By Sandy Amazeen Jul 30, 2007, 23:11 GMT
All Earth’s warm-blooded life teeters on the brink of total annihilation, victims of a man made plague that wiped out 5 billion people along with all mammal and bird life below 10,000 feet of elevation. What started out as a cancer treatment breakthrough ended up a nightmare of nanotechnology gone horribly wrong. Triggered by body heat, the nanos launch into replicating wildly, literally melting their hosts into grotesque forms before meeting a painful death. Only the atmospheric pressure found at the higher elevations stopped the nanos, leaving isolated pockets of humanity scraping out a bleak existence on mountaintops worldwide. One such pocket high in the California Sierras has resorted to desperate measures to stay alive. On the advice of one brave traveler from a distant peak, Cam, Sawyer, Price and a handful of others undertake a desperate trip into the death zone in an effort to reach the other colony. What they find out about themselves is even more frightening then the horrors wrought by the nanos.
In the space station orbiting the planet are a handful of astronauts and researchers including nanotechnology expert Dr. Ruth Goldman, frustrated at her inability to convince fellow crewmembers of the necessity of returning to earth. Leadville, Colorado has become the seat of the U.S. government and home to major research efforts as an ongoing hunt for the original lab that created the nanos fans into the Sacramento valley. Discovering a fix for the nano problem is crucial to continued life on earth but humanity will have to survive their own primal instincts first and with the added mistrust of global politics as usual, that is no easy task.
Carlson has crafted an exceptional, gripping debut that exposes the worst and best of humanity while maintaining a constant tension level that will keep the pages turning to the very end. The personal and political machinations are credible, the characters are well developed and the climax satisfying. This apocalyptic view of nanotechnology provides plenty to think about.
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