Usually, I am not a fan of the results of taking good short stories/novellas and making novels out of them. This is part of the reason it has taken me so long to get around to reading Greg Bear's Blood Music, based off of the award winning short story of the same name. Bear does not simply flesh out and pad his excellent short story (in which a young biochemical researcher develops a way to make blood cells intelligent, and then when his employers demand he destroy his work, decides to preserve it by injecting the cells into himself) into a full length work. Instead, Bear keeps the short story intact and then adds on (a) a little bit about the events leading up to the short story, and (b) a hundred plus incredible pages which examine the results and ramifications of the events of the original story. I had a hard time putting this book down, which resulted in me finishing it in just three sittings (interrupted only by work and sleep). Written in 1985, it has aged very well. Particularly since the core idea of the tale seems so much more possible today. Highly recommended.