Greg Bear | |
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Born | Gregory Dale Bear August 20, 1951 San Diego, California, U.S. |
Occupation | Novelist |
Genre | Science fiction, Speculative fiction |
Notable works | Blood Music |
Website | |
www |
Gregory Dale "Greg" Bear (born August 20, 1951) is an American writer best known for science fiction. His work has covered themes of galactic conflict (Forge of God books), artificial universes (The Way series), consciousness and cultural practices (Queen of Angels), and accelerated evolution (Blood Music, Darwin's Radio, and Darwin's Children). His most recent work is the Forerunner Trilogy, written in the Halo universe. Greg Bear has written 44 books in total. Greg Bear was also one of the five co-founders of the San Diego Comic-Con.
Bear was born in San Diego, California. He attended San Diego State University (1968–73), where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree. At the University, he was a teaching assistant to Elizabeth Chater in her course on science fiction writing, and in later years her friend.
Bear is often classified as a hard science fiction author, based on the scientific details in his work. Early in his career, he also published work as an artist, including illustrations for an early version of the Star Trek Concordance and covers for Galaxy and F&SF. He sold his first story, "Destroyers", to Famous Science Fiction in 1967.
Bear often addresses major questions in contemporary science and culture with fictional solutions. For example, The Forge of God offers an explanation for the Fermi paradox, supposing that the galaxy is filled with potentially predatory intelligences and that young civilizations that survive are those that don't attract their attention—by staying quiet. In Queen of Angels, Bear examines crime, guilt, and punishment in society. He frames these questions around an examination of consciousness and awareness, including the emergent self-awareness of highly advanced computers in communication with humans. In Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children, he addresses the problem of over-population with a mutation in the human genome making, basically, a new series of humans. The question of cultural acceptance of something new and unavoidable is also brought up.