SOJALS rating:

Awful (1/5)

I first read this in October 1992 and most recently on the 6th December 2002

On the Moon, William is searching for absolute zero with the aid of a Quantum Logic artificial intelligence and a cave full of very expensive equipment. He doesn't know what will happen when he manages to cool a small amount of matter to zero degrees, but he's sure it'll be interesting.

Meanwhile his wife, Rhosalind, has made the interesting purchase of five hundred frozen human heads and shipped them up from earth. She wants to scan their brains and reply their last memories of life.

Meanwhile our protagonist Mickey, brother of Rhosalind, involved unwilling, initially puts his foot in what turn out to be sensitive political negotiations. Soon however, he becomes aware of the dangerous political ramifications and indeed slowly becomes an adult [normally achieved by casting away one's childish innocence].

This is a surprisingly slim novel from Greg Bear, telling its tale in an old-fashioned style.

I enjoyed reading it but it's a bodge: two disparate threads hacked together. The threads don't gel. There are two stories waiting to be told, and no reason for them to be combined. As to whether the two stories would be better separately, I've no idea, but their merger is not successful.