Vitals - Hardcover

'Vitals is the ultimate conspiracy theory. A collusion between our governments, the dark secrets of our hearts, and a force older than time. You'll be blown away by its ferocious intelligence, astounding research and insight, and terrifying logic. Read it with the light on. Prepare not to sleep easy.' Stephen Baxter

‘At a time when bold enthusiasts proclaim that the keys to immortality lie within human reach, Bear cautions, in Vitals, that a strange and frightening world may await us if we dare open that door. The best book about immortality since Aldous Huxley's After Many a Summer Dies the Swan' David Brin

'Whatever Bear touches turns epic . . . rarely have I felt so much the presence of great events' THE TIMES

‘Darwin’s Radio is a tense technothriller in the Michael Crichton vein . . . But it's got a disturbing twist ... profoundly unsettling.’ NEW SCIENTIST

'Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio is one of the most intelligent and original thrillers of recent years ... a suspense novel that pushes a lot of contemporary buttons ... this season's most convincing candidate for a bestselling thriller ... As with his other books, the special pleasures of Bear's writing come from its interaction of Big Ideas with more down-to-earth human issues ... Bear is one of a handful of writers in the field who manage both the complexity of the intellectual material and the solidity and depth of feeling required for a 'novel of ideas' to be a real novel.' LOCUS

'Greg Bear builds a neat conspiracy, back-tracking the entire 20th century as he ties politics, war and atrocity into humanity's next upgrade. Real page-turning stuff' SFX

From the New York Times-bestselling author Greg Bear comes a vivid and plausible scientific thriller.

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...