Eon: 1

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With the opening (and re-opening of previously Jart controlled) gates, the human migrants gained access to remarkable technologies and abilities, and made possible habitation within the Way, and on the Flaw itself, in the newly created Axis Thoreau and Axis Euclid at 1.5 ex 7 (15 million km). They developed trading client-patron relations with the Frants of Timbl, and client-client relations with the Talsit. With development of memory technologies, City Memory was created, and humans not only became immortal, but also gained the ability to be reborn. Government changed, with the formation of the Hexamon and the governing Nexus. Born in San Diego, California, Greg was the only son of Wilma (nee Merriman) and Dale Franklin Bear, a meteorologist in the US Navy, stationed in Japan, the Philippines and Alaska. In between, the family were posted to Texas and Rhode Island, Dale serving on aircraft carriers during the Vietnam war before retiring as a lt commander. The Forge of God (1987) Hugo, and Locus SF Awards nominee, 1988; [23] Nebula Award nominee, 1986 [24] Juno has been hollowed out along its long axis, subdivided into seven cylindrical chambers, and rotates to provide artificial gravity. The chambers are terraformed, with the second and third containing cities that have been maintained by automatic systems for centuries. This small world is dubbed "the Stone" by the Americans, "the Potato" by the Soviets, “the Whale” ( 鲸) by the Chinese and “the Thistledown” by its absent makers. Explorers of its interior discover that the end of the Stone's seventh chamber opens into “the Way”, a corridor that extends beyond the size of the asteroid. The Stone’s original inhabitants have been evacuated into the Way at some time in its past, which is the explorers’ future. His marriage to Christina Nielson in 1975 ended in divorce six years later. In 1983 he married Astrid Anderson, daughter of the SF writer Poul Anderson. She survives him, along with their daughters Chloe and Alexandra.

The journey is meant to take 60 years, as the ship can only maintain a velocity of 20% the speed of light. This limitation is removed after the technology of the Thistledown was improved to include inertial dampeners, allowing higher accelerations. Within the universe of The Way, the Thistledown is an asteroid starship built by hollowing out Juno and fitting it with mass-driver (rail gun) engines and thermonuclear drives. Inside the asteroid, seven giant “Chambers” are built, of which one hosts a city for the inhabitants, while others host machinery. The asteroid is prepared 500 years in the future, as told in Bear's novel, Eon, and is engaged on a multi-generational journey to Epsilon Eridani, around which a habitable planet is known to circle. In Eon, Axis City split into two: a segment of Naderites and some Geshels took their portion of the city out of the Way and through Thistledown into orbit around the Earth; they spend the next thirty years aiding the surviving population of Earth to heal and rebuild from the devastating effects of the Death which strains their and the Hexamon government's resources. As time passes, sentiment grows to have Konrad Korzenowski reopen the Way. Firstly, to learn what has happened to the Geshels' long-sundered brethren (who took their portion of Axis City down the Way at relativistic near- light speed). And, secondly, to benefit from the commercial advantages of the Way (despite the risk that the Jarts will be waiting on the other side).In the early 21st century, NATO and the Soviet Union are on the verge of a second nuclear war. Incidentally, a 290km prolate spheroid has been detected following an anomalous energy burst just outside the solar system. It is an asteroid: Juno. It moves into an eccentric near-Earth orbit where the rival polities of Earth each try to claim this mysterious object. The story on which the novel Blood Music was based, published in the June 1983 issue of Analog, won the Best Novelette Nebula Award (1983) [15] and Hugo Award (1984). [16] The rescuers are intercepted when they near Axis City and reunited with Vasquez, who is caught up in the politics of the Hexamon. It is presided over by a governing body, the Nexus, loosely divided into two social groups: Progressive Geshels, who embrace body-swapping and life-extending technologies, and conservative Naderites. The latter are named after Ralph Nader, who has become identified with empathy and opposition to nuclear war in the centuries since his death. The Hexamon is threatened by alien invaders called the Jart, who are more adapted to the physics of the Way and live beyond its 2x10 Eaton, Kit (May 26, 2010). "The Mongoliad App: Neal Stephenson's Novel of the Future?". Fast Company . Retrieved July 4, 2010. Greg Bear: Discussion Board". Archived from the original on August 6, 2011 . Retrieved July 14, 2011.

The eponymous Way is an extension of the 7th Chamber, and was formed in the novels using the machinery of the 6th Chamber. This machinery is a selective inertial damper, developed by engineers within the Thistledown with twofold purpose - to permit the Thistledown to accelerate to the limit of its engines (up to 99% the speed of light) and to selectively dampen inertia within the vessel, e.g., water within waterways, high velocity train systems. The inertial dampening machinery within the 6th Chamber is anchored to the structure of the Thistledown, equally spaced around the chamber at the vertices of a regular heptagon. Greg Bear was born in San Diego, California. He attended San Diego State University (1968–1973), 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. [ citation needed] Career [ edit ]Bear died on November 19, 2022, at the age of 71, from multiple strokes, caused by clots that had been hiding in a false lumen of the anterior artery to the brain since a surgery in 2014. [12] After being on life support for two days and not expected to recover, per his advance healthcare directive life support was withdrawn. [13] [14] Awards and accolades [ edit ]