Items related to Legacy

Greg Bear Legacy ISBN 13: 9780099350712

Legacy - Softcover

 
9780099350712: Legacy
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
Legacy is the prequel to Eon, but as you find out when you enter Greg Bear's universe, time can be quite confused. The author spins out ideas on time and space irregularities, and handles the permutations and paradoxes masterfully, while presenting an original and gripping story.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Greg Bear is the author of more than thirty books, spanning thrillers, science fiction, and fantasy, including Blood Music, Eon, The Forge of God, Darwin's Radio, City at the End of Time, and Hull Zero Three. His books have won numerous international prizes, have been translated into more than twenty-two languages, and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Over the last twenty-eight years, he has also served as a consultant for NASA, the U.S. Army, the State Department, the International Food Protection Association, and Homeland Security on matters ranging from privatizing space to food safety, the frontiers of microbiology and genetics, and biological security.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Chapter One
 
 
The sun hung two hand-spans above the horizon. Late morning, early evening: I could not judge. I stood on the crest of a low hill, between thick black trunks smooth as glass. Behind me, a dense enclosure of more black trunks. And ahead...detail rushed upon me; I sucked it in with frantic need.
Red and purple forest pushed over low boxy hills, fading to pink and lavender as the hills receded toward the horizon. Mist curled languidly between. Immense trees like the skeletons of cathedral towers punctuated the forest every few hundred meters, pink crowns perched atop four slender vaulting legs, rising high over the rest of the forest. Above the hills, sky beckoned crystal blue with mottled patches of more red and purple, as if reflecting the forest. In fact, the forest inhabited the sky: tethered gas-filled balloons ascended from the distant stands of black-trunked trees into thin shredded-ribbon clouds.
Everything glowed with serene yellow light and brilliant blood-hued life. Everything, related. For as far as the eye could see--what Darrow Jan Fima had called Elizabeth's Zone, one creature, one thing.
From where I stood, at the top of a rise overlooking the broad, dark olive Terra Nova River, Lamarckia hardly seemed violated. Not a human in sight, not a curl of smoke or rise of structure. Somewhere below, hidden in the tangle of smooth black trunks, huge round leaves, and purple fans, the ferry landing was supposed to be...And inland a few hundred meters along a dirt and gravel path, both hidden in the dense pack, the village of Moonrise.
I touched my clothes self-consciously. How out-of-place would I look?
I realized I had been holding my breath. I inhaled deeply. It was a sweet and startling breath. The air smelled of fresh water, grapes, tea leaves, and a variety of odors I can only describe as skunky-sweet. Rich aromas wafted from nearby extrusions resembling broad purple flowers, with fleshy centers. They smelled like bananas, spicy as cinnamon. The extrusions opened and closed, twitching at the end of each cycle. Then they withdrew altogether with thin, high chirps.
I reached out my hand to stroke the smooth black curve of a trunk. At my touch, the bark parted to form a kind of stoma, red and pink pulp within. A drop of translucent white fluid oozed from the gash, which quickly closed when I lifted my hand.
"Not a tree," I murmured. The Dalgesh report--by the original surveyors--had called them "arborid scions." And this was not a forest, but a silva.
There were no plants or animals as such on Lamarckia. The first surveyors, in the single day they had spent on the planet, had determined that within certain zones, all apparently individual organisms, called scions, in fact belonged to a larger organism, which they had called an ecos. No scion could breed by itself; they did not act alone. An ecos was a single genetic organism, creating within itself all the diverse parts of an ecosystem, spread over large areas--in some cases, dominating entire continents.
Each ecos was ruled, the surveyors had theorized, by what they called a seed mistress, or queen. Neither the surveyors--nor the immigrants, according to Jan Fima--had ever seen such a queen, however; understanding of Lamarckian biology and planetary science in general had still been primitive among the immigrants when the informer left.
Above, the black trunks spread great round parasol-leaves, broad as outstretched arms, powdery gray at their perimeters, rose and bloodred in their centers. The parasols rubbed edges in a canopy-clinging current of air, making a gentle shushing noise, like a mother calming an infant. Black granular dust fell in thin drifts on my head; not pollen, certainly not ash. I rubbed some between my fingers, smelled it, but did not taste.
The last light of the orange sun warmed my face. So this was not morning but evening; the day was ending. I savored the glow. It felt wonderfully, thrillingly familiar; but it was the first sunlight I had ever directly experienced. Until now, I had spent my whole life within Thistledown and the Way.
My terror passed into numb ecstasy. The sense of alien newness, of unfamiliar beauty, hit me like a drug; I was actually walking on a planet, a world like Earth, not within a hollowed-out rock.
Reluctantly, I turned from the sun's warmth and walked in shadow down an overgrown trail. If I had come out in the right place, this trail would lead to the Terra Nova River and the landing that served the village of Moonrise. Here, I had been told, I might catch a riverboat and travel to Calcutta, the largest town on the continent of Elizabeth's Land.
I wondered what sort of people I would meet. I imagined feral wretches, barely social, clustered in dark little towns, immersed in their own superstitions. Then I regretted the thought. Perhaps I had spent too much time among the Geshels, having so little respect for my own kind. But of course Lenk's people had gone beyond my own kind. Yanosh had characterized them as fanatic.
The moist air of the river valley sighed around me, like an invisible chilly flood. Picking my footsteps carefully, avoiding lines of finger-sized orange worms topped by feathery blue crests, I listened for any sounds, heard only the rubbed-silk hiss of air and the liquid mumble of the river.
The trail at least had once been traveled by humans. Dropped between the trunks, in a tangle of stone-hard "roots," I spotted a small scrap of crumpled plastic and knelt to pick it up. Spread open by my fingers, it was a blank page from an erasable notebook.
At least, I realized with considerably relief, I had not arrived before the human intruders. That would have meant I was truly trapped here, with no chance of returning until they arrived...Or someone came from the Hexamon to get me.
I pocketed the scrap. I still could not be sure how much time had passed since the arrival of Lenk and his followers.
Four thousand one hundred and fourteen illegal immigrants; as much as three decades between my arrival and theirs. What could they have done to Lamarckia in that time?
I pushed through a tangle of purple helixed blades. My feet sank into a grainy, boggy humus littered with pink shells and pebbles. No landing visible; no lights, no sign of river traffic. For a moment, I knelt and dug my fingers into the soil. It felt gritty and resilient at once--grains of sand and spongy corklike cubes half a centimeter on a side, suspended in inky fluid that globbed immiscibly amid drops of clear water. It looked for all the world like gardener's potting soil mixed with viscous ink.
I picked up a pink shell. Spiral, flat, like an ancient Earth ammonite, four or five centimeters across. I sniffed it; clean and sweet, with a watery, dusty smell backed by a ghost of roses and bananas. I poked it with a finger; it crushed easily.
More black powder fell in thin curtains nearby. I glanced up and saw what looked like an immense reddish-brown snake, banded with deep midnight blue, dozens of meters long and as thick across as my own body, twisted around and draped across the trunks and leaves above. It wriggled slowly, peristaltically. I could see neither its head nor its tail. With a clamping sensation in my throat and chest, I trotted down the trail, trying to get out from under the serpent.
The trail became thicker, overgrown by smaller red and purple plantlike forms, phytids, filling in between the arborids. I lost my way and had to listen for the sound of the river to orient myself.
Several minutes passed before I realized I was smelling something out of place, rich and gassy. During my walk, I had not once smelled mold or methane, not once felt the squelch of dead vegetation. Plants, trees--convenient words only--grew from soil that might have been prepared by diligent and cleanly gardeners. Only the pink shells, mired in the mud, gave a hint that anything here lived, then died, and in dying, left remains--
And this fresh scent of decay.
I thrashed down to the bank again and stared over the deep brownish water to the black silhouette of the opposite shore. Faint, broad patches of blue glow sprang up between the trees across the river. They sputtered and went out again. I could not be sure I had seen them. Then, high above, the undersides of the broad parasols flashed blue. Somewhere, high-pitched tuneless whistling. A flutter beneath the parasols: dark winged things carrying fibrous scraps. Something small and red darted past my face with an audible sniff.
The wind died. The night air sank. Fog danced and twisted in the middle of the river. With the silence came another whiff of decay. Animal flesh, rotting. I was sure of that much.
I followed the scent Back up the bank, stepping gingerly over writhing purple creepers, guided by faint blue flashes through the undergrowth, I found the remains of the trail.
Something made a sound between a squeak and a sigh and scuttled on three legs out of the undergrowth: a pasty white creature the size of a small dog, triangular in shape. It stood by a black trunk and regarded me through patient, empty eye-spots mounted along a red central line. It pulsed and made tiny whistling sounds. Its skin crawled in what I took to be disgust at my presence. But apparently disgust was only disapproval--or something else entirely--for it did not retreat. Instead, it slowly clasped and crawled its way up a trunk, opened a stoma with a tap of its pointed tail-foot, and began to suck milky fluid. I watched in fascination as its white body swelled. Then, half again as large as before, the creature dropped from the trunk, landed in the dirt with a rubbery plop, and crabbed away with a half circling gait on the down-bent points of its triangle.
Twilight was quickly obscuring everything. A double oxbow of stars pricked through the thin clouds. Ahead, a flickering orange light drew my attention: a torch or flame. I pushed toward the orange light and found the landing and the dirt road that pointed inland to Moonrise.
The landing began as a broad platform at t...

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherPenguin Books India
  • Publication date1996
  • ISBN 10 0099350718
  • ISBN 13 9780099350712
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages432
  • Rating

Buy Used

Condition: Good
Pages can have notes/highlighting... Learn more about this copy

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.

Destination, rates & speeds

Add to Basket

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780765380500: Legacy: A Novel (Eon, 3)

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0765380501 ISBN 13:  9780765380500
Publisher: Tor Books, 2015
Softcover

  • 9780312855161: Legacy

    Tor Books, 1995
    Hardcover

  • 9780812524819: Legacy: A Novel (Eon)

    Tor Sc..., 1996
    Softcover

  • 9781857238860: Legacy

    Orbit, 1996
    Softcover

  • 9780099350514: Legacy

    Tor, 1995
    Hardcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

Greg Bear
Published by Penguin Books India (1996)
ISBN 10: 0099350718 ISBN 13: 9780099350712
Used Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
ThriftBooks-Atlanta
(AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.45. Seller Inventory # G0099350718I3N00

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 8.91
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Bear, Greg
Published by Penguin Books India (1996)
ISBN 10: 0099350718 ISBN 13: 9780099350712
Used Paperback Quantity: 4
Seller:
WorldofBooks
(Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR004163492

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 2.81
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 6.14
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Bear, Greg
Published by Penguin Books India (1996)
ISBN 10: 0099350718 ISBN 13: 9780099350712
Used Paperback Quantity: 2
Seller:
WorldofBooks
(Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. The book has been read but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact and the cover is intact. Some minor wear to the spine. Seller Inventory # GOR001893015

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 2.81
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 6.14
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Greg Bear
Published by Orbit 20/06/1996 (1996)
ISBN 10: 0099350718 ISBN 13: 9780099350712
Used Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
AwesomeBooks
(Wallingford, United Kingdom)

Book Description Condition: Very Good. This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. . Seller Inventory # 7719-9780099350712

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 4.22
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 5.74
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Greg Bear
Published by Penguin Books India (1996)
ISBN 10: 0099350718 ISBN 13: 9780099350712
Used Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Books Unplugged
(Amherst, NY, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: Good. Buy with confidence! Book is in good condition with minor wear to the pages, binding, and minor marks within 0.49. Seller Inventory # bk0099350718xvz189zvxgdd

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 11.84
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Greg Bear
Published by Penguin Books India (1996)
ISBN 10: 0099350718 ISBN 13: 9780099350712
Used Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Book Deals
(Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: Very Good. Very Good condition. Shows only minor signs of wear, and very minimal markings inside (if any). 0.49. Seller Inventory # 353-0099350718-vrg

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 11.84
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Bear, Greg
Published by Orbit (1996)
ISBN 10: 0099350718 ISBN 13: 9780099350712
Used Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
WeBuyBooks
(Rossendale, LANCS, United Kingdom)

Book Description Condition: Good. Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. Seller Inventory # wbs6237617786

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 1.65
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 10.24
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Greg Bear
Published by Orbit 20/06/1996 (1996)
ISBN 10: 0099350718 ISBN 13: 9780099350712
Used Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Bahamut Media
(Reading, United Kingdom)

Book Description Condition: Very Good. Shipped within 24 hours from our UK warehouse. Clean, undamaged book with no damage to pages and minimal wear to the cover. Spine still tight, in very good condition. Remember if you are not happy, you are covered by our 100% money back guarantee. Seller Inventory # 6545-9780099350712

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 4.22
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 8.93
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Bear, Greg
Published by Legend Books (1996)
ISBN 10: 0099350718 ISBN 13: 9780099350712
Used Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Better World Books Ltd
(Dunfermline, United Kingdom)

Book Description Condition: Good. New Ed. Ships from the UK. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 266373-6

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 5.70
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 10.24
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Bear, Greg
Published by Legend Books (1996)
ISBN 10: 0099350718 ISBN 13: 9780099350712
Used Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Better World Books Ltd
(Dunfermline, United Kingdom)

Book Description Condition: Good. New Ed. Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 40040161-20

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 5.70
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 10.24
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

There are more copies of this book

View all search results for this book