Rating: 
Summary: Thought-provoking SF
Review: In my opinion, "Limit of Vision" is tied with "The Bohr Maker" for Nagata's best book ("Bohr" has some really neat ideas; "Limit" is more accessible). She has always concentrated on nanotechnology, but a few of her books have been difficult to follow. "Limit of Vision," on the other hand, can be read by even those who aren't intimately familiar with SF."Limit" is thought-provoking in that it made me wonder how I would react to this situation: protect the LOVs because they're an exciting new lifeform, and humanity could use a little competition? Or hunt down the LOVs because they may pose a serious threat to humanity since they obviously cannot be easily contained? There is also a great deal of social commentary, as in how humanity chooses to deal with displaced persons. I also enjoyed Nagata's extrapolations of how the Internet may work in the future. Nagata's writing is not your run-of-the-mill SF. She's definitely worth checking out.
Rating: 
Summary: A weak version of "Blood Music".
Review: It seems rewriting Greg Bear's excellent "Blood Music" has become madatory for every new SF author to come along. This kind of recycling normally wouldn't bother me because it's a great plot worth revisiting from another author's perspective. What does bother me is they never get it right. An escaped biotech, nanotech, whatever-tech agent which alters people's minds and threatens a new order of human evolution should be scary. But though it's touted as hard SF "Limit of Vision" reads like a juvenile adventure novel and rarely generates anything more than mild suspense. It doesn't help that Nagata saddles her rogue whatever-tech agents with the unfortunate acronym "LOVs" --a name I can't help but associate with either Barney the Dinosaur or disposable diapers. But these LOVs are serious things which atain sentience (surprise), tear up a space station and start reproducing themselves after outgrowing their chemical-dependence safeguards (yep, JUST like in Jurassic Park). You'd think people would be a little hesitant to infect themselves with these LOVs (cute name notwithstanding), but not in this strange world where all natural human instincts are sacrificed to further the plot. Nope, in this world people can't wait to get their brains on the LOVs because LOVs "intensify your mood". Exaclty what "intensifying your mood" really gets you is never really nailed down, but it's a pale second compared to the host of freakish super powers imbued in "Blood Music" --or for that matter in any of the various Star Trek episodes of a similar plot. People may be willing to scrap The World As They Know It for an evolutionary upgrade, but it's gotta be a killer deal--imortality at the very least. I found myself rooting for the "bad guys" who spend the novel trying to stop the idiotic "heroes" from thoughtlessly passing out LOVs like M&Ms even as they're mutating into that thing on the book cover. In the real world our response to such an outbreak could be summed up in two words: Daisy Cutter, and we'd be right. But who am I to question the author's assumption that "intensifying your mood" is worth the risk of having your world overrun by giant spiders a thousand times smarter than you who just outgrew what they used to eat.
Rating:
Summary: A weak version of "Blood Music".
Review: It seems rewriting Greg Bear's excellent "Blood Music" has become madatory for every new SF author to come along. This kind of recycling normally wouldn't bother me because it's a great plot worth revisiting from another author's perspective. What does bother me is they never get it right. An escaped biotech, nanotech, whatever-tech agent which alters people's minds and threatens a new order of human evolution should be scary. But though it's touted as hard SF "Limit of Vision" reads like a juvenile adventure novel and rarely generates anything more than mild suspense. It doesn't help that Nagata saddles her rogue whatever-tech agents with the unfortunate acronym "LOVs" --a name I can't help but associate with either Barney the Dinosaur or disposable diapers. But these LOVs are serious things which atain sentience (surprise), tear up a space station and start reproducing themselves after outgrowing their chemical-dependence safeguards (yep, JUST like in Jurassic Park). You'd think people would be a little hesitant to infect themselves with these LOVs (cute name notwithstanding), but not in this strange world where all natural human instincts are sacrificed to further the plot. Nope, in this world people can't wait to get their brains on the LOVs because LOVs "intensify your mood". Exaclty what "intensifying your mood" really gets you is never really nailed down, but it's a pale second compared to the host of freakish super powers imbued in "Blood Music" --or for that matter in any of the various Star Trek episodes of a similar plot. People may be willing to scrap The World As They Know It for an evolutionary upgrade, but it's gotta be a killer deal--imortality at the very least. I found myself rooting for the "bad guys" who spend the novel trying to stop the idiotic "heroes" from thoughtlessly passing out LOVs like M&Ms even as they're mutating into that thing on the book cover. In the real world our response to such an outbreak could be summed up in two words: Daisy Cutter, and we'd be right. But who am I to question the author's assumption that "intensifying your mood" is worth the risk of having your world overrun by giant spiders a thousand times smarter than you who just outgrew what they used to eat.
Rating:
Summary: A Setup for a Sequel
Review: Nagata sets up the big questions in this book and then punts at the end. Her maturation as a writer happens right in front of our eyes but don't buy this book. The ending can only be described as 1) A cliffhanger designed to get you to buy the sequel, or 2) A failure of literary courage. In either case, this is editorial irresponsibility at its most heinous. Even the most transparent first book of a series resolves the major plot elements and answers the questions raised by the narrative. Not this time.
None of this would matter if Nagata had written just another media tie-in, dumbed down and evanescent as rime. But it isn't. As Norman Spinrad noted in his review in the March 2002 Asimov's, this is a spectacularly well-written tale for literate adults, all too rare in the current market. If you must have more Nagata, enjoy the setup but don't expect a payoff. It isn't there
Rating:
Summary: A Setup for a Sequel
Review: Nagata sets up the big questions in this book and then punts at the end. Her maturation as a writer happens right in front of our eyes but don't buy this book. The ending can only be described as 1) A cliffhanger designed to get you to buy the sequel, or 2) A failure of literary courage. In either case, this is editorial irresponsibility at its most heinous. Even the most transparent first book of a series resolves the major plot elements and answers the questions raised by the narrative. Not this time.
None of this would matter if Nagata had written just another media tie-in, dumbed down and evanescent as rime. But it isn't. As Norman Spinrad noted in his review in the March 2002 Asimov's, this is a spectacularly well-written tale for literate adults, all too rare in the current market. If you must have more Nagata, enjoy the setup but don't expect a payoff. It isn't there
Rating:
Summary: No shrinking violet!
Review: Possibly the decade's boldest voice in speculative fiction. Most writers hobble and contort their ideas to fit a preconceived plot or theme, but Nagata's mind appears to be wired exponentially. The idea of brain-enhancing implants is hardly new, but until LIMIT OF VISION, we had never seen a full-throttle treatment. Nagata carries the idea to its logical conclusion, and while the fears of the technologically timid are duly noted, they're shown little mercy by the steamroller of progress. The future is coming on fast whether we want it or not, and the author's point rings true: it's way more fun to be _on_ the steamroller than under it.
Rating:
Summary: A rare good one!
Review: This book is very much worth reading -- definitely on the right side of Sturgeon's Law!
Rating:
Summary: I LOV-ed it!
Review: This is a fascinating take on the theme of AI and scientific experiments gone awry. The account of AI offered by Nagata is not the typical "hardwired computer gains consciousness of itself" theme (and its countless variations), but rather a story of the products of a microtechnology experiment run amok: small organisms that exist only at the "limit of vision" (hence the acronym LOV), mutate from their original design as human intelligence enhancers into increasingly sentient and dangerous clusters of life. This is the "goo-iest" AI story to date: and one of the best! The description of the evolution of the LOV's provided by Nagata is extremely interesting and disturbing. The plotting is excellent and the characters entirely convincing. A very enjoyable and intriguing read.
Rating:
Summary: A limited vision.
Review: Virgil Copeland's little conspiracy is turning into a nightmare. When he and his colleagues smuggled a few LOVs to Earth and used themselves as test subjects, Virgil never suspected that two of his friends would soon be dead, and he himself on the run from international law, on his way to the place where the mutant LOV colonies made landfall... "A Limit of Vision" is confused. In the beginning it tries to be an edgy, sci-fi thriller, but soon slows down to a crawl and attempts to be a hard SF novel. The beginning features a moderately exciting escape sequence, a satellite crash, and a tidal wave, all in about fifty pages. Then the plot abruptly stops. All characters quickly and conveniently sort out into heroes and villains. The heroes suddenly become shallow and predictable, and what they're doing isn't very exciting: they farm the surviving LOVs in fish ponds, while the outside world tries to starve them out of their little reservation. "Limit of Vision" treats its general subject matter - LOVs, an intelligent form of nanotechnology - in an extremely simplistic and straightforward manner, with no ambiguities. Despite having an incredible knack for mutation and problem-solving, they don't seem to pose any threat at all, and their "mind-enhancing" capabilities are hardly taken advantage of. The book's tone is essentially dead. The narration moves quickly, but leaves no lasting impression. Characterization is lacking and follows predictable patterns: a blossoming romance between the male and female heroes (who would've thought!?); an enemy who becomes an ally, etc. In a nutshell: lacking in both premise and execution.
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