Book description
Ring, ring. You're dead.
We were all there in that city that draws its paycheck from the
manufacture of ghosts, itself made of ghosts: Los Angeles. We were there
when one man started handing out free talk. And we are there now, sad
little dolls made of dust…
Peter Russell lost a daughter to a serial killer. His marriage was the
next casualty. Now he gets by as Mr Fixit for a film millionaire with a
young wife on a big Hollywood estate infamous for its association with a
historical scandal. The millionaire invests in a new kind of phone, the
Trans. The problem with the Trans is that not only can you talk to your
friends on it, you can also talk to the dead - though that wasn't part
of the design spec.
The Trans accesses forbidden channels. It has disrupted the exit
routines of the recently dead to wherever they should have gone. At
first, Russell is only haunted by his dead daughter. Now there are
phantoms everywhere. Many are ghosts of the living, people with nothing
inside them, called wraiths.
A cascade of transgression and murder is unleashed as sales of the
Trans take off. Harried near to death himself by his murdered child,
Russell must find out who killed her and find a way to put an end to it
all, if it kills him. 'Praise for Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children
A gripping evolutionary thriller that combines cutting-edge science
with a compelling storyline. It's a novel that stretches the envelope of
known science - which is exactly what science fiction should do' P. D.
Smith Guardian
'Bear's ability to tell a good story is surpassed only by his
enthusasiam for the advancing edge of molecular biology … he might just
be anticipating the next giant leap in our understanding of evolution
and ourselves' Nature
'GREG BEAR develops his characters extremely well, and there is plenty
of action, too, in Darwin's Children … Bear is very good at blending
hard science, politics and fiction, and this is one of his strongest
novels yet. Convincing, and at times depressing, it tackles the
difficult question of whether a government gripped by prejudice and fear
can be prevented from wiping out its perceived enemies' New Scientist
Greg Bear was born in 1951 and published his first short story sixteen
years later. His first novel was published in 1979, and his most famous
novels, Blood Music and Eon, emerged during the eighties and have now
become established classics.
