Plague Year - Softcover

Carlson, Jeff

Softcover

ISBN 10: 044101514X ISBN 13: 9780441015146

Publisher: Ace, 2007

Synopsis

"Harrowing, heartfelt, and rock-hard realistic."
--James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of Bloodline

The nanotechnology was designed to fight cancer. Instead, it evolved into the machine plague, killing nearly five billion people and changing life on Earth forever.

The nanotech has one weakness: it self-destructs at altitudes above ten thousand feet. Those few who've managed to escape the plague struggle to stay alive on the highest mountains, but time is running out. There is famine and war, and the environment is crashing worldwide. Humanity's last hope lies with a top nanotech researcher aboard the International Space Station... and with a small group of survivors in California who risk a daring journey below the death line...

About this title

About the Author

Jeff Carlson is the international bestselling author of Plague Year, Long Eyes, Interrupt and The Frozen Sky. To date, his work has been translated into seventeen languages worldwide.

His new novel is Frozen Sky 3: Blindsided.

Readers can find free excerpts, videos, contests, and more on his website at jverse.com

Reviews

This tiresome sci-fi thriller debut, set in postapocalyptic California, has an ingenious kickoff that unfortunately goes nowhere fast. Following the accidental release of a deadly nanotechnology (designed to fight cancer), much of the world's population is dead; in the California Sierras, above the plague's high-water mark (10,000 feet), Cameron Najarro, Albert Sawyers and their small group of survivors eke out a desperate living, turning to cannibalism for survival. Meanwhile, in the International Space Station Dr. Ruth Ann Goldman and her team are making progress on a vaccine. Things go bad quickly when Goldman and her team return to Earth to test a hypothesis: first, they crash land in the middle of a civil war, then they find that the military has its own plans for the vaccine. When the astronauts and mountain survivors finally meet up, Goldman is surprised to find valuable allies in Sawyers and Najarro, and the three set off with a few others to find a lost lab that may hold the key to stopping the nano menace. The timely idea may hold readers' interest, but only so far as their patience allows; though well-written, the heroes' lengthy journeys slow the story to a pace almost as tormenting as organ-liquefying micro-machines. (Aug.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Ace
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 044101514X
• ISBN 13: 9780441015146
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 304