Synopses & Reviews
In the sixth decade of the 21st century, the world has been transformed. Nanotechnology has been perfected, giving humans the ability to change their environment and themselves on the cellular level. And the study of the mind has brought about a revolution in both human psychotherapy and artificial intelligence.
Its a sane and perfect world. Almost.
A man called Jack Giffey is planning to break into the Omphalos, the most secure building in all of separatist Green Idaho. Rumor says that the Omphalos houses the not-quite-dead, the very wealthy deceased who are still alive, their brains connected directly into Thinkers, Artificial Intelligences that provide a virtual reality. Data is the great treasure of the new millenium, and Giffey plans to tap into the Omphalos datastream, to steal the knowledge gathered by the inhabitants of the Omphalos.
In the offices of Mind Design, Inc., the most advanced Artificial Intelligence in the world has had a unique experience. She has received a request for contact from a new AI, one she does not know and did not help to design. Jill has never met a stranger of her own kind before; is it an alien Thinker, or the offspring of some vast conspiracy?
Slant is set in Bears Queen of Angels universe, and is one of the great SF novels of the 1990s.
Review
"This dense and tense novel...shows that Bear is one of our very best, and most innovative, speculative writers." --
New York Daily News"Seattle's reigning master of hard-edged science fiction takes a chilling look at the plausible near-future." --Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"Bear, who's won two Hugos and four Nebulas, should rack up nominations if not wins for this one as well." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Synopsis
In the sixth decade of the twenty-first century, Earth has been transformed. Nanotechnology has been perfected, giving humans the ability to change their environment and themselves down to the cellular level. And the study of the mind has brought a revolution in human psychotherapy and artificial intelligence.
It's a sane and perfect world. Almost.
About the Author
Greg Bear sold his first short story, at the age of fifteen, to Robert Lowndes's
Famous Science Fiction. Since then, he has written some twenty novels. A winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, Bear is married to Astrid Anderson, and they, and their two children, live near Seattle, Washington.