Bloom

Mycora: technogenic life. Fast-reproducing, fast-mutating, and endlessly voracious. In the year 2106, these microscopic machine/creatures have escaped their creators to populate the inner solar system with a wild, deadly ecology all their own, pushing the tattered remnants of humanity out into the cold and dark of the outer planets. Even huddled beneath the ice of Jupiter's moons, protected by a defensive system known as the Immunity, survivors face the constant risk of mycospores finding their way to the warmth and brightness inside the habitats, resulting in a calamitous "bloom."

But the human race still has a trick or two up its sleeves; in a ship specially designed to penetrate the deadly Mycosystem, seven astronauts are about to embark on mankind's boldest venture yet--the perilous journey home to infected Earth!

Yet it is in these remote conditions, against a virtually omnipotent foe, that we discover how human nature plays the greatest role in humanity's future.

In the distant future, nanotechnology has gotten out of control. The inner solar system has been overrun by Mycora, atom-size machines that devour everything they touch. Humanity has long since fled Earth for the cold reaches of the outer system, where the lack of heat and sunlight make it difficult--but not impossible--for the Mycora to bloom. Life in the Immunity is hard, and the survivors of humanity face the constant onslaught of the ever-evolving Mycora. But if they are to survive, the remaining humans must try to learn what happened to Earth, and whether the Mycora are finding ways to overcome their susceptibility to cold. When the Immunity mounts an expedition to plant probes on Earth's polar caps, shoemaker and aspiring journalist John Stasheim is asked to come along to chronicle the journey. He soon learns that the trip will be fraught with as many political dangers as nanotech ones, and that the Mycora are both more and less than they seem. An excellent SF novel along the lines of Greg Bear's Blood Music, but with more action and plot. Wil McCarthy is a writer to watch. --Craig E. Engler