Status
Available
Call number
Series
Publication
New York : Ace Books, 2007.
Description
"Rock-hard realistic." -James Rollins "Terrifying." -Scott Sigler "Riveting." -David Brin The nanotech was intended to save lives. Instead, it killed five billion people, devouring all warm-blooded lifeforms except on the highest mountain peaks. The safe line is 10,000 feet. Below, there is only death. Above, there is famine and war. Mankind's final hope rests with a scientist aboard the International Space Station... and with one man in California who gambles everything on a desperate mission into the ruins of the old world...
User reviews
LibraryThing member timspalding
I don't know why I bother. I should stop looking for good post-apocalyptic fiction. So much of it is simply terrible.
The idea here is fun. Nanotechnology gets lose and replicates like mad, killing everything, but it's pressure-limited—it can't survive above 10,000 feet. Humanity is reduced to
Everything else, however, doesn't work. I didn't care for the characters—heck, I barely cared enough to tell them apart. In certain contexts I don't need complex psychologies and revealing changes. But you need something. Even an author doing his best to imitate Michael Crichton's indifference to complex emotions ought to be able to work with base ones, like fear and excitement. (I've read half of Crichton's nanotech novel, Prey, and he handled them well enough.) But I never cared about what Carlson's characters were up to either. Live or die, it was the same to me. Like Twain on James Fennimore Cooper, I "disliked the good people in it, was indifferent to the others, and wished they would all get drowned together."
More problems. There are plot holes. Characters do things that simply don't make sense. Stuff happens that doesn't make sense. The worst offense? It doesn't even have the decency to end. It's just the first novel in a series—three books in total, or so I read.
What's up with this anyway? Science fiction thrives on ideas. But it also needs to limit ideas—to change only a few things, and let the rest play out. Monkeys take over the world is a science fiction novel; if aliens also arrive and there are zombies it's just a silly mess. That limitation ought to militate against series, because a single good idea can only be dragged out so far. Good characters, of course, could work--"come for the ideas, stay for the characters." But so few novels of this sort have good characters. Plague Year certainly doesn't.
Honestly, why would anyone keep going on a series like this? Competeism? Why did I finish it? Boredom, completeism and a fatal lowering of standards. No more, damn it.
The idea here is fun. Nanotechnology gets lose and replicates like mad, killing everything, but it's pressure-limited—it can't survive above 10,000 feet. Humanity is reduced to
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habitable islands. I don't know if everyone likes this idea, but I do. Nor does Carlson's idea entirely give out. I wanted to know more about it, and the details that came were interesting enough.Everything else, however, doesn't work. I didn't care for the characters—heck, I barely cared enough to tell them apart. In certain contexts I don't need complex psychologies and revealing changes. But you need something. Even an author doing his best to imitate Michael Crichton's indifference to complex emotions ought to be able to work with base ones, like fear and excitement. (I've read half of Crichton's nanotech novel, Prey, and he handled them well enough.) But I never cared about what Carlson's characters were up to either. Live or die, it was the same to me. Like Twain on James Fennimore Cooper, I "disliked the good people in it, was indifferent to the others, and wished they would all get drowned together."
More problems. There are plot holes. Characters do things that simply don't make sense. Stuff happens that doesn't make sense. The worst offense? It doesn't even have the decency to end. It's just the first novel in a series—three books in total, or so I read.
What's up with this anyway? Science fiction thrives on ideas. But it also needs to limit ideas—to change only a few things, and let the rest play out. Monkeys take over the world is a science fiction novel; if aliens also arrive and there are zombies it's just a silly mess. That limitation ought to militate against series, because a single good idea can only be dragged out so far. Good characters, of course, could work--"come for the ideas, stay for the characters." But so few novels of this sort have good characters. Plague Year certainly doesn't.
Honestly, why would anyone keep going on a series like this? Competeism? Why did I finish it? Boredom, completeism and a fatal lowering of standards. No more, damn it.
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LibraryThing member crazybatcow
It's a decent post-apocalyptic read with believable characters behaving in a believable manner. (I know, this sounds like it shouldn't even be worth noting, but if you read much apocalyptic fiction, you'll notice that a lot of authors make their characters behave in ways that only characters in a
If it was a bit less "dry" it would have been even better. The point of view switches between characters but they don't really feel like distinctly different people; their attitudes and responses feel too similar for characters from different backgrounds and genders. Even the "sex" in the book (there's a reference to a 3-way relationship) is just mentioned, there are no emotions attached or expressed to the reader.
The plot is interesting and the events are scary, and believable (which is probably what makes it so scary). It's a look at what the world could become, and how the power struggle between nations (and cliques within nations) won't end, even if the world does. The ending is not as satisfying as it should have been, but there is a book 2 which we can hope will resolve the story.
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book would behave - Carlson does not do this.)If it was a bit less "dry" it would have been even better. The point of view switches between characters but they don't really feel like distinctly different people; their attitudes and responses feel too similar for characters from different backgrounds and genders. Even the "sex" in the book (there's a reference to a 3-way relationship) is just mentioned, there are no emotions attached or expressed to the reader.
The plot is interesting and the events are scary, and believable (which is probably what makes it so scary). It's a look at what the world could become, and how the power struggle between nations (and cliques within nations) won't end, even if the world does. The ending is not as satisfying as it should have been, but there is a book 2 which we can hope will resolve the story.
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LibraryThing member hannah.aviva
Without 24 this season, I have been craving action and suspense. Plague Year delivered. For me it was a gripping story and didn't have any labored or unnecessary scenes. The writing style was neither too flowery nor too choppy.I think Cam's character was almost comforting, like Jack, strong and
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steady. He provided the needed weight to balance out Ruth's rockiness. She was a bit annoying in parts.I think this book proves it's possible to write a nanotech-gone-wrong themed book that doesn't end up sounding like it's preaching bio-Luddite fanaticism. I'm looking forward to the sequel. Show Less
LibraryThing member 23blue
An intresting take on the TEOTWAWKI theme. Human release (accident?) nano plague that forces the quick and the strong above 10,000 feet above sea level, wars for the high ground and plotting governments (our anyway). It paints an ulgy picture of the future even it they sort out the nano's. Maybe
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it's just me but it seems like this type of book always has us killing one another for food, maybe I am unrealistic but it seems to happen pretty fast. Show Less
LibraryThing member rrainer
I think I liked this, but at the same time I have some mixed feelings. I'm not sure the way it was cut together was the most effective option, and here's the thing - I think it's interesting the way he explored the dark places in us and the brutality of humanity, but the fact is that no one in this
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novel liked anyone else, and that makes it a lot harder to identify with any of them. Show Less
LibraryThing member RandyStafford
Carlson gives us a nanopacalypse like no other. There’s no care-free scavenging. Go below 10,000 feet, and you’re infected by tiny machines (designed to cure cancer) that liquefy your body. But, unlike a lot of post-plague stories, there’s no inevitable doom once you’ve got it. Get back
At high altitudes throughout the world, humanity carries on. In Asia, China and India go at it. Russian must fight to keep its highlands. And, in America, what’s left of the government is in Leadville, Colorado.
Separated from the main action are Carlson’s three main characters: Cam, a young ski bum who happened to be at the right height to survive; his fellow survivor Sawyer, brutal, clever, scheming, secretive; and Ruth, a nanotechnology research at the International Space Station trying to find a solution to the plague despite bad equipment and squabbling colleagues.
Ranging from Earth orbit to Colorado to Sacramento, Carlson keeps the narrative engine stoked. In the first sentence, the cannibalism has already begun, and the grim tension never lets up as Carlson jumps from scene to scene, backfilling the details in to give us some nasty surprises and, at one point, some downright beautiful writing.
Realistic science and characters, social decay, combat, and alpine adventure, make this a very likeable novel.
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above the “death line” quick enough, and you’ll probably live. But this is no cosy, back to nature story. Not only have billions of humans died. So have most of the mammals and birds. The earth’s ecosystem is messed up big time.At high altitudes throughout the world, humanity carries on. In Asia, China and India go at it. Russian must fight to keep its highlands. And, in America, what’s left of the government is in Leadville, Colorado.
Separated from the main action are Carlson’s three main characters: Cam, a young ski bum who happened to be at the right height to survive; his fellow survivor Sawyer, brutal, clever, scheming, secretive; and Ruth, a nanotechnology research at the International Space Station trying to find a solution to the plague despite bad equipment and squabbling colleagues.
Ranging from Earth orbit to Colorado to Sacramento, Carlson keeps the narrative engine stoked. In the first sentence, the cannibalism has already begun, and the grim tension never lets up as Carlson jumps from scene to scene, backfilling the details in to give us some nasty surprises and, at one point, some downright beautiful writing.
Realistic science and characters, social decay, combat, and alpine adventure, make this a very likeable novel.
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LibraryThing member HenriMoreaux
Plague Year begins rather interestingly with scenes of cannibalism and you find yourself wondering what the heck is even going on, initially anyway. After 20-30 pages things become much clearer and the struggles of an almost defeated group struggling to stay alive on a freezing hilltop resorting to
I found the story to be entertaining and quite compelling, whilst initially the changing of perspectives seemed a little jarring once you're used to the flow of the book it works well.
The ending was a good cap for the experiences told within this installment of the story line leaving plenty of action left to unfold in the following installments.
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eating their fellow survivors paints quite the grim picture of society in the new world. I found the story to be entertaining and quite compelling, whilst initially the changing of perspectives seemed a little jarring once you're used to the flow of the book it works well.
The ending was a good cap for the experiences told within this installment of the story line leaving plenty of action left to unfold in the following installments.
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LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
Plague Year by Jeff Carlson is the first book in his science fiction trilogy about nanotechnology that was designed to fight cancer but instead evolves into the Machine Plague as it not only kills the cancer cells it was designed for, but every other kind of cell it can find in a warm blooded
Surviving at such altitudes is extremely difficult and the descriptions of both scavenging and cannibalism are distressing and grisly. The story is centered on two individuals, survivor Cam who was a ski bum in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, and Dr. Ruth Ann Goldman, who could be the world’s best chance at finding a cure. Of course there is more to this story than survival and medical research. Politics are playing an important role in who survives and who doesn’t, both on the world stage as Russia is fighting both the Muslim world and India in order to control the world’s high altitudes, and, in America, where there are class divisions as to who gets food and help, and who are left to fend for themselves which in turn has created terrorist cells.
My copy of this book is the author’s cut, and actually I think I would have preferred the edited version as I found this to be a little too wordy with scientific explanations. This is meant to be a thriller and long-winded science lectures took away from the excitement. Also I had difficulty in accepting the idea that an ideological obsessed politician would be more interested in using the nano technology to create a weapon of mass destruction than in saving civilization.
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organism. It speedily spreads across the globe changing the world forever. The few survivors are the ones that climbed to high elevations, since the nano doesn’t survive at over 10,000 feet.Surviving at such altitudes is extremely difficult and the descriptions of both scavenging and cannibalism are distressing and grisly. The story is centered on two individuals, survivor Cam who was a ski bum in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, and Dr. Ruth Ann Goldman, who could be the world’s best chance at finding a cure. Of course there is more to this story than survival and medical research. Politics are playing an important role in who survives and who doesn’t, both on the world stage as Russia is fighting both the Muslim world and India in order to control the world’s high altitudes, and, in America, where there are class divisions as to who gets food and help, and who are left to fend for themselves which in turn has created terrorist cells.
My copy of this book is the author’s cut, and actually I think I would have preferred the edited version as I found this to be a little too wordy with scientific explanations. This is meant to be a thriller and long-winded science lectures took away from the excitement. Also I had difficulty in accepting the idea that an ideological obsessed politician would be more interested in using the nano technology to create a weapon of mass destruction than in saving civilization.
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Language
Original publication date
2007-07-31
Physical description
336 p.; 18 inches
ISBN
044101514X / 9780441015146