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Summary
Summary
An epic interstellar tale of war from a master of science fiction.
One more tour on the red. Maybe my last.
They made their presence on Earth known thirteen years ago.
Providing technology and scientific insights far beyond what mankind was capable of. They became indispensable advisors and promised even more gifts that we just couldn't pass up. We called them Gurus.
It took them a while to drop the other shoe. You can see why, looking back.
It was a very big shoe, completely slathered in crap.
They had been hounded by mortal enemies from sun to sun, planet to planet, and were now stretched thin -- and they needed our help.
And so our first bill came due. Skyrines like me were volunteered to pay the price. As always.
These enemies were already inside our solar system and were moving to establish a beachhead, but not on Earth.
On Mars.
Author Notes
Greg Bear was born in San Diego, California, on August 20, 1951. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Diego State University in 1973. At age 14, he began submitting pieces to magazines and at 15 he sold his first story to Robert Lowndes' Famous Science Fiction. It would be five years before he sold another piece, but by 23 he was selling stories regularly.
He wrote more than 30 science fiction and fantasy books and has won numerous awards for his work. In 1984, Hardfought and Blood Music won the Nebula Awards for best novella and novelette; Blood Music went on to win the Hugo Award. The novel version of that story, also called Blood Music, won the Prix Apollo in France. In 1987, Tangents won the Hugo and Nebula awards for best short story. He also won a Nebula in 1994 for Moving Mars and in 2001 for Darwin's Radio. Both Dinosaur Summer and Darwin's Radio have been awarded the Endeavour for best novel published by a Northwest science fiction author.
He is also an illustrator, and his work has appeared in Galaxy, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Vertex, and in both hardcover and paperback books. He was a founding member of ASFA, the Association of Science Fiction Artists.
His works include City at the End of Time, Hull Zero Three, The Mongoliad, Mariposa, Halo: Cryptum, Halo: Primordium and Halo: Silentium. His most recent works included Take back the Sky, and The Unfinished Land, published in February 2021.
Greg Bear died on November 19, 2022, from a series of strokes, caused by clots. His wife, Astrid, was by his side. He was 71.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Stuffed with adrenaline-pumping action and mystifying ambiguity, Bear's series launch is a tempest of rousing SF adventure with a dash of Peckinpah. On a near-future Earth, the alien Gurus have shared technological advances in exchange for military aid in combating the Antags, who have pursued them as far as Mars. Sgt. Michael Venn and his squad of high-tech Skyrines are sent in on a vaguely defined, shoddily planned mission, which has them dodging poison darts and falling comets until they are stranded, wounded, and running out of air. Rescued by a splendidly terse settler, they seek cover in what at first appears to be an abandoned mining operation, but soon the labyrinth, called the Drifter, emerges as the motive to the conflict itself. Eerily and often gloriously explored but scarcely explained, the Drifter is a bonanza of seemingly unlimited resources that both the Gurus and the Antags are inexplicably seeking to destroy. A psychedelic mind-meld with the structure itself adds a layer of complex mystery, but a dead-stop ending leaves Venn and Bear's readers to impatiently await word of what it was all about. Agent: Richard Curtis, Richard Curtis Associates. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
First of a new science-fiction trilogy from the author of Halo: Silentium (2013, etc.). In the not-too-distant future, interstellar aliens known as the Gurus arrive on Earth and make humanity an offer it cannot refuse: tremendously advanced technology. There's a catch, of course. The Gurus have enemies of their own, the Antagonists, and would like help to fight them. So Earth creates a new combat force, "skyrines," marines who can fight in space or on planets such as Mars, where, it turns out, the "Antags" have already established a beachhead. Veteran skyrine Master Sgt. Michael Venn prepares with his troops for another drop onto the dusty Martian surface, their mission curiously ill-defined. Attacked immediately as he drops, Venn finds himself stranded on the ground with a handful of companions, no backup, no communications or prospect of relief and rapidly running out of air. Fortunately, they're rescued by Teal, a settler, or "Muskie" (named after Elon Musk), and conveyed to a secret Muskie base, the Drifter, where things rapidly get weirder. A bunch of belligerent, racist Voors (also settlers) show up in pursuit of Teal, followed by a platoon of female skyrine special operations troopers, all with their own secret agendas. Meanwhile, in flash-forwards (so we know Venn doesn't dieat least, not yet), a mystifyingly transformed Venn has returned to Earth, where he waits for the mysterious "Joe" to contact him. Packed with adventure and incident, though remarkably little actual combat, and conveyed with gritty realism via characters that have personalities, Bear's first-person narrative builds to a satisfying order of complexity, one he's rarely shown since his earliest days, though readers hoping for one more step upsuch as a military backlash or a splash of social acidwill be thwarted.An intriguing story, but fiction at this high a level deserves just a little more. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Master Sgt. Michael Venn is back from the battlefields of Mars. Skyrines like Venn had been sent from Earth to the red planet because visiting aliens called Gurus, who gave humans technological advances, had promised more in exchange for our help fighting an enemy who has taken up a proverbial beachhead on Mars. Venn will have to deal with rogue separatist colonists and fellow soldiers with mysterious orders on top of dealing with an opponent known only as the Antagonists. VERDICT There are things to like here, such as the tense setup of Venn returning with a story that he slowly unspools to a woman back on Earth, some excellent military action, and marine camaraderie. But as the narrative finally picks up speed, it also loses coherence, and Bear (Darwin's Radio; Hull Three Zero) chose to have his Martian colonists speak in a thick, made-up dialect that wears out its welcome fast. (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.