Greg Bear's tale can be scary as hell, but the compelling prose keeps you reading

For many years science fiction, and its twin sister epic fantasy, labored under the stigma of mediocrity. Examples of these genres, with their wild plots, weird inventions and cardboard characters, were considered suitable reading only for teenagers and less-discerning adults; readers with more refined tastes stuck to the classics.

Then, beginning in the 1940s, both genres experienced something of a renaissance—with the publication, and subsequent wild popularity, of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, fantasy was transformed from a despised genre to one even literary critics could appreciate. The transformation of science fiction has been longer in coming, partially because there is no single author to whom fans can point and say, "This is our Tolkien." Instead, the genre has grown slowly from lowly pulp to high prose with the work of a generation of talented authors, including Orson Scott Card, Nancy Kress, Connie Willis, and Greg Bear. The newer breed of science fiction offers not only believable, three-dimensional characters, but a host of new concepts that are central to the plot and that change—sometimes remarkably—individuals and society.

Blood Music begins as the story of Vergil Ulam, a scientist performing bio-experiments for his employer, Genetron. Vergil is not a particularly likable person—physically unappealing and anti-social, he considers himself hopelessly underappreciated at work and is certain that once the world recognizes his genius, he will receive the public acclaim and wealth he naturally deserves. Of course, with this attitude, he considers himself perfectly justified in using company time and resources to work on a pet project—"noocytes," his own modified lymphocyte cells, given the ability to think and learn. When the company gets wind of this little extracurricular activity and fires him, Vergil smuggles the noocytes out of Genetron the only way he knows how—by injecting them into his bloodstream.

At first there doesn't seem to be much difference in Vergil's day-to-day life, but then things begin to change—he finds he no longer needs to wear his glasses, his health and stamina improve—and he realizes the noocytes are making changes in his body. But things don't stop there. With their increased capacity for intelligence, the noocytes begin to create foreign, complex micro-societies inside Vergil; in a way, he becomes a walking universe of intelligences. They begin to change his body in drastic, unpredictable ways. Worse, the noocytes cannot be contained—everyone with whom Vergil comes in close contact becomes "infected" with the intelligent cells, creating a plague that threatens to destroy first humanity, then life, then the very laws of chemistry and physics.

Blood Music was first published in 1985, when AIDS had just broken into the public consciousness. Greg Bear does a fantastic job of conveying the fear of the unknown, especially the fear of the almost undetectable enemy that lurks inside oneself. He has a distinctive, intriguing storytelling voice and a prose level that borders on poetry, even in the book's most horrific vignettes. The novel makes several unpredictable changes in tone, from straightforward setup to a sense of technological wonder, changing to nightmarish terror—then, amazingly, changing again to absolute wonder near the end. Although the book's final paragraphs are perhaps more melodramatic than grandiose, it is a fascinating read overall; you will find yourself thinking about the book long after you've finished it.

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