Vitals
by Greg Bear

This is a SF-hardcore thriller set in the near future that pits a loner against what may possibly be a global conspiracy over a medical breakthrough that promises immortality. Despite all the drama that occurs, the book is not up expectations as too much happens in the background and the main characters, in the end, are just side characters caught in a major world drama. Perhaps that is how things are suppose to look like in a book full of conspiracy theories but was not satisfying.

The premise of the book lies in one of the most fundamental aspects of biology. Far in the past, a free-floating cell engulfed mithocondria and, instead of digesting it, incorporated it as part of the cell. This caused a tremendous boost in the capability of the cell (the mithocondria would act like power stations in a cell) to survive and, in the end, to create the living world as we know it today.

One scientist studying the role of mithocondria in cells discovers an oddity: programmed cell death apparently managed by mithocondria. After successfully doing some illicit genetic engineering on himself to remove some of the influences of mithocondria, he approaches a venture capitalist for money for a deep sea expedition to locate primitive lifeforms that lack mithocondria that may help him further his studies with one goal in mind: immortality.

It is on this expedition that things go wrong; he is nearly killed in what looks like a manic attack and fellow longevity researches are killed. Then he receives strangely worded messages, initially from his brother, and then from a paranoid man who believes there is a global conspiracy to protect some people who already about the secret of immortality and will kill to keep it.

In a race across the country and against time, he starts to see the outlines of the conspiracy, the people involved in it and their ability to reach into people's lives and, via the mithocondria, to control people for their own benefit. But the final outcome of the struggle may well lead to a very unpleasant future for mankind.

Starting off as an interesting speculative piece on the role of mithocondria in our bodies and what mithocondria could do, the book soon changes to a thriller which appears to generate much of the excitement off stage; we are only shown the outlines of the conspiracy through the book's main characters which turn out to be only peripheral characters. The actual people behind the conspiracy are enigmas that quickly appear and disappear as the book progresses.

The book would probably make a passable thriller, but for a reader looking out for more scientifically 'meaty' book may be disappointed by what they find here.

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Vitals by Greg Bear

Vitals
by Greg Bear