Rating: 
Summary: Nanotechnology: Proceed, But With Caution!
Review: Well, I suppose with several novels depicting nanotechnology (the science of manipulating individual atoms into perhaps useful devices) in a favorable light, there needed to be a well written novel illuminating the hazards, and Wil McCarthy has done just that. Imagine a nightmare world where humanity has fled the inner solar system due to nanotechnology getting out of control and multiplying, devouring everything on earth and the nearby planets, eating people, dirt, rocks, anything. Humanity has tenuous footholds in the asteroid belt, some moons of Jupiter, and Saturn's moon Titan. These humans use their Immunity to fend off the stray mycora (Microscopic machines) that would bloom and eat everything around them if not stopped. These mycora are able to evolve and reprogram themselves, and they populate interplanatary space in addition to the inner planets, their area of habitation includes only the warm inner solar system, so far. It is in this scenario that has the ship Louis Pasteur dispatched into the inner solar system to investigate the 'mycosystem' which is the area inhabited by the mycora. Most of the book is written in the first person narrative of the mission reporter and historian John Strasheim. I found the plot reasonably well executed, as were the characters. However, to my taste I thought the part about how the mycora had evolved into complex forms was a bit far fetched, and I can't say more here without being a spoiler. Nanotech is something that will someday be very handy in our everyday lives, but as with most technology has it's good and bad sides. This novel examines the dark side of this technology and how we must be very careful as we proceed with it. At the end of the novel there is an interview with Wil McCarthy.
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