Vitals

By Greg Bear

Scientist Hal Cousins is close to discovering the key to immortality but someone has already found it and will kill him to keep it secret. Vitals is a tense technothriller in the best Michael Crichton tradition.

A mile and a half below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, scientist Hal Cousins, frightened of the dark and no friend of God, is looking for the fountain of youth. The Nobel Prize doesn't interest him. Hal is in longevity research for the long haul, the really long haul. 'Angels' (rich businessmen keen to live a thousand years) fund him. Hal finds what he is searching for: xenos, the single-celled tramps of the sea floor, each one as big as a clenched fist. But then the pilot of his sub goes berserk. Hal barely survives; the xenos don't. The pilot kills himself. Five other scientists in related fields die violently in the space of a week. Hal discovers a trail of death stretching back over decades, from Stalin's Russia to present-day Manhattan. Another epidemic of murder by superbly trained killers has been triggered by what Hal nearly discovered…

From the bottom of Russia’s Lake Baikal to a billionaire’s bionic house built into the cliffs of the Californian seashore, from the darkest days of the reign of Joseph Stalin in Russia to the capitalist free-for-all of modern America, the edge of immortality is the most dangerous place to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Jul 8, 2010
• ISBN: 9780007321858

Greg Bear

Greg Bear was born in San Diego, California. His father was in the US Navy, and by the time he was twelve years old, Greg had lived in Japan, the Philippines, Alaska – where at the age of ten he completed his first short story – and various other parts of the US. He published his first science fiction story aged sixteen. His novels and stories have won prizes and been translated around the world.

Reviews for Vitals

[pdcread · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Near future SF with a complex biological plot. Not one of my favourites of his

[carl_alves_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Vitals sets itself up as a novel about a scientist researching how to extend life through the use of certain bacteria, which is an interesting enough premise. Unfortunately, the book turned out to be a complete and utter mess, disappointing in so many ways. Hal Cousins is a scientist who seeks the favor of the super wealthy to fund his projects but things go haywire after his twin brother is murdered and his life begins to crumble around him. Ultimately the story becomes about this ancient scientist who was around in pre World War 2 Soviet Union and discovered bacteria that can mysteriously brainwash people and put them under his control. At least that’s what I think it was about, since it was so all over the place that I’m not even sure.This novel is so utterly convoluted and hard to follow. It was almost as if the author was intentionally trying to confuse the reader, and after a while it caused me to lose interest. There is absolutely not a shred of believability to the novel. The premise is neat but the mechanics of the plot is groan inducing. The characterization in the novel is weak. There were loose plot points that were never resolved. It was solid for about the first quarter of the book before it became dreadful to read. I kept holding out hope that this novel would right itself and get better but that never came to fruition, and toward the end I just wanted it to be over. This was the first and last book by Greg Bear that I will read.Carl Alves - author of Reconquest: Mother Earth

[gregandlarry · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good story with some interesting concepts.

[sonicquack · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've been a fan of Bear for a while, but Quantico failed to engage me, and unfortunately Vitals left me cold about half way through. It's a conspiracy theory based around a scientist's search for immortality, as a result of modifying bacteria in the body. It starts early, with shock after shock, building credibility with Bear's usual factual and informed approach to fiction. However, midway the story starts to rotate the central character, and although this is a vehicle to accelerate the plot and offer anther angle, it created a disjointed approach. As the end approached I had lost interest in the actual characters, although I was still intrigued enough regards the actual story to continue until the finale.

[harroldsheep · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Reading Vitals, Greg Bear's dark, suspenseful, paranoid thriller of high-tech bioterrorism, would be terrifying even without real-world anthrax attacks. But the news stories of late 2001 add layers of resonance to the book.You'd think the secret of eternal life would be an eagerly awaited boon to humanity. Yet when cutting-edge researcher Hal Cousins travels deep below the ocean's surface in a two-man submersible, seeking primitive lifeforms that may hold the key to immortality, his pilot attacks him. Barely surviving, Hal maneuvers the sub to the surface--and finds a fellow scientist has shot up his research ship. Then his lab is destroyed, his twin brother leaves a mysterious message saying they're both being pursued by an unknown force, and his sister-in-law calls to tell him his twin, who is also researching life extension, has been murdered. Someone or something has already discovered the secret of eternal life. It has immense power and influence, and it will stop at nothing to protect its secret. --Cynthia Ward