Summary_of__Blood_Music

My science fiction novel is Blood Music by Greg Bear. It has themes including biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence. It was first published as a short story in 1983, and won the Nebula Award in 1983 for best novelette and the Hugo Award in 1984 for the same category. Mr. Bear later published an expanded version in 1985. The completed novel was nominated for the Nebula Award in 1985 and for the Hugo, Campbell, and British Science Fiction Awards in 1986. The story begins when a biotechnologist named Vergil Ulam accidentally creates intelligent germs. They think on their own. This disturbing fact causes Vergil’s boss to command Vergil to destroy his research. Vergil doesn’t destroy the “noocytes” (as he calls them), and is fired. He still doesn’t want to destroy his brilliant creation, so he hastily decides to smuggle his work out of the lab by injecting the noocytes into his body. Once the germs are in, they immediately begin improvement projects on Vergil’s body. Before the noocytes, he was nearsighted, unattractive, and irritable. They changed all that. The noocytes multiply and adapt quickly, altering their own genetics and becoming aware of themselves, as well as everything around them. One of Vergil’s friends finds out and tests him for everything. None of the hospital machines can identify the disease. He becomes frightened by the noocytes’ intelligence and ends up killing Vergil in an attempt to destroy the germs. However, the germs survive and the germs spread from Vergil’s apartment throughout North America. Humans and noocytes will not survive together. I was able to endure this book because it was based around an interesting idea. But the concept of intelligent germs taking over humans isn’t very original. I also dislike Greg Bear’s writings style. It’s confusing. In some parts, it feels like he skips important details. He probably could have cut the book down to a third of its original length.