Greg Bear

**Gregory Dale Bear** (August 20, 1951 – November 19, 2022) was an American science fiction author. He wrote about war across the galaxy, artificial universes, consciousness, and evolution.

## Biography
Bear was born in San Diego, California. From 1968 to 1973 he attended San Diego State University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1975, he married Christina M. Nielson, but they divorced in 1981. He remarried in 1983, to Astrid Anderson, the daughter of science fiction author Poul Anderson. They have two children, Erik and Alexandra. They live outside of Seattle, Washington.

### Career
Bear is often called a hard science fiction author because he uses many scientific details in his work.

Bear often answers major questions in contemporary science and culture with fictional solutions. For example, *The Forge of God* tries to explain the Fermi paradox. If the galaxy is filled with intelligences that could be very dangerous, young civilizations could only survive by staying quiet so nobody would notice them and attack. In *Queen of Angels* Bear examines crime, guilt and punishment in society. He does this by examining consciousness and awareness. Part of the novel is about highly advanced computers that begging to become intelligent and aware of themselves as they communicate with humans. In the two books "Darwin's Radio" and "Darwin's Children" he writes about the problem of overpopulation with a mutation the human genome making, basically a new series of humans. The books bring up the question of cultural acceptance of something brand new that cannot be stopped.

One of Bear's favorite themes is how observers effect or create reality. In *Blood Music* reality becomes unstable as the number of observers–trillions of intelligent single-cell organisms–gets higher and higher. Both *Anvil of Stars*–a sequel to *The Forge of God*–and *Moving Mars* propose a physics based on information exchange between particles, capable of being altered at the "bit level." (Bear has credited the inspiration for this idea to Frederick Kantor's 1967 treatise, "Information Mechanics.") In *Moving Mars* this knowledge is used to remove Mars from the solar system and transfer it to an orbit around a distant star.

*Blood Music* (first published as a short story in 1983, and expanded to a novel in 1985) has also been credited as being the first account of nanotechnology in science fiction. The short story described microscopic medical machines. He described DNA as a computer system that could be changed. In *Queen of Angels* and *Slant*, Bear gives a detailed description of a near-future nanotechnological society. This historical sequence continues with *Heads*–which may contain the first description of a "quantum logic computer"–and with *Moving Mars*. These books also show the historical development of self-awareness in AIs. One AI character called Jill is in all of these books. Bear was influenced by Robert A. Heinlein's self-aware computer Mycroft Holmes ("High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor") in *The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress* when creating Jill.

More recent works, such as the two novels Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children stick closely to the known facts of molecular biology of viruses and evolution. These books are about the impact of a strange disease that appears to make evolutionary transitions happen. Bear includes some very speculative ideas, but he wrote about them so carefully that ''Darwin's Radio* gained praise in the science journal *Nature''.

Bear, Gregory Benford, and David Brin wrote a series of three novels that take place before Isaac Asimov's famous *Foundation* series. Bear is named as the author of the second of the three books.

While most of Bear's writing is science fiction, he also wrote in other genres. Two of his early works, *The Infinity Concerto* and *The Serpent Mage*are clearly fantasies. These are now published together as one novel called *Songs of Earth and Power*. *Psychlone* is horror. Bear called his story *Dead Lines* a "high-tech ghost story." He has received many accolades, including five Nebula awards and two Hugo awards for science fiction.

### Death 
Bear died from multiple strokes on November 19, 2022, at the age of 71.

## Works 
### Novels
#### Series
##### Darwin
* ''Darwin's Radio* (1999) Nebula Award **winner**, Hugo, Locus SF, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards nominee, 2000
* *Darwin's Children* (2003) Locus SF, Arthur C. Clarke, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards nominee, 2004

##### The Forge of God
* *The Forge of God* (1987) Hugo, and Locus SF Awards nominee, 1988; Nebula Award nominee, 1986
* *Anvil of Stars* (1992)

##### Songs of Earth and Power
* *The Infinity Concerto* (1984) Locus Fantasy Award nominee, 1985
* *The Serpent Mage* (1986)
* *Songs of Earth and Power* (1994 - combines *The Infinity Concerto* and *The Serpent Mage*)

##### Quantico (books set before the Queen of Angels series)
* *Quantico* (2005)
* *Mariposa* (2009)

##### Queen of Angels
* *Queen of Angels* (1990) Hugo, Locus, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards nominee, 1991
* */* (also known as *Slant*; 1997) John W. Campbell Memorial Award nominee, 1998

##### The Way
* *Eon* (1985) Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee, 1987
* *Eternity* (1988)
* *Legacy* (1995) Locus SF Award nominee, 1996
* *The Way of All Ghosts* (1999)

#### Series he added to, but did not begin
##### The Foundation Series
* *Foundation and Chaos* (1998) (Second Foundation series: book 2)

##### Man-Kzin Wars
* *The Man Who Would Be Kzin* (with S.M. Stirling) (1991)

##### Star Trek: The Original Series
* *Corona* (1984)

##### Star Wars
* *Rogue Planet* (2000)

#### Non-series
* *Psychlone* (1979)
* *Hegira* (1979)
* *Beyond Heaven's River* (1980)
* *Strength of Stones* (1981)
* *Blood Music* (1985) Hugo, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards nominee, 1986;
* *New Legends* (1995)
* *Dinosaur Summer* (1998) (winner 1999 Endeavour Award)
* *Country of the Mind* (June 1998)
* *Vitals* (2002) John W. Campbell Memorial Award nominee 2003
* *Dead Lines* (2004)
* *City at the End of Time* (Gollancz edition published 7/17/2008; Del Rey Books edition August, 2008) (Nominated for the Locus and Campbell Awards, 2009)
* *Hull Zero Three* (to be released November 2010)
* *The Mongoliad* (expected 2010)

### Short Fiction
#### Collections
* *The Wind from a Burning Woman* (1983)
* *Early Harvest* (February 1988)
* *Tangents* (1989)
* *The Venging* (1992)
* *Bear's Fantasies* (1992)
* *W3 Women in deep time* (2003)
* *Sleepside: The Collected Fantasies* (November 2005)

## Other awards
* Before *Blood Music'' was a novel, it was a story published in the June 1983 issue of Asimov's. It won the Best Novelette Nebula Award (1983) and Hugo Award (1984).
* ''Darwin's Radio* won the Endeavor Award in 2000
* Hayakawa Award "Heads" Best Foreign Short Story (1996).

## Praise from other authors
* Doris Lessing, winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in literature, wrote, "I also admire the classic sort of science fiction, like *Blood Music'', by Greg Bear. He's a great writer."

## References
## Other websites
* Greg Bear's Official Site
* All of Greg Bear's audio interviews on the podcast *The Future And You* (in which he describes his expectations of the future)
* Quantico: Official Website 
* Complete list of sci-fi award wins and nominations by novel
* Greg Bear on Worlds Without End