Tangents (collected short stories)

Author: Greg Bear
Genre: Sci Fi (mostly)

Tangents is a book of short stories, all written by Greg Bear over a period of 20 odd years. It has 10 stories in all and they are mostly all straight forward science fiction. A few divert into more fantastic or mysterious relms but all are Bear in his element. Each story is reviewed, or at least commented on below; but remember these are short stories, so the criteria for a great story differs a fair bit from a novel. Anyhow, read on...

Blood Music is one of Bears most famous works. It was his first story to make it big and has since been adapted into a full length novel and reprinted numerous times. In the enlightening forward to Tangents Bear explains that he wrote Blood Music right after reading an article in “New Scientist” magazine about the possible biological applications of nanotechnology. Although the information is, I’m sure, dated; to the uninformed plebe like me it read extremely plausibly.

The story is about a geneticist who after making some startling breakthroughs in nonotech goes a step too far in his Godlike pursuits. The company he works for finds out, looses it, and fires him after trying to destroy his work. So in a final desperate act his machines he injects them into his own bloodstream. Strange and wonderful changes begin to happen to our protagonist; but ultimately a grim and deadly future awaits.

Bear paints a chilling picture of the dangers of playing God and its no wonder that this story won the Hugo Award or that it’s the first story collected here. A gripping story with a thought provoking finale.

Sleepside Story is, as Bear puts it, an urban Fairy Tale. It is actually very interesting as it differs so greatly from what we’re used to from Bear, but ultimately the story is too convoluted for it’s own good. The story revolves around a boy named Oliver who lives in a very strange city. There are quadrants to the town (Sleepside, Sunside, Darkside, and Snowside). Each quadrant holds a distinct populous and class. Oliver is a Sleepside boy, who through a series of magical events becomes trapped in a Sunside life, prisoner of an elderly woman of ill repute. The story is very similar actually to Beauty and the Beast. But the magic is very strange, and the story too short for proper explanations. It wasn’t that I felt I didn’t understand what was happening, I just didn’t really get why this world was the way it was. I felt kind of ripped off reading this story, but honestly wasn’t interested enough to care too much.

First off I should say that Webster is not the kind of story I usually like. It’s meant to be introspective and revealing, but I just found it silly. The story is about a sad, pathetic, shut in woman named Regina. She has no friends, has never had a lover, and is depressing in every sense of the word. She loves to read her bible and her dictionary, and that’s all, that’s her sad little life. Anyhow, in the story she somehow, magically creates a man from her dictionary, and names him Webster. The only redeeming moment in the story occurs when Webster points out to her how pathetic she is. Sorry, to be so annoyed, but I really don’t like reading about people who live miserable lives of their own design. Thankfully the story is only 10 pages long.

This story was written early on in Bear's career and it kind of feels like it. That’s not to say its bad by any means, it just has a hint of an amateur quality to it that Bear doesn’t appear in Bears other work. Regardless, the story is a pretty good one. Here, we learn the fate of three astronauts on the first manned Mars mission. To their surprise they find Mars is in fact inhabited, we just never knew how to look for the Martian creatures; who were on the verge of extinction anyhow. Now a new species is rapidly taking over the refuse of the old civilization and although their intelligence is questionable, the danger from them is very real. Our crew must decide the best way to deal with this threat and try to escape while they can. The story comes together nicely st the end and is wholly entertaining. Good fun.

Dead Run is definitely my favorite story in Tangents. It is no wonder it was turned into an episode of “The Twilight Zone”, a few years ago. It starts off with a great line: “There aren’t many hitchhikers on the road to Hell.” And goes from there. We meet John, a trucker who after a series of bad luck ends up driving the damned from Earth to Hell. He tries to treat this as any other job, but of course it isn’t. Why are these people damned, what’s really going on in Hell and why are things starting to fall apart? John is faced with a series of difficult decisions and he learns some provocative truths about life and death. Bear has woven a rich and vibrant world for us here. John’s life is complex and his problems are big. I really liked the ending to the story and would definitely recommend this for anyone who likes creepy, supernatural stories.

This is a bit of a weird story. Bear implies in his forward that it may be a bit of a favorite with Physicists. This story plays with the theory that if you look at the outcome a totally random chance occurrence and suspend completely your knowledge of what happens. It physically won’t happen until you look. I’m not actually explaining it well, but it’s all about a possibly dead cat in a box. Forget it. It’s a good story anyways. Not great, and fairly technical in nature but I did enjoy the suspense involved. Sweet and simple, a solid short story.

This very short story (5 or 6 pages at most) tells the tale of two German SS officers lost in the countryside on their vacation in France. Yup, the Nazis are on holiday. Lost these two intrepid travelers approach a possibly abandoned house to inquire about directions. And what do they find? Well, I don't want to spoil it for you. This is a fun little read. Nothing too deep, and the premise is fairly intriguing. Not bad overall, it could probably be developed into something more.

Tangents, the title story of this anthology explores the 4th dimension in great depth. It asks us what would our world look like if you could see into the fourth dimension. Just like what would our world look like to someone living in a 2 dimensional world. It's a pretty interesting idea, but not enough to keep me going for all that long. This story is just about the length of my patience for such exposition. And while the story of a professor and an insightful young Korean boy is cute, it never really develops into anything engrossing. I liked Tangents, but it doesn't deserve the title spot of the anthology.

Sisters is one of the best thought out stories in this book. Bear explains in his introduction that this is merely the precursor or a rudimentary examination of ideas he will be exploring in an upcoming book. It tells the story of a distraught young woman upset with her parents and the world around her. Because she is different, the twist from the everyday slice of life story? Well, this particular girl feels ostracized because she hasn't been genetically engineered like all of her peers. She isn't a super genius, she isn't fantastically beautiful, she is plain.

The girl, Letitia, must learn to overcome her self loathing, she must learn to accept who she is and the world around her. This is a wonderful coming of age story, that gives an insightful look into that all too common teenage emotions of angst and loneliness. Bear is at his finest here as this is by far the most mature story in the book and a wonderful read.

This isn't actually a story, or at least it isn't fiction. This is an articles Bear wrote for Omni magazine in the 80s. It exposes on the wonders of cutting edge (1987) technology in the feild of computer graphics. It's pretty interesting, but is obviously dated. I think Bear just had a good time writing it, the last few pages are a nice little daydream about the possible future of technology. A well written and obviously well researched article, it's a shame Omni never published it. I don't really feel right rating a non-fiction magazine article, it was a good read, but seriously out of date.