Subject: Review: QUEEN OF ANGELS (Spoilers)

From: [email-masked]
Date: 11 May 94 06:33:37 GMT

Book review by Norm Cook ([email-masked])

QUEEN OF ANGELS, by Greg Bear (Tor 1990)

QUEEN OF ANGELS is an extraordinary novel that succeeds on every level.  It
is at once a riveting tale of suspense and an exploration into the nature of
the mind, with plenty of thought provoking scientific extrapolation.

The time is December 2047, the eve of the binary millennium (100000000000 in
base 2).  This is a rather symbolic milestone, one borne of the computer age,
yet very appropriate in this context as one of the major subplots involves a
highly advanced robotic explorer, called AXIS, that has found life on planet
B-2 orbiting Alpha Centauri.  Whether or not the life on B-2 is intelligent
is a question that will change the way humans see themselves.  However, it is
the exploration of the artificial intelligence designed into AXIS by its
creator Roger Atkins that ultimately becomes the fulcrum for the events of
the principal narrative.

Eight students are found murdered in poet Emanuel Goldsmith's home.  Murder
itself has become unusual in this society and mass murder is almost unheard
of.  Almost everyone is Therapied to remove the mental instabilities that in
the past created so much violent conflict.  Some like Goldsmith are Naturals,
having never undergone Therapy, either because their innate personalities are
well balanced, or in the case of Goldsmith simply refusing to submit to a
perceived artificiality.

LAPD Inspector Mary Choy is assigned to the investigation.  Forensic evidence
proves Goldsmith did the killings, but he is nowhere to be found.  Choy's
mission becomes a quest to find Goldsmith before the Selectors do.  Selectors
are vigilantes who bring their own torturous brand of mental punishment to
those they feel have harmed society.  Choy's investigation ultimately takes
her to the island nation of Hispaniola (formerly Haiti) where she believes
Goldsmith will find refuge with its corrupt dictator.
Meanwhile, psychiatrist Dr. Martin Burke is hired by the father of one of the
murder victims to examine Goldsmith's mind in an attempt to determine his
motivation for the killings.  Burke is agreeable to this proposition because
his benefactor has the wealth and power to reopen Burke's clinic which had
been closed under a cloud of controversy with Burke himself disgraced as a
result of his unconventional experiments pioneering into what he refers to as
the Country of the Mind.

The other major character in this story is Richard Fettle, a Goldsmith
protege whose creativity takes a bizarre twist as a result of the murders. 
Fettle becomes obsessed with trying to understand Goldsmith's thinking, going
so far as writing a disturbing poem chronicling Goldsmith's actions and
motives during the killings.

The society depicted in QUEEN OF ANGELS has advanced itself quite remarkably
due to breakthroughs in nanotechnology, the science of building microscopic
machines.  It is nanotechnology which enables Mary Choy to become a Transform
with pure ebony skin and other more subtle changes to her body.  It is
nanotechnology that enables Martin Burke to access the innermost regions of
the Country of the Mind.  And it is nanotechnology that enables Roger Atkins
to design an artificial intelligence that can begin to question its own
destiny.

QUEEN OF ANGELS takes place less than sixty years from now and there are
plenty of speculations, particularly in regards to what nanotechnology will
produce.  The events and societal changes described are logical within the
given premises and are convincing within the context of those assumptions. 
Nevertheless, Bear never gives the impression that he is deliberately making
specific predictions about our near future.  The events are structured such
that the focus is on the difficult questions of what is self awareness and
what are the ethical implications thereof, not on the easier and less subtle
aspects of future life.  In other words, Bear does not fall into the trap
that David Brin did with EARTH; i.e., writing a foreseeably soon outdated
extrapolation of the future.  Whether or not nanotechnology comes to
fruition, QUEEN OF ANGELS will be a relevant novel for a long time to come
due to its theme of the exploration of the nature of sentience and the
allegorical reflections on various modes of thinking.