LIMIT OF VISION
Linda Nagata. Tor, $24.95 (384p) ISBN 0-312-87688-2
With this compelling biotech thriller, Nagata, who was trained as a
zoologist, shifts from the far future of her trilogy--The Bohr Maker,
Deception Welland Vast--to a scientific revolution even now a-brewing:
nanotechnology, the creation of microscopic organisms that can penetrate the
inner workings of complex beings like man, curing illnesses, correcting
genetic flaws, even, as here, evolving its hosts into utterly different
forms of life. Virgil Copeland, sole survivor of three idealistic young
biologists who willingly became hosts for "LOVs," an experimental type of
intelligent, emotion-enhancing nanoorganism, causes the escape of a colony
of other, constantly mutating LOVs into the torrid Mekong Delta of a
brutally overpopulated Vietnam. There a strange cult of throwaway Asian
children joins Virgil and Eurasian journalist Ela Suvanatat to preserve the
LOVs from Daniel Simkin, the nefarious director of the International
Biotechnology Commission, who pretends to protect Earth from the LOVs while
ruthlessly pursuing them for the wealth and power they could bring him.
Nagata enlivens this extended chase through the steamy murk of Mekong swamps
and the monsoons of the southeast Pacific with fascinating biotech hardware
and gadgetry as well as clever extrapolations into nanotech potential. She
constantly reinforces her theme that "the only way out is forward" at the
risk of making her characters occasionally preachy and two-dimensional, but
that's a small price to pay for an idea-provoking narrative that is
genuinely innovative in conception. (Mar. 16)
FYI:The Bohr Maker won the Locus Award for Best First Novel.
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