Celebrating the Best of Greg Bear's Speculative Fiction

Bear was a finalist for a Nebula Award for this suspenseful cyberpunk tale of biotechnology, the nature of reality, and the end of humanity as we know it. Biotechnologist Vergil Ulam is on the verge of a major breakthrough in the field of genetic engineering: the creation of microscopic biocomputers that can be injected into one’s bloodstream. Ulam’s employer, however, is wary of Ulam’s work and orders it destroyed. Instead, Ulam injects the biocomputers into himself. These noocytes soon multiply and evolve, constructing their own nanoscale civilization within Ulam’s body and altering his genetic makeup—before moving on and altering others.  

And they said it was just a story. In this alternate history narrative set in 1942, the hidden dinosaur realm discovered by Professor Challenger in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World is real—and sadly, exploited for commercial gain. News of the Amazon dino plateau leads to the proliferation of dinosaur circuses. 

But when the Lothar Gluck Circus goes bankrupt, Peter Belzoni and his father are tasked with documenting their journey to return the dinosaurs to the Lost World deep in Venezuela. Over the years, many have died trying to extract these prehistoric creatures from their habitats, but no one has tried to bring them back. The trek will be dauntless, straining temperaments and resources alike. And that doesn’t include the many robbers, soldiers, and mercenaries who would gladly take the dinosaurs off their hands. But when unforeseen circumstances threaten to strand the group in the lost, prehistoric realm, they will have to work together to overcome dangers, terrors, and mysteries they’ve never imagined in order to survive.

Just as Earth is on the brink of nuclear devastation, a 300-kilometer stone appeared in Earth’s orbit. An asteroid, but not like anything humans had ever seen. As various countries and agencies sent personnel to explore its surface, they discovered the remains of a civilization. From space, from the future … but not our space or our future. 

Inside a museum, there lies an account of Death that was about to happen on Earth. Locked in a bitter argument over what it means or how to stop it, the Stone revealed one last secret to humanity. One that made Earth’s survival seem trivial in comparison.

In the follow-up to Eon, when the asteroid-starship Thistletown severed their link to the Way, they saved themselves from an attack by the Jarts. Thistletown settled in Earth’s orbit, containing the tunnel into a universe of its own. Forty years later, opposing forces threaten Earth once again. Some want Earth destroyed, others want the Way opened again. 

Caught in the middle, humanity will soon discover whether they’ve underestimated their ancient adversaries and if they can possibly survive if they have.

The prequel to Eon and Eternity was published last, and many readers would recommend reading the series in publication order, so we're placing it last in the series. 

Before the asteroid-starship Thistledown settled in Earth’s orbit, it travelled through the Way. As it wove through space and time, it led to other world’s—some more Earthlike than Earth. The Way can only be accessed through a space station of Thistledown, and not everyone agrees with how it’s being used. 

The Hexamon won’t allow other worlds to be touched, but then they hear of clandestine humans who have colonized one of these worlds. One career soldier is sent to investigate this illegal colony. But what he discovers there will force him to confront his own humanity and what it means to remain human in the face of war, disaster, and death.

This indispensable collection assembles thirteen of Bear’s mind-bending shorter works plus a rare screenplay, delivering a "solid introduction to the oeuvre of a classic writer" (New York Times Book Review). Included in the volume is "Blood Magic", the award-winning short story that inspired the novel of the same name, the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning tale "Tangents", and the otherworldly short story "Dead Run", which was adapted for an episode of the Twilight Zone. 

The end is nigh in this bright and fiery vision of Earth’s final days, which was nominated for a Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Award. 

On July 26, Jupiter’s sixth moon, Europa, disappears. It hasn’t gone black. Hasn’t hidden behind anything. It’s simply gone. On September 28, mysterious objects and unexplained phenomena begin appearing around Earth. It becomes obvious that this is the end. As the days dwindle and life on Earth gets more and more precarious, some turn to God, others their families. But there’s a group offering salvation in the form of escape. Can they make it on time? And what will happen to those remain on the dying planet?

Perpetually distracted by your phone? Just be happy it doesn’t open a gateway to Hell. Adult film director Peter Russell is still grieving the brutal death of his daughter when he takes up work with an LA startup to promote their gleaming new invention. The product? Trans, a revolutionary phone that offers crystal-clear mobile communication anywhere in the world. It’s a sure-fire hit, but sinister energies course through the air. Soon, Peter is receiving messages from his murdered daughter, and it’s clear that other voices—of angry, malevolent, hungry souls—are on the line as well. 

RELATED: The Best Monthly Science Fiction & Fantasy eBook Deals 

This Hugo Award finalist (which is part of Bear’s overarching Quantum Logic sequence) fuses artificial intelligence and near-future cityscapes with the jolt of a cop thriller. 

In 2047 Los Angeles, crime is virtually non-existent. So when eight bodies are discovered in an apartment, and the poet Emmanuel Goldsmith is found responsible, it shakes the city to its core. LAPD detective Mary Choy is sent to arrest him and with her is psychotherapy pioneer Martin Burke who is tasked with exploring the poet’s mind. But as the news shocks Goldsmith’s closest friend and fellow writer, an altogether unrelated space probe discovery happens upon something startling. It’s all random and related, but how they impact the other is yet to unfold.

Bear earned a Nebula Award in 1994 for this sci-fi epic of political awakening and revolution set on a futuristic Mars. The year is 2171, the fifty-third year of Martian settlement. College student Casseia Majumdar hails from a revered and powerful family on the Red Planet. She’s also a born leader whose eyes are opening to the growing galactic tension between Earth and Mars, and the machinations of the Mother planet to control its rebellious colonies. Moving Mars connects to the future history universe of Bear’s Quantum Logic sequence. 

Space is dark and full of terrors in this sci-fi nightmare set on a generation starship gone far, far off course. A starship passenger is ripped from the dream world of deep sleep and thrown, naked and disoriented, into a cold and monstrous reality. Terrifying creatures roam the corridors of the labyrinthine ship. Now, the passenger and a handful of other recently awakened crewmembers must reach the control center if they hope to survive and decode the mystery of their perilous situation. 

In the middle of WWII, Japanese soldier Yoshio Kawashita is abducted by aliens and imprisoned on a desolate planet. He’s left alone with no hope of rescue—until a woman named Anna Nestor appears. She’s an empress who sees planets as exploitable real estate. In Yoshio, she sees a sideshow attraction. 

But when they fall in love, they both realize that the only way they can truly live in peace and free is by understanding who kidnapped Yoshio in the first place and why.

Published in 1999, this "absorbing and ingenious" (Kirkus Reviews) scientific thriller received a Nebula and Endeavor Award. The mummified remains of a Neanderthal family are discovered in the ice caves of the Alps. Meanwhile, a mysterious disease spreads across the planet, striking expectant mothers and triggering miscarriages. A paleontologist, a virus hunter, and a molecular biologist specializing in retroviruses join forces to stop the escalating outbreak and decode a primordial mystery in humanity’s DNA that seems to be waking up. Bear followed Darwin’s Radio with 2003’s Darwin’s Children. 

The Mongoliad launched in 2009 as an online experiment in interactive fiction and hypertext serialized storytelling. Celebrated sci-fi authors, among them Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, and Mark Teppo, joined forces to craft a secret history narrative set in medieval Europe, where a band of warriors and mystics fights off the invading Mongol invasion. Throughout, readers and fans were encouraged to interact with the authors and participate in the storytelling. Here, the first book in a planned Foreworld Saga trilogy, the minds behind the project collect the original digital texts and expand them into a multi-layered epic of sorcery and adventure. 

Published in 2014, War Dogs is the first entry in Bear’s War Dogs trilogy, which chronicles an epic battle between Earth and galactic invaders. A small group of enlightened aliens land on Earth. They’re known as Gurus and reveal to humankind technological advances beyond our wildest imaginings. But a destructive force pursues the alien refugees through space. These Antags have landed on Mars. Now Master Sergeant Michael Venn, a hard-hitting spaceborne Marine, must lead a squad of soldiers to the Red Planet and fight back the invaders.  

Picking up where Isaac Asimov left off, Bear continues the next epic installment of the Foundation trilogy. Hari Seldon is on trial for treason, right as the Galactic Empire is about to begin their migration to Star’s End. Only, the brilliant robot commander, R. Daneel Olivaw, has discovered an enemy—one of his own kind. 

A freak accident has freed robot Lodovik Trema from his loyalty to humanity. Daneel has him secretly reprogrammed, but that may not be enough. Other robots begin questioning their mission and humans spur them on. Can Daneel overcome this rebellion and continue mankind’s quest for freedom? Or will it all end in mutual destruction?

Bear ventures into the popular Halo universe in this richly imagined military space adventure, the first in the author’s Forerunner Saga trilogy. Set 100,000 years before the events established in the Halo: Combat Evolved video game, Bear’s trilogy tells the tale of the Forerunners, an ancient race of enlightened spacefarers who vanished from the stars.