Nano [Anglais] [Relié]

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.
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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

Reads like a big-budget summer blockbuster.

Truly a visionary admonition of what may lie ahead... Marlow is a man to watch.

A supercharged thriller set on the day Nano-tech-nology is unleashed annites: sub-microscopic machines capable of pulling apart and combining molecules, capable of reproducing themselves, of building a structure as large as the Pyramids in minutes and disassembling it just as fast. Nanotechnology has been secretly developed by Microtron, the world's foremost software company. Michell Swain, CEO of Microtron, is assasinated moments before the press conference where he was to announce this breakthrough. Suddenly, the only person capable of launching nanotechnology-its inventor, John Marrek-is a wanted man. Jennifer Rayne, a reporter searching for a lead on the Swain murder, soon finds Marrek destroying any evidence of nanotech research in his lab. Marrek and Jen face a brutal assault by secret operatives of the United States Government-who are also responsible for the murder of Mitchell Swain. With national security at stake, the government will stop at nothing to prevent nanotechnology from being introduced, and even risks speeding up the development of their own nanotechnology to combat Marrek and his newfound ally, Jen. But a mistake in design leads to an apocalyptic disaster. The government-deployed nannites released in San Francisco lack the programming to make them stop duplicating and disassembling. Marreck and his nanotech are pushed to the limits of endurance to stop the rampaging nannites before they devour San Fransisco-and the rest of the earth. Abounding with incredible ideas that fascinate and horrify, and fast-paced action that will leave readers breathless, Nano is the ultimate techno-thriller.

JOHN ROBERT MARLOW is a freelance journalist and nanotechnology columnist whose work has appeared in Parade, Omni, and numerous other publications. On the strength of the Nano novel, he has been asked to write a regular column for the NanoNews Now Monthly Report published by Nanotechnology Now. Mr. Marlow's Nano screenplay (based upon the Nano novel) has been honored as a finalist in the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Program of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the organization which awards the Oscars), and may soon become a motion picture. NANO is his first novel.