So, what's the deal with Quantico being an SFBC exclusive anyway? With Bear being a successful author, thrillers a popular genre, and the subject matter obviously quite timely, I'm so curious as to what scared off the US publishers? (And I have to admit that-- rational or not-- this has made me a bit leery about actually purchasing the book; what's wrong w it, I wonder?)

I don't know for sure why Bear's regular US publisher (Del Rey) didn't want to publish Quantico, and I don't really want to speculate in public.

Bear's last few novels (since Darwin's Radio) have been in a thriller mode and set in the near-future, but Quantico is even more thriller-y and set even closer in the future -- it also touches on some hot-button issues. Del Rey has announced that his next novel for them will be more of a hard SF book, and set much further out in the future. You can draw your own conclusions from that.

I got a copy from the UK (since I've liked nearly everything I've ever read by Bear), read it and liked it, and thought it was a shame that a good book should languish. So I made his agent an offer, and the agent accepted: thus, a SFBC Exclusive. (We think of them as a good thing, actually.)

Oh, I freely admit that my reticence toward purchashing it based on its SFBC-Exclusive status is irrational! Anyway, I think there's free shipping right now, so maybe I'll take the plunge and get it. I do tend to enjoy Bear...