- Title:
- Slant
- Author:
- Publisher:
- Tom Doherty Associates, NY, 1997
- ISBN
- 0-312-85517-6
I've got to get one thing off my chest first off. I loved reading this book! Bear's sequel to Queen of Angels as a suspenseful action thriller is nothing less than masterful. As a technophilic science fiction story it succeeds admirably. And the story is told in Bear's powerful style, submersing the reader in a future that holds immense promise, as well as horrifying risk.
As the earlier novel, Slant concerns itself with the possible consequences of some fantastic seeming futuristic technology. Where the science fiction from sixty years ago imagined traveling to the stars using some kind of faster-than- light space drive, the technology contemplated in the technophile science fiction of today is more directed at an inner space: nano technology. Of course, there's as yet nothing to indicate that the dream of imitating nature's designs of replicating molecules to this extent will ever become practical. But this does not stop the likes of Bear from dreaming up a world where nano technology has become reality.
The popularity of this idea has gotten to the point where many writers of technophile science fiction include some version of nano technology in their stories. Goonan in Queen City Jazz. Williams in Aristoi. Nano technology is the new philosopher's stone, as indispensable to a vision of the future as are artificial intelligence and virtual reality.
The promises touted for nano technology are almost limitless. Buildings, grown as if from seed. Machines, reaching the most extreme limits of efficiency allowed by the laws of nature. Medical technology, making life bearable for millions, who otherwise would succumb to stress or disease. It is a genie, capable of granting almost any imaginable wish.
Greg Bear wants us to consider such a world. This world isn't perfect by any means - compare this vision to Walter Jon Williams's Aristoi. There are greedy people who exploit others. Extensive laws are in place to protect individuals against the intrusive and coercive powers of government and technology. And out of this melange of humanity arises the insidious threat posed by the power of nano technology.
If most people welcome the crutches of technology to ease their lives, there have always been those who consider the use of any form of technology a corrupting influence - mainly because such use seems to allow the existence of weakness. In Slant a group of people called the "Aristos" fall victim to this pseudo-Darwinian fallacy and decide that humanity relies too much on mental therapies mediated by nano technology. Using the same nano technology they devise a man-made disease that will destroy the microscopic diagnostic monitors which make effective therapy possible.
Bear gives the reader an inkling of the sweeping threat of this conspiracy. At the same time, the story revolves around the very human participants in the drama. Bear weaves several threads together, until the finished tapestry presents the reader with not only the end of an intimate story, but also the beginning of another.
In the end, the reader is left to contemplate Bear's view of technology as a tool that can be abused. Contrast this with Williams, who happily seems to acquiesce to the rule of the philosopher kings empowered by technology, in Aristoi. Bear, who uses the word as the name for his group of conspirators, seems to see Williams's utopian vision as unrealistic. The Aristos in Slant are megalomaniacal fools who gained their positions of privilege mainly through luck.
Bear's style is consistent throughout. He sets his narrative in the present tense, which creates a sense of immediacy. Each thread that he follows is seen only through the eyes of that thread's main character. Where the threads cross, Bear takes care to maintain separation. If this were a film, then the critics would praise the eye of the director. Bear's scene setting work is sparse, but he manages to transmit an impressionistic picture of his future that covers the canvas of the imagination nicely.
Bear's book is well worth the time to read it. And that is no surprise.