Bloom [Mass Market Paperback]

Wil McCarthy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 3, 1999

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Although set in the 22nd century, this transcendent tale of close encounters with awesome life forms echoes current anxieties over the godlike manipulations of bioengineering. Following the total engulfment of Earth and the planets of the inner solar system by mycora, a manmade species of self-replicating fungus that has developed a ravenous appetite for inorganic matter, the remnants of the human race have fled to the moons of Jupiter. Loosely organized as the Immunity, they keep a watchful eye on the encroaching Mycosystem and stamp out the horrific "blooms" by which the technogenic spores literally eat their way into a territory. The Immunity's goal is to relocate to a cleaner planetary system, but not without first investigating transmissions that improbably suggest human life may still exist on Earth. This provokes acts of sabotage by the Temples of Transcendent Evolution, who revere the Mycosystem as "some sort of hyperintelligence, maybe a direct link to God himself," and fear that the mission's covert objective is "deicide." McCarthy (Murder in the Solid State) relates the challenging clash of technology and theory that follows through the experiences of John Strasheim, a freelance journalist onboard the Earth-bound starship Louis Pasteur. The writing is vivid?particularly in sequences that describe the chaos of bloom alerts?but it's also challenging: technojargon casually spoken by the Pasteur-nauts can be so stultifying that it gives the events and people described the dispassionate feel of a virtual reality simulation. Readers who can plug into the prose and navigate its dense circuity, however, will find themselves rewarded with a wallop of a finale that satisfies high expectations for high-concept SF. Agent, Shawna McCarthy.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey (August 3, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345424654
• ISBN-13: 978-0345424655
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,849,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Detailed Nanotechnology and Strong Characterization, October 2, 2000

By 

Randy Stafford (St. Paul, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bloom (Hardcover)

Sometime in the mid-twenty-first century, a nanotechnology accident of unknown origin devours Earth and then the moon. The end result, the Mycosystem, is a growing rot feeding on any organic and inorganic material it encounters. Like its fungal namesake, it spreads by spores.

Riding on the solar wind, these spores cause "blooms" when they enter the human habitats inside Ganymede, Callisto and assorted asteroids. For twenty years, man has survived by developing elaborate "immune systems" to fight the blooms. However, recent blooms show an alarming sophistication and ability to skirt these countermeasures. Armored against "technogenic life", the spaceship Louis Pasteur departs for the depths of the Mycosystem, Earth and Mars. Its mission is to determine whether the Mycosystem has developed the ability to inhabit new niches in the Solar System.

Documenting the mission is John Strasheim, a former cobbler given the chance to practice his talents as an amateur journalist. But, shortly after the mission is underway, evidence comes forth that humans still exist in the Mycosystem -- and that someone wants the mission to fail.

This book has a lot to like. McCarthy tells a taut, hard science story. His nanotechnology is not magic. Indeed, he shows various ways -- ph balances, chemicals, too much and too little energy -- the "gray goo" type of nanotechnology accident could be contained. He also delves into ideas of complex systems, their emergent properties, and the implications of using evolutionary design to combat the Mycosystem and understand it.

McCarthy also does a very good job with the characterization of narrator Strasheim as he learns new truths about the Mycosystem and confronts the possibility of a violent death. The captain of the Louis Pasteur is also a memorable character, a man so lacking in a sense of humor that he literally has one surgically implanted. My only complaint with the novel is that McCarthy doesn't bring to life the other crew members of the Pasteur except for Renata Baucum, a Mycosystem specialist antagonistic to Strasheim.

McCarthy keeps his scientific and political mystery brief and fast moving. While the revelations of the Mycosystem's nature are not totally unexpected, McCarthy brings in enough interesting detail and ambiguity to make it interesting.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars If Wil McCarthy could write endings, he'd be dangerous, September 3, 1999

By 

Doug Muir ([e-mail]) (New Haven, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bloom (Mass Market Paperback)

Few of my recent SF reads have started off as well as this one. McCarthy gives us an unpleasant but plausible future where nanomachines have taken over Earth and most of the solar system as well, literally gobbling up worlds. He then decorates this with plausible details, gives us some interesting characters, and sends them off on a perilous, mysterious, high-tech ride to danger and glory. By the middle of this book I was quite thoroughly hooked. McCarthy's description of a transfigured solar system, where runaway nanotech has literally changed the shape of the planets and filled space itself with tenuous, mysterious structure, is one of the most memorable things I've read in recent years. And then... Well, let's just say that the ending is, not so much unsatisfactory, as annoying and (thematically) inconsistent with the rest of the book. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but I *really* didn't like the ending... not so much what McCarthy did, but the jarring and poorly executed way in which he did it (feel free to contact me directly if you disagree!). This book had such great potential that the disappointing ending hit pretty hard. Still, I'd say it's worth buying and reading anyhow if you're interested in nanotech and a gritty, well realized future.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nanotechnology: Proceed, But With Caution!, February 2, 2002

By 

Kevin Spoering (Buffalo, Missouri United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bloom (Mass Market Paperback)

Well, I suppose with several novels depicting nanotechnology (the science of manipulating individual atoms into perhaps useful devices) in a favorable light, there needed to be a well written novel illuminating the hazards, and Wil McCarthy has done just that.

Imagine a nightmare world where humanity has fled the inner solar system due to nanotechnology getting out of control and multiplying, devouring everything on earth and the nearby planets, eating people, dirt, rocks, anything. Humanity has tenuous footholds in the asteroid belt, some moons of Jupiter, and Saturn's moon Titan. These humans use their Immunity to fend off the stray mycora (Microscopic machines) that would bloom and eat everything around them if not stopped. These mycora are able to evolve and reprogram themselves, and they populate interplanatary space in addition to the inner planets, their area of habitation includes only the warm inner solar system, so far. It is in this scenario that has the ship Louis Pasteur dispatched into the inner solar system to investigate the 'mycosystem' which is the area inhabited by the mycora. Most of the book is written in the first person narrative of the mission reporter and historian John Strasheim. I found the plot reasonably well executed, as were the characters. However, to my taste I thought the part about how the mycora had evolved into complex forms was a bit far fetched, and I can't say more here without being a spoiler.

Nanotech is something that will someday be very handy in our everyday lives, but as with most technology has it's good and bad sides. This novel examines the dark side of this technology and how we must be very careful as we proceed with it. At the end of the novel there is an interview with Wil McCarthy.