat listed above, I plan to procure some of this other works such as Make Room! Make Room! and his collections don't sound too bad either. Harrison doesn't even make the list for my top 20 science fiction authors, but he's still one pursue.

1970: The Jupiter Legacy (Harrison, Harry)

Fast-paced plague no-brainer (3/5)
From July 22, 2011

I only know the works of Harry Harrison through reputation, one could say, and through his fairly flat collection in Prime Number. Some say his novels are fun or youthful, which strikes me as another way of saying that he doesn't take a plot all that seriously. Jupiter Legacy (also irksomely published as Plague from Space and The Jupiter Plague) is exactly as I thought it would be: a plot based on one man, a big problem with no regard to either the start or end of the novel. So, in this regard the novel could be said to have met my expectation and therefore give it 5-stars. And yet I was hoping for my preconceptions to be false and was met with a fairly cardboard-like novel, easily read in a few days without giving much thought to it.

Rear cover synopsis:
"The space probe returned carrying a cargo of writhing death! No form of life on Earth seemed safe from the savage epidemic brought back from a distant planet. Quickly and mysteriously it spread over the earth's surface, drawing its victims into a slow and violent death. If Earth was to escape annihilation, the horrible plague had to be stopped! But there was so little left to track down the cause of the Jupiter Legacy!"

The line where it says, "Quickly and mysteriously it spread over the earth's surface, drawing its victims into a slow and violent death" is as faulty as the wiring in my condo. The plague was limited to New York and the area of New England rather than the entire earth's surface and the plague killed its victim rather quickly, within the day... nothing so slow or violent about a fever and some boils.

One thing Harrison has down to an art (mmm, that's a bit of a stretch) is plot flow. It starts with a bang when Sam, our intern doctor and to-be heartthrob is raced to an accident involving a dismemberment and being raced back to the hospital to be warned of a pending danger of unknown proportions at the airport... which is where the behemoth spaceship has returned to Earth while crushing one plane and burning another to a cinder. Sam observes the astronaut descend from the ship and fall. Caring for him, Sam sees blisters around his face and neck with a fever of 105. Knowing he's near death, Sam and his love-interest-to-be (of course) give the man a notepad where he write something like "sick in ship." I considered this a key in understanding WHAT was inside the ship and was especially interested when the police closed the ship off. In the end, the message played no importance and it was all fairly predictable.

For some added flavor, Harrison has thrown in some medical terminology, which, as a fan of anatomy, I just love. Harrison also added some more ridiculous elements of extremely large handguns with calibers of .50 and 0.75 inches, which are ALL recoilless, the author must note. Other elements of science fiction include some ideas about traffic control, Mach 5 air transport and life on a Reef in Jupiter.

If you're looking for a fast-paced requiring very little brain power and a few annoyance (i.e. the ending), then look no further than The Jupiter Legacy. Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, while different in format, was actually a better read. This book, however, is going back to the second-hand books store.

1992: Benefactors 2 - Anvil of Stars (Bear, Greg)

A structural antithesis to The Forge of God (4/5)

Anvil of Stars is the second of two books in the Benefactor duology and is written differently in many ways that its precursor The Forge of God. Almost bordering on being an antithesis of the prior novel, Anvil of Stars exhibits Bear's skill at not only building up wondrous technologies, but also structuring a future human society, a new branch of mathematics, and an ingenious alien species. But honestly, it's the technology that steals the show--technologies stemming from those in Forge of God--and drives the reader into second guessing the capabilities of the Benefactors and the Killers.

Rear cover synopsis:
"82 young people travel the enormity of space on a quest for war and vengeance against The Planet Eaters: aliens who turned into earth--and all but a fragment of humanity--into a smouldering cinder. But how do you conduct war against aliens whose psychology is unknowable, whose technological brilliance means they can disguise whole planetary systems? ANVIL OF STARS has astonishing power. Its epic voyage is shot through with love, self conflict, the terror of war and the infinite possibilities of the universe. Driven by a godly sense of wonder and using quantum mechanics and particle physics to dazzling effect, this book is quite simply everything you ever wanted SF to be."

Aboard a Ship of the Law, a small slice of humanity--young volunteers around 20 years of age--are amid the stars in search for the Killer's home star so that they may carry out The Law. Hundreds of light-years from their own home star, the young post-human crew of eighty-two are led by the elected "Pan" Martin Spruce (aka Martin Gordon, son of Forge of God's Arthur Gordon) and his second-in-command "Christopher Robin" named Hans Eagle. The democratic leader of the boys--named Lost Boys and dressed in red--and the girls--named Wendys and dressed in blue--is consulted by the Moms, who are extensions of the ship's mind. Acting as social climate gauge, mediator, and war counselor, Martin is a empathetic yet indecisive individual who follows his heart than his gut.

The Dawn Treader's crew's first discovery of the possible home star of the Killers turns out to be in a tri-star system, the first system to be investigated by democratic vote is the Wormwoodstar. When the Dawn Treader splits into two, Martin leads the slower in-system ship while Hans leads the faster out-system ship. Upon the unanimous decision to decimate the uninhabited and undefended planets, the bombship crew begin their attack, only to be subjected to the wrath of impossibly destructive weapons. Martin's lover, Theresa, is among the victims and the crew themselves are forced into cryogenic hibernation.

A decade after the defeat and no day older, Martin awakes among his crew still heartbroken over the loss of his lover. His humility gets the best of his as he resigns from Pan. Hans gets the nod to become the new Pan, but vows to become a war leader and to fully enact The Law; a subtle snub towards the actions and attitudes of Martin. The ship's library once depleted due to the actions around Wormwood, the volume increases with the discovery of another derelict Benefactor ship and exponentially so when the ship merges with another Benefactor alien species--the Brothers, a "colonial intelligence" with braid-like structure. The three libraries display contrasting data regarding the civilization around one of the others stars in the tri-star system--Leviathan.

The braids and the humans enter the system under subterfuge in order to elicit the appropriate response from the suspected Killer-inhabited star. Will the level of technology or the trillions of citizens in the system deter the Ship of the Law from doing The Job? Will Hans be the social glue to meld the crew together or will a human rogue drive them apart, rendering the entire crew unable to enact The Law?

A certain amount of back history should be spelled out, which would be a spoiler for anyone who hasn't read The Forge of God. After earth's destruction and a breeding stock of humanity aboard arks, the people were put into hibernation and woken up more than 500 years later, able to colonize Mars, which the Benefactors had been able to terraform with ice from the missing moon Europa. While in hibernation the humans were improved, altering their brain performance and social habits. The children, too, were improved in hibernation and, while aboard their Ship of the Law, they are able to conceptualize high mathematics which the Moms taught, called Mom's Arithmetic Math or "momerath" for short. Their social structure, too, is freed up with disbanding the sacrament of marriage in favor of casual "slicking" and pair bonding. This social structure is one of the most interesting inclusions in Anvil of Stars: it sets the atmosphere with occasions of harmonious crests and derisive troughs.

Unlike The Forge of God (written in nine parts with 74 chapters), Anvil of Stars is simply written in three parts without any chapter divisions. This is only ONE of the great differences between the two. Many of the 82 crew aboard the Dawn Treader are named throughout the book, but only a dozen or so play a major role in the plot's development. Later in the book with the introduction of the braided aliens, a handful of aliens will also play roles in shifting the plot along its fateful route. This differs from The Forge of God where a very large cast played numerous roles through a long passage of time, displaying emotions which reflect the urgency of the tide of ebb of circumstances which surround them. Anvil of Stars doesn't shift perspective nearly as much as its precursor did.

I said above that the technologies shadow mostly everything else in Anvil of Stars. This has its pros and cons. The reader is introduced to the Benefactors' capabilities in the first battle, but the crew are always skeptical about the Moms' divulging of the complete and honest truth: the history of the Benefactors, other missions to the same star, other weapons that could be made, other alien species, etc. Their distrust grows when they assume the mass of information from the library of the braids. They begin to wonder if the Benefactors trust the braids more than humans: that trust being judged on the amount of information they were given. However, the Moms keep mum about the divvying of data and recite their mantra of, "We provide the tools. You use them." (70) This distrust drives an ethical stake between themselves, their alien Brothers, and even with the Benefactors. Could Bear being pressing this issue for the sake of good literary drama, or expressing the characters' emotions to bring out their truly human side?

One thing that stuck with me for six years, after reading this for the first time, is Bear's creation of the alien species known was the Brothers. These intelligent aggregate aliens are braid-like in structure, composed of unintelligent cords, communicate with a cornucopia of scents and an aural sounds like stringed instruments. They are able to produce human language through this "stringed instrument" means and are altogether just as curious about the one-bodied humans as the humans are about the aggregate braids. The level of violence humans are capable of through their works of fiction astonishes the peace-loving braids, whose component cords are the ones to breed, relax, and war. When actual violence is experiences aboard the merged ships, the braids become leery of an extended campaign with their human Brothers. Being a "colonial intelligence," their system of math is based on fractions and probability rather than decimals and whole numbers. The "smears" which are prevalent in their math wows some of the mathematical minds among the humans and allows for a pathway to mutual trust and intercultural development.

Of minor issue but of major annoyance is the number of misspellings in my edition of Anvil of Stars (Legend, 1993). I only started counting after the first few misspellings, but here is a sample of the mistakes I came across: gong (going), trogan (trojan), millin (million), and form (from). Authors' mistake or publisher's mistake, it's frustrating for the reader to come across these errors when they SHOULD have been easily picked up by any reputable proofreader.

Regardless of the minor typographical errors, Anvil of Stars is a abrupt shift for a sequel from The Forge of God. It's not a bad shift; merely a shift which is both jarring and intriguing. I believe Bear once had plans to produce a trilogy of sorts (a seem to have a memory of that, but I could be wrong) set in the same universe, but considering that Anvil of Stars was published twenty years ago, I'd say that the follow-up novel will never come to light. However, with that said, I'd love to see how Greg Bear could envision his future Martian and Venusian post-human colonies... instead, he's sold-out and now writes novelizations for the Halo game universe.

2008: City at the End of Time (Bear, Greg)

Bear's worst sci-fi: bleak, repetitive, boring (2/5)
April 30, 2010

Having read fifteen of Bear's science fiction novels and two of his own short story collections, I considered myself very well versed in the books which Bear produced. Everything I read up to Darwin's Children was inventive and usually quite good (though Psychlone and Beyond Heaven's River didn't rank very highly). When Bear wrote Darwin's Children, the sequel to Darwin's Radio, it felt like Bear was taking a shot at the mainstream market, like Crichton does with his brand of science fiction. Sure enough, the next three novels were Deadlines, Vitals, and Quantico... all of which I passed up because they weren't written with the same awe and wonder as Eon, Eternity or even Hegira. When I heard that Bear was penning a new science fiction novel, it immediately went on my to-buy list.

Rear cover synopsis:
"In a time like the present, in a world that may or may not be our own, three young people–Ginny, Jack, and Daniel–dream of a decadent, doomed city of the distant future: the Kalpa. But more than dreams link these three: They are fate-shifters, born with the ability to skip across the surface of the fifth dimension, inhabiting alternate versions of themselves. And each guards an object whose origin and purpose are unknown: gnarled, stony artifacts called sum-runners that persist unchanged through all versions of time. Hunted by others with similar powers who seek the sum-runners on behalf of a terrifying, goddess-like entity known as the Chalk Princess, Ginny, Jack, and Daniel are drawn into an all but hopeless mission to rescue the future–and complete the greatest achievement in human history."

The City at the End of Time is NOT written in Bear's grand science fiction tradition as The Forge of God, Blood Music or Moving Mars. Sadly, Bear has taken it to himself to continue to pursue a more mainstream market, only this time his intended target is young adults. This book isn't exactly for the serious science fiction reader unless you like magic stones, enchanted books, and mysterious cats, which sounds more like a Fritz Leiber's fun novel Gather, Darkness than it does a Gear Bear sci-fi novel. It meanders and skips its way too far into the boring realm of fantasy than it does march up to the comforting fortress walls of science fiction.

I just can't wrap my head around what Bear was aiming for, usually never a problem for a 100-books-per-year reader like me. Bear pours too many proper nouns for deities or beings or people or places which are given very little description or purpose (e.g. Chalk Princess, the Librarian, the Mistress, the Great Door, City Prince, the Bleak Warden). Nearly every page the reader is confronted by any number of these proper nouns for which the reader has very little to relate to what their actually reading and trying to understand... does that sound right? Putting a name with a developed character (which Bear did a decent job of) is one way to associate with that character, but why did Bear name the three young "fate-shifters" after alcohol? There's Jack, Daniel and Ginny; mere oversight, maybe.

Along with the endless stream of random proper nouns, there seems to be a theme of repetition which only goes to annoy me rather than plant any firm idea into my skull. Throughout the novel the characters "shiver" about ten times (something which I've noted in other novels as well- too much shivering) and the bleak descriptions of the Chaos are the same for hundreds of pages- black or gray, crusty or brittle, hilly or flat. I'm not sure location in the novel is more bleak- that of Seattle or that of the Chaos. Either way, this novel isn't one to lift your spirits nor would it make a good beach read.

A glossary or appendix would have assisted in understanding the finer points of the novel, but polish it all you like it won't become a better novel. I may just reread some of the older Bear novels to renew my faith in him as one of the great science fiction writers of the 80s and 90s... but no later (besides Bear's latest novel Hull Zero Three, which was fantastic).

1987: Benefactors 1 - The Forge of God (Bear, Greg)

Wonderfully complex and utterly absorbing (5/5)

The Forge of God was the first science fiction novel I read back in 2006. It was the beginning of a beautiful marriage! I continued with Bear's The Way series, Niven & Pournelle's Footfall and Lucifer's Hammer, Strieber & Kunetka's Warday, and the Hitchhikers Guide series. I started off my sci-fi marriage with 1980s science fiction and I constantly look back on that year with longing nostalgia. Thereafter, until April 2012, I started to only read novels I've never read before... so after five years, I return to The Forge of God to splash in the warm tide pools of sci-fi nostalgia. It's just as good as I remember!

Rear cover synopsis:
"June 26, 1996: One of Jupiter's moons disappears.

September 28, 1996: A geologist near Death Valley finds a mysterious new cinder cone in a very-well mapped area.

October 1, 1996: The government of Australia announces the discovery of an enormous granite mountain. Like the cinder cone, it wasn't there six months ago..."

Jupiter's moon Europa has disappeared and, frankly, all the scientists are baffled, especially family man Arthur Gordon. But with time, the news dies down and another story springs onto the channels: in Australia, the discovery of a giant granite mountain and its robot envoys has swept the world. Meanwhile in America, geologists come across a cinder cone and nearby lies a is dying dinosaur like alien with a message of dire warning. This message contrast the benevolent greetings and exchange of information the Australian robots are involved in. Arthur is wrangled into the US government project by his leukemia-stricken friend Harry. The two assist the government in interrogating the oddly-composed alien and the geologists who found it.

All is not well when the alien dies and robots blunder. Huge spikes of ice are heading straight for Mars and Venus, a passing gravity anomaly has scientists confused, and the sudden presence of covert metallic spiders has some people acting funny. Reuben is one such person, who becomes under the influence of the spiders and follows its commands, but to what end Reuben and the others do not know.

The Forge of God has a seemingly endless line of discoveries and it's nearly impossible to write a synopsis in only a few paragraphs. The mystery of the missing moon is compounded, but not explained until the end, with more and more mysteries which taken on different forms. The scientists are confused, the country is confused, the world is confused--this leaves the reader with a massive connect-the-dot puzzle with which to draw your own picture. Even reading this book six years later, I couldn't piece it all together and eventually found myself way off tangent... the plethora of possibilities Bear has constructed in this book is massive.

But it's just not about the end of the world or the alien invasion. These topics have been nearly run into the ground prior to 1987 (with a welcome resurgence of apocalyptic novels of recent), so Bear does three things which I found very clever:

(1) ...the endless amount of reader speculation brought upon by alien subterfuge. Most novels would simply take a linear shot at the plot, involving the a handful of twists and a half dozen characters with a predictable trope and call it a novel. Bear has the reader backtracking time and time again to remember how all the pieces fall into place; each new discovery has the reader fitting the new piece into their mental construction of what Bear is trying to accomplish.

(2) ...the inclusion of a rather mundane, unimportant cast. The geologists who discover the cinder cone and the alien become under government quarantine. Their personal struggles with isolation is captured, as is their coping with life after their release. But the best part of this inclusion is their salt-of-the-earth demeanor, their bond of friendship, and how they each react to the news of the end of the world and the actual end itself.

(3) ...the abundance of characters used. Blessedly, I read this book in less than three days so I wasn't overwhelmed with the resurfacing of the random cast throughout... but a "dramatic personae" would have been helpful with science fiction authors (tipping the hat to Niven), scientists, government bureaucrats, children, townspeople, cultists, and average Joes. It's a dynamic presentation with the leading cast highlighting Bear's ability to characterize human being on the pages.

Lastly, there are 74 chapters plus in intro and an outro, which are headed under nine headings. These headings are in Latin and, being no Latin scholar, I had to search for the translation, but the form seems to be a requiem for the dying earth. A nice addition but totally lost on me until I Googled each heading. The conclusion sent shivers up my spine when I first read it and the same sensation was felt when I read it again. It's a haunting read when you know there's a sequel: Anvil of Stars.  

1990: Heads (Bear, Greg)

Chilly Lunar politics amidst a cryogenic quest (4/5)
From December 13, 2010

Having read ALL (I repeat, ALL) of Bear's science fiction library to date, Heads is the last book which I have gotten a hold of. Though published in 1990, it has a certain nostalgic theme of 1970s cryogenics (like lasers and elementals in Psyclone [1978]) and a very progressive plot drive (like Blood Music [1985]). Prior to 1990, Bear produced great early space opera with The Forge of God (1987) and two books of The Way series: Eon (1985) and Eternity (1988). With all the far-flung science fiction being flown around the pages of his novels, I can easily see Bear writing some retro sci-fi when he published Heads in 1990, soon after releasing some operatic science fiction; hence coming to a more central modern-ish science theme.

Rear cover synopsis:
" Absolute zero. The universal ultimate. No one has ever found it. Yet two hundred years in the future, among the families making up the population of the Moon, William Pierce is almost there... In the dark void of the Ice Pit the frozen Heads are ready to yield their secrets... In the Quiet..."

In the year 2010, post-Boolean three-state logic technology ushers in further quantum logic technology in the seventh decade, which allows the scientists of the lunar Sandoval-Rice communal consortium in the year 2174, or so, to comprehend the data coming from the absolute zero experiment. This collective scientific refrigeration allows for another family member the constitutional right to allow a shipment of "corpsicles" (or frozen heads) to be shipped back to the lunar colony. From this shipment are the heads of the two founding parents of the colony- the current day great-grandmother and father. This acquisition of frozen skulls, including three unknowns, which might be able to be read with other technologies held my other lunar families, stirs up the fury of a religious lunar colony. Thus begins the political debate and silent battle which will embroil the best minds on the moon.

Heads starts with a bang, roping in the reader with Triple politics (Mars, Luna and Earth), the quest for absolute zero and the acquisition of the cryogenic heads. The initial one-sixth of the book is a solid lead-in to a prospective greater scope of things to come. However, much of this lead-up is lent to the bubbling cauldron of changing Lunar politics, where "politics aside" takes precedence in lunar communal relations. "Politics aside" does not, paradoxically, take priority in this book. The Triple politics takes up a fair chunk of the remaining five-sixths of a plot but the ramifications of the outcome are substantial to the Lunar communal families. The recently-founded religion of Logologists and early-founder K.D. Tierry takes a number of anti-religious hits from the scientific Sandoval-Rice collective, taking one-on-one the religious Task-Felder collective. It gets a fair bit testy at times, especially when the held beliefs are at serious stake. The book reads much like this paragraph: laden with scientific processes, scientific labels, acronyms, and come-and-go characters.

It is a fairly short read being a 110-page novella, but it is well worth the read for a Bear fan. The general feel of the book is obviously pro-science and anti-religion. There is also  an obvious underlaying foundation of foreshadowing two-thirds of the way through, which any experienced reader can grasp when characters are forced to act this way or forced to coerce in order to escape.