A Warner Communcahons Company Copyright © 1989 by Greg Bear All rights reserved. Warner Books, Inc., 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10103 OA Warner Communications Contpany Printed in the United States of America First Pnnting: August 1989 1098765432 I Library of Congress Cataloging-m-Publication Data Bear, Greg, 1951- Taugents / Greg Bear. p. crli. ISBN 0-446-51401-2 I. Title. 88-40597 PS3552.EI57T3 1989 CIP 813'.54--4c20 Book Design by Nick Mazzella ACKNOWLEDGMENTS "Blood Music" appeared in ANALOG. Copyright © 1983 by Oreg Bear. "Sleepside Story" was originally published by Cheap Street Press in a limited edition in 1988. Copyright © 1988 by Greg Bear. "Webster" appeared in ALTERNITIES, edited by David Gerrold. Copyright © 1973 by Greg Bear. "A Martian Ricorso" appeared in ANALOG. Copyright © 1976 by Greg Bear. "Dead Run" appeared in OMNI. Copyright © 1985 by Greg Bear. Schrodmger s Plague" appeared in ANALOG. Copyright 1982 by Greg Bear. "Through Road No Whither" appeared in FAR FRONTIERS, edited by Jerry Poumelle and Jim Baen. Copyright © 1985 by Greg Bear. "Tangents" appeared in OMNI. Copyright © 1986 by Greg Bear. "Sisters" appears in this anthology for the first time. Copyright © 1989 by Greg Bear. "The Machineries of Joy" was first published by the Nesfa Press in EARLY HARVEST Copyright © 1987 by Greg Bear. This book is for Erik More wonderful by far than anything contained herein. CONTENTS Introduction · 3 Blood Music · 11 Sleepside Story · 45 Webster · 101 A Martian Ricorso · 121 Dead Run · 145 Schr(Sdinger's Plague · 181 Through Road No Whither · 195 Tangents · 203 Sisters · 227 Introduction to "The Machineries of Ja The Machineries of Joy · 270 ,y" · 269 INTRODUCTION W at is so fascinating about science fiction? Why o so many feel an attraction to its subjects, and a persistent few continue to think of it as (on the whole) worthless garbage? The answer, I think, lies in a basic American dichotomy. America has always been a land set firmly not in the past, but in the future. On a recent visit to England, I found dozens of wonderful bookstores chock full of the past--ancient history, rooms full of it, and great literature in such monumental stacks as to be overwhelming. In the usual American bookstore, history might occupy a few bookcases; gte.at literature has its honored place, but this year's paperbacks dominate. The past is TANGENTS not disregarded, but neither does it loom so large and run so deep in our blood. America is suspended in a continuous grand jetg into the future. People who live in the future have different sophistications than those who are ever looking backward. But many Americans seem to feel this is a disordered way of living and thinking. They yearn for the relatively unchanging pleasures of history, of stories familiar and well told, of nuance over broad sweep; they yearn for an investigation of the problems of the past, still far from solved, but at least giving the appearance of being solvable. For many, the future is much more frightful than the past. The future is not only filled with problems; the problems cannot be solved because most of them are unknown. The future is not a well-thumbed leather-bound book read before a cozy glowing fireplace. The wisdom of the past tells us that bad things are bound to happen, and our newly acquired powers point to bad things becoming worse. Optimism is a difficult frame of mind when one reads history. Some Americans pretend that nothing will change, then, or that the best has already been, and what's to come is best ignored, if only out of politeness. This condition is not unknown elsewhere; but in America, among people so afflicted, the severity is even more pronounced. Having so little past-- only a few centuries, as opposed to thousands of years--a few Americans cling to what there is, and in their provincial reactionism outdo the citizens of nations with millennia behind them. But for those many who embrace the future, who feel--however naively--that there might be wonder and greatness there, a literature has arisen at once young and full o[ energy, brash and often unsophisticated, commercial and designed to appeal to a broad if discerning public. For decades now, we have dwelled in a ghetto largely of 4 Introduction our own making. But the walls have been reinforced from the outside by a dwindling yet still influential intellectual elite for whom the forms and subjects of the past are all that can be discussed. Science fiction writers have blithely skipped on, retaining their essential childlike character, but at the same time displaying a remarkable ability to entertain those very people who are making the future. Engineers. Scientists. Computer programmers and designers. Astronauts and the men and women who build their rockets. Motion picture directors. Dreamers for whom the past, however interesting, is a kind of prison from which we must all break free. Revolutionaries. Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, imagined a republic, and it came to be. Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, imagined a space program, and it came to be. Writers today envision hundreds of futures a year, thousands a decade, of which most are playful, for the sake of an evening's thoughtful entertainment; and a few are more than that, are serious extrapolations to be seriously and soberly considered. Science fiction has now grown far beyond its ghetto walls. It has supplied names for history books, clich6s for television advertising, shapes for architecture. The extremes of science cross-fertilize with the imagined technologies of SE It has enraged, shaped, and enlivened world literature. It is truly international, and becoming more so year by year. But why do I write science fiction? Instinct, I suppose. I began writing it when I was eight, after thinking and drawing and telling stories to friends. After seeing a Ray Harryhausen monster from Venus eat sulphur and almost eat Rome. That monster gave me nightmares, and I knew where my particular future lay. I glued myself on to various writers, starting out with the Tom Swift, Jr., adventure novels and moving on to Edgar Rice Burroughs and then to 5 TANGENTS Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, and through Clarke to Olaf Stapledon, and through Ray Bradbury to Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas Wolfe and Nikos Kazantzakis, and through James Blish to James Joyce, and through Robert Silverberg to Joseph Conrad, spreading out roots, always adhering to the path of science fiction until in my growth I peeped beyond the branching pathways and saw the wonders of the past mixing with the future. I suppose this all sounds a little breathless, a little naive. So be it. I do not willingly give up my past, for in it are visions of the future that I continue to cherish, however crude and inadequate. They come to me from men who cared, men with genuine vision. I will not cut myself loose from them simply to be pasted with the label of sophistication. So here's my challenge. We're big now. Grown-up. Almost mature. Judge all of science fiction by your most knowing, discerning mental yardstick: you'll inch and foot and yard (and oh, yes, tneler) yourself past authors who can satisfy most of your demands and requirements. There are great books being written. We're in the middle of a literary revolution. But this is not a vicious historical tragedy of a revolution; it is a joyous celebration. We celebrate what we fear, as well as what we desire. Science fiction writers, and writers of that all-inclusive category, fantasy, adore strong emotions. Fear. Love. Revulsion. Obsession. I classify sense of wonder as a strong emotion. The modem scientific equivalent of epiphany is what I call the "intellectual high," when a revelation has been handed down so magnificent, so mind-expanding, that exaltation is the only reasonable response. Science fiction, then, sometimes has the trappings of a modem religion--a cult religion for the skeptical, for the unfettered thinker. Introduction It has enthusiasm. All this appealed to me when I very young, and it still does. The stories in this book range from the beginning of my career to the present, and cover a broad variety; that's the way I like it. While my greatest success has been with large, sprawling science fiction novels of the type loosely described as "hard," I'm fond of short stories, and of fantasy and magic realism. Perhaps the most famous story collected here is "Blood Music," first published in 1983. The idea occurred to me within ten minutes of reading an article in New Scientist on biochips, theoretical organic computers that might be as small as a single cell. Even before the story won its share of awards, I realized that it needed expansion, and was working on a novel-length version of the same name. The novel departs substantially from the short story. Both have been reprinted and translated all over the world; I remain a faithful reader of New Scientist. I'm very fond of "Sleepside Story," perhaps because it differs so greatly from most of my writing. Quite often, between my science fiction novels, I feel the urge to explore a different territory, something I've never done before... In this case, an urban fairy tale. "Dead Run," another fantasy, was turned into a Twilight Zone television episode, brilliantly scripted by Alan Brennert. Because Alan and I are good friends, a rare opportunity arose. For a period of several weeks, Alan called me with updates on his script, advising me on the limitations he had to work around and the changes necessary for filming.