Tuesday, July 31, 2007

New Debut - PLAGUE YEAR by Jeff Carlson

Debuting today is Jeff Carlson's Plague Year (Amazon UK). Here is the blurb:

The nanotechnology was designed to fight cancer. Instead, it evolved into the machine plague, killing nearly five billion people and changing life on Earth forever.

The nanotech has one weakness: it self-destructs at altitudes above ten thousand feet. Those few who've managed to escape struggle to stay alive on the highest mountains, but time is running out. There is famine and war, and the environment is crashing worldwide. Humanity's last hope lies with a top nanotech researcher aboard the International Space Station—and with a small group of survivors in California who risk a daring journey below the death line.

The publisher has a page for to the novel, which includes a blurb by David Brin and an interview. The author also maintains a profile at Writertopia and has sample chapters available at his website. There is an entry for the author on Wikipedia. I also found a very enthusiastic blog entry about it by Lou Anders, the editorial director at Pyr entitled "The One That Got Away". I found reviews at SciFiWeekly, Alternative Worlds, and Publishers Weekly (scroll way down).

The premise reminds me of Alas, Babylon, published in 1959 by Pat Frank, where humanity survives a nuclear war in isolated pockets. I am tempted to read it to see how far the similarity goes. I may feature the first chapter within the next week or so.

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