My heart is heavy today, because I just found out that yet another of my favorite authors has passed away. Greg Bear.
When I was young, I read The Forge of God and that was the first time I actually appreciated what alien contact could actually be like if hostile: so technologically asymmetric that most events would be utterly incomprehensible. You couldn’t even call it a war. To the people caught up in the midst of such huge events, what are you supposed to do? how could you even hold onto your sanity? What agency could individual lives and families have against something so alien and advanced it might as well be a cosmological force?
I felt so small and in awe. That story affected me like few others have since then.
I’ve read just about all of Greg’s writings by now. He’s had phases I loved (Hardfought, Heads, and Queen of Angels especially) and some I didn’t especially care for, especially over the last decade or so. But it saddens me to know I’ll never again have the excitement of seeing what that fantastic mind has come up with this time.
His death was brought on by multiple strokes when blood clots that had been hiding for years broke loose. After several days with no hope of recovery, life support was removed per his pre-stated wishes.
Sigh.
Happy Thanksgiving, HLP.
