Technology. If you solely listened to the media you’d believe it was going to be the death of us; muscle clad cyborgs sent back in time, global pandemics created by corrupt governments and god knows what else. Saying that, at least the end of the world looks cool. Hence my recent run of ‘techno-doom’ inspired books, the latest of which is Nano by John Robert Marlow.

The title of the book pretty much explains its subject matter; nanotechnology. Don’t let that fool you though, every technology both evil and benign is detailed throughout. As with most books where the author can only ‘research’ their material there is always some kind of gap between what is written and what is possible. That said, this is still a rip-roaring book that certainly has some good action.

The basic story is fairly simple, billionaire Mitchell Swain (think Bill Gates but with an actual interest in making the world better) announces a press conference to reveal his latest breakthrough. But, lo and behold he gets shot before he can tell all. At this point you might think ‘oh no, another whodunit’. Not this time, pretty quickly you learn what his announcement was going to be and the repercussions of his death on certain people. Needless to say, a book described as both novel and screenplay entails that it is more about the action than the actual characters or development. Having said that, the writing is superb, destruction has never tasted so good and there are genuine cliff hangers here where you really do wonder how the hell the pair of fugitives can escape. A bit more character development wouldn’t go amiss though, I didn’t even care when a certain character (temporarily) pops off.

The Lazarus Vendetta which I read at the beginning of the year dealt with the same theme but always felt more like reading a technical manual than an actual story. This time Marlow has hit the nail upon the head, exploring not only the technical side of things, but also how nanotechnology will affect us socially and economically. Admittedly it is a bit wild in some cases; instant trees, bone dissolving bullets and the like, but he does bring up some good points. What happens to farmers when all fruit and vedge can be made when it’s needed? Who will control this technology? What happens if it all goes wrong?

Pretty heady concepts, but they never seem to be the focus of the book for which I’m glad. All in all I finished this book in under a week, it wasn’t overly memorable, but it wasn’t also instantly forgettable like so many other recent books I’ve read. Considering how cheap it is on Amazon there’s no reason not to give it a whirl if you’re into this kind of stuff.

My rating: 78%.