Bonus Content
Hull Zero Three
THE FLESH
Cloud modest, the planet covers herself.
Our chosen is perfect--more than we could have hoped for. Rolling beneath, she slips aside her creamy white veil to reveal the sensuous richness of blue water, brown and tan prairies, yellow desert, a wrinkled youth of gray mountains hemmed by forest so green it is almost black--and the brilliant emerald sward of spring pastures.
Impossibly rich.
My flesh is partner to the long journey. Like a hovering angel, I look down upon the dazzling surface and yearn. All the springs of my youth flow toward this new Earth. A long limb of dawn in the east--how lovely! Our world turns wisely widdershins--the best of luck. There are two moons, one close in, the second much farther out and large enough for icy mountains under a thin atmosphere. We will explore that other promise once we are established here.
We--dozens of us, so many gathering in the observation blister, finally bathing in real light! There is sweet joy in voices from real lungs and tongues and lips--and such language! Ship language and Dreamtime-speak all musically mixed. So many friends and more to come. Our laughter is giddy.
We want to spread and lock limbs. We want to couple. We are eager to meet children as yet unconceived--eager to hurry them along so they can share this beauty with proud parents.
We!
Kinetic, no longer pent up or potential... The long centuries over.
We!
We are here!
Planters and seedships have descended before we came awake. They have analyzed and returned with the facts. Our chemistry now matches this world’s.
Fons et origo.
Fountainhead.
I don’t remember the name we’ve chosen, it’s on the tip of my tongue--not that it matters. I’m sure it is a beautiful name.
We form teams, holding hands in waving, weightless lines in the blister, calling to each other using our Dreamtime names and smiling until our cheeks sting. We make awful, funny faces, like clowns, to smooth and relax the muscles of our joy. Soon we will choose new names: land names, sea names, air names, poetically spun from the old.
My new name is on the tip of my tongue--
Hers is on the tip of my tongue. She is nearby, and I find myself strangely embarrassed to meet in person for the first time, because I have known her for all the sleepy ages. We played and learned together in the Dreamtime and resolved our earliest disputes. Making up, we realized we were incapable of being angry with each other for long. She is a master of ship’s biology--myself, training and culture. Long, lazy times of instruction and play and exploration shot through with intense training, keeping our muscles fit. There is no experience like it, except for coming awake and meeting in the flesh.
Excerpted from the book Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear. Copyright © 2010 by Greg Bear. Reprinted with permission of Orbit. All rights reserved.
Hull Zero Three
With Hull Zero Three, Greg Bear delivers an edge-of-your-seat thrill-ride of space adventure, mystery and all-out horror.
On a starship hurtling through space, a man awakens from pleasant dreams to find his world in chaos. His memories are broken, his chamber is filled with frozen bodies…and a young girl is urging him to run.
Their desperate flight to safety takes them through dark and damaged corridors, where dangerous machines and predatory monsters lie in wait and where rival factions vie for control. Soon the man begins to question—Who is he? Where are they going? Why did the ship’s systems turn against each other? And most important of all, who can they trust?
All will be answered on Hull Zero Three…if they can only survive.
Hardcover : 320 pages
Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA ( November 22, 2010 )
Item #: 13-197000
ISBN: 9780315072816
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25 inches
Product Weight: 12.0 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
A Fun Read 
May 28, 2011
Surrealistic but flows well, not one of his better books.
Reviewer: Roaddog
Interesting last third...
February 26, 2011
...if you don't mind that the first 2/3 of the book involves following characters who have no motivation besides survival and no personalities that even they can distinguish as they flee from monsters they have no names for through a structure with no known form toward a goal none of them can decipher. A video game is probably an apt comparison. Bear's always got an interesting scientific and ethical idea to work on, and usually it shows up early enough to let the reader in on the puzzle in a satisfying way -- just not in this novel.
Reviewer: ezrye
Read in Two Days
February 11, 2011
Very fast moving story! The action never lets up. You can't put it down right up to the last page.
Reviewer: Paula
Pageturner, but the page count can't be right
December 09, 2010
The Details claims the book is 320 pages, but it reads like half that. It's like a video game--you're dropped in a situation knowing little about yourself or your place and things are after you so you can't assume the pose of 'The Thinker' and figure it out. There's no pause in the action. I'll likely reread this one.
Reviewer: Markl
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