Mariposa - Hardcover

Greg Bear

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1593154976 ISBN 13: 9781593154974

Publisher: Vanguard Press, 2009

Synopsis

In an America driven to near bankruptcy with crushing foreign debt, the Talos Corporation stands out as a major success story?training soldiers and security forces from around the world and providing logistics and troops for nearly all branches of the United States government. But Talos has another plan in mind?the destruction of the federal system and constitutional law.

Three FBI agents are all that stands between Talos’s CEO Axel Price and the subversion of our nation. Fouad Al-Husam is working undercover in Lion City, Texas, on the Talos Campus?but he may have just overplayed his hand. Agent William Griffin will engage in a desperate diversion to try to rescue Al-Husam, and the top-secret information he literally carries in his blood.

Rebecca Rose is called into action to partner with an unlikely hero: Nathan Trace, one of a team of four who created and programmed the thinking machines that are about to help Axel Price in his plans for domination. Trace and his colleagues were caught up in a violent incident in the Middle East several years ago, and experienced Post-Traumatic Stress disorder. All of them were forcibly enrolled in a treatment program sponsored by Talos Corporation, code-named Mariposa?which supposedly cured their PTSD. But now they are beginning to notice unexpected side effects. The Mariposa subjects are being liberated from nearly all human emotions and concerns?and all mental limits?to become brilliant sociopaths. They are out of control and they must die.

About this title

About the Author:

Greg Bear is the author of more than thirty books of science fiction and fantasy, including Quantico, Blood Music, The Forge of God, and Darwin’s Radio. Awarded two Hugos and five Nebulas for his fiction, one of two authors to win a Nebula in every category, Bear has been called the ?best working writer of hard science fiction” by The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. His stories have been collected into an omnibus volume by Tor Books. Bear has served on political and scientific action committees and has advised Microsoft Corporation, the U.S. Army, the CIA, Sandia National Laboratories, Callison Architecture, Inc., and other groups and agencies. His novels The Forge of God and Anvil of Stars have been optioned by Warner Brothers, and Darwin’s Radio and Darwin’s Children have been optioned by Michael DeLuca and Howard Braunstein. He lives in Washington with his wife, Astrid Anderson Bear, and children, Erik and Alexandra.

From Publishers Weekly:

In bestseller Bear's intriguing near-future thriller, a powerful financier stands ready to seize control of America as the nation teeters on the brink of economic collapse. The Texas-based Talos Corp., helmed by CEO Axel Price, specializes in security technology software and the training of mercenaries. Standing between Price and the downfall of America are a few hardy FBI agents, notably Rebecca Rose, one of the stars of the previous book in the series, Quantico. Besides the nefarious Price, dangers include a supercomputer, Jones Zero, that may or may not be acting on the side of justice, and the fact that Rebecca and others have been used as guinea pigs for a powerful mind- and body-altering drug, Mariposa. Under less capable hands, the extraordinarily complicated plot, numbers of characters and the constant explanations of future technologies might lead to terminal turgidity, but SF veteran Bear keeps everything whizzing right along to the slam-bang conclusion. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vanguard Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1593154976
• ISBN 13: 9781593154974
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 340