- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: Forge Books; First Edition edition (Feb 1 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0765301296
- ISBN-13: 978-0765301291
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 14.8 x 3.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 531 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,169,814 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Screenwriter Marlow's derivative, fast-paced debut, a near-future thriller, features the latest thing in tech menaces-nanotechnology. The assassination of billionaire Mitchell Swain, just as he's about to unveil microscopic robots that will solve all of humanity's problems, puts the inventor of Swain's revolution, the geeky John Marrek, in deadly peril. Agents of an evil U.S. government with their own nanobots try to stop Marrek from following through with Swain's program, but he finds supporters in a stereotypically beautiful female journalist, Jennifer Rayne, a virtuous president and an honest air force colonel. In chapter after cinematic chapter of dueling nanos, Marrek's disassembling nanobots wipe out whole teams of government hit men while the assembler bots cause redwoods to sprout in seconds to block pursuers. Along the way, Marrek delivers ethical and informational lectures to Jen, justifying high body counts and painting a nano-ified future in the brightest of colors as long as good guys like him are in control. Marrek and the government's nanos finally square off in the Bay Area, with the fate of the world at stake. If the politics or science were anything to take seriously, readers might have cause for alarm. As it is, the action is all that counts in this slick formula effort, which reads like a novelized screenplay.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Mitchell Swain, richest man on Earth, is assassinated just before he can announce a revolutionary new technology, leaving developer John Marrek responsible for it now. While he is destroying evidence of his lab, reporter Jennifer Rayne, her journalistic instincts demanding she discover the motivation for the assassination, interrupts. Because she'll provide useful second opinions, and she is cute, John decides to take her with him as he flees those out to stop the release of nanotech. The chasers pursue, guns blazing, but John has a nanogun, and it disassembles them. Rogue elements in the U.S. government, some of them using everything the military has at hand, are after John and Jennifer, but then John's infant nanotech AI comes online and saves them by taking over military defenses. The baddies desperately release nanites that destroy San Francisco and, because of faulty programming, continue destroying. The AI saves the day, and eventually, John agrees to work with the government. This reads like a big-budget summer blockbuster with interesting but overgeneralizing afterwords. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
When the richest man in the world calls a press conference to announce the most important discovery in the history of the human race, a crowd can be expected. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
When the richest man in the world calls a press conference to announce the most important discovery in the history of the human race, a crowd can be expected. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Decent, but a couple of problems,
By
This review is from: Nano (Hardcover)
This book has some exciting action sequences and, as other reviewers have pointed out, will probably make for a fun movie. But it has two big problems that kept annoying me throughout. The first is that it's uncertain of its audience. It makes far too many references to earlier nanotech and science-fiction books, often without particularly explaining them. As a longtime follower of nanotech, I was familiar with most of them, but if the book is aimed at people who're already up on nanotech, it could have dispensed with a lot of the elementary introduction to the field. It was jarring to see repeated instances of basic explanations followed by obscure references that no newcomer could hope to get.The second problem is more structural: this book has no real climax. It builds to an entertaining full head of steam early on, then repeats the "bad guys have the heroes right where they want them, but heroes wave a magic wand and the problem is solved in a way that'll look great on a movie screen" formula several times, each one no more suspenseful than the last. Not an awful book by any stretch, but I think it'll work better on screen than it does in print.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Read! Not to be missed!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Nano (Hardcover)
Smart, outrageous, well-written and generally just a fantastic read! Actually it was my husband's book and what started as a curious glance ended up in me finishing this book in one day! Enjoy, you won't regret it! Mary
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nano will have your mind pulling 10 Gs,
By
This review is from: Nano (Hardcover)
What a rush!Nano will have your mind pulling 10 Gs... careful, or you'll black out! An awesome, highly thought provoking 1st novel by John Robert Marlow. Just finished reading it... and this absolutely HAS to be a movie! It vaporizes (disassembles?) Crichton's 'Prey'... technically, emotionally, and intellectually. No contest! To finally see in story form, some of the overwhelmingly profound concepts that have filled my mind for years... moved me to tears. For years I have struggled to share exactly these concepts with people, but failed to capture their attention. NANO brilliantly illuminates these concepts, and the movie will create epiphanies for millions. The NANO movie may be the vehicle to finally inject the Nanotechnology meme into the mass consciousness! Most of the story surrounds the use of self-replicating nanobots, and a sentient AI that exists on the global net. The illustration of the AI's thought process and 'dawn of sentience' was great... I loved it! I want that upgrade... 8^) Bottom line... this story is an excellent 1st step to grasping the concepts contingent on Nanotech: arbitrary manipulation of matter, enhanced intelligence, immortality, sentient AI, and even the Singularity! What a rush!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
