Vitals

Vitals is a 2002 science fiction/techno-thriller novel written by Greg Bear.

It centres on a scientist who wishes to cheat death. He gets his funding from what he calls "angels" - rich businessmen who are keen to live a thousand years. However, on a fact-finding exploration in a small submarine, his pilot goes beserk, start spouting gibberish, and tries to kill him. He survives, but when he gets back to the ship, he finds that a member of the crew also went mad and started spouting gibberish. The rest of the crew is distant from him, on the grounds of what he calls bad mojo. He is disowned by the plutocrat in question.

The story develops from there, taking in his twin brother's widow, an anti-semetic conspiracy theorist, and a scheming group of immortals who want to stay unique. They are able to do this beacause they have access to bacteriological research by a Russian scientist from the 1940's who was working for Beria and Stalin. Stalin possibly cameos in the story, but the issue is left vague.

By the end of the book, the main characters are all either dead, irrelevant, or the victim of mind altering xenophages.

Some elements of the book relate to transhumanism and life extension. Biology is a major theme in Bear's work, and bacteria and bacterial intelligence played a central role in his 1983 novel Blood Music as well.