Conquest Of Paradise: An End-times Nano-Thriller [Paperback]

Britt Gillette (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 2003

September 11th, 2001 marked the beginning of a world-wide war on terror. Unbeknownst to the citizens of the Western Powers, their governments are working on a modern-day Manhattan Project to create a weapon so potent, it will defeat the terrorists of the world once and for all. In an era when the very survival of liberty and the global economic system are daily threatened by weapons of mass destruction, the Western democracies ardently push the limits of the known universe to unleash a weapon of unrivaled omnipotence: a self-replicating assembler.Amidst these troubled times, a god-like figure rises to power. As leader of the newly created United Europe, Raphael Vicente sets out on a bold quest to exterminate disease, eliminate poverty, and destroy the world s oppressors. The ascendance of this breakthrough technology sets the stage for Raphael's dream: a world entrenched in democratic social justice for all peoples of the world. But in Raphael's world of black and white, the dream of eradicating injustice proves to be a formidable task, and in the end, man's elusive pursuit of perfection drives him to the edge of never-before imagined consequences. In a struggle to provide adequate security while preserving liberty, quick decisions must be made ? decisions that leave the world teetering on the brink of annihilation.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

September 11th, 2001 marks the beginning of a worldwide war on terror. Unbeknownst to the citizens of the Western Powers, their governments are working on a modern-day Manhattan Project to create a weapon so potent, it will defeat the terrorists of the world once and for all. In an era when the very survival of liberty and the global economic system are daily threatened by weapons of mass destruction, the Western democracies ardently push the limits of the known universe to unleash a weapon of unrivaled omnipotence - a self-replicating assembler. Amidst these troubled times, a god-like figure rises to power. As leader of the newly created United Europe, Raphael Vicente sets out on a bold quest to exterminate disease, eliminate poverty, and destroy the world's oppressors. The ascendance of this new breakthrough technology sets the stage for realizing his dream - a world entrenched in democratic social justice for all peoples of the world. But in Raphael's world of black and white, the dream of eradicating injustice proves to be a formidable task, and in the end, man's elusive pursuit of perfection drives him to the edge of never-before imagined consequences. In a struggle to provide adequate security, while preserving liberty, quick decisions must be made, and they leave the world teetering on the brink of annihilation...

About the Author

Britt Gillette is a member of the Foresight Institute and a fervent advocate of mass education on the dangers and benefits of molecular nanotechnology. He currently resides in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (January 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595264549
• ISBN-13: 978-0595264544
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,920,696 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not With A Bang, But With Nanotechnology, March 23, 2003

By 

Jeffrey Leach (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Conquest Of Paradise: An End-times Nano-Thriller (Paperback)

Apocalyptic literature always fascinates me. The rich congeries of differing scenarios makes reading nearly any entry in this voluminous genre immensely entertaining. Some writers choose to write from a fundamentalist Christian view, using the Book of Revelations as a checklist of doom and gloom. Others infect the world with killer viruses, nasty alien invaders, or earth-shattering natural disasters. A few stories incorporate several of these themes into a depressing account of our ultimate demise. Britt Gillette's "Conquest of Paradise" falls firmly in the latter category, a story that fuses Christianity with science. In this author's nightmare scenario, the bogey of molecular nanotechnology skillfully welded with biblical prophecy produces a frightening scenario of death and destruction.

Throughout this 300-page book, Gillette manages to juggle numerous characters and storylines with great élan. The opening chapters of the book introduce us to characters that will play significant roles throughout the story. There is Garrison Nance, a young man from Atlanta heading to Chiapas, Mexico to work for a Christian mission. Nance meets Poyner and Raphael Vicente during his stay there, where the three become involved in a peasant revolution against the Mexican government. As the book progresses, Islamic terrorists, a sinister Frenchman, a dangerous Chinese agent, and other characters big and small emerge to play their part in the unfolding dilemma.

From these lengthy introductory chapters, in which Gillette reveals much about Raphael's background, each chapter jumps ahead in time. Raphael becomes a significant figure on the world stage, first as a champion of the third world poor, then as a Nobel Prize winner, to his eventual assumption of the presidency of United Europe. Raphael's sole goal in life is to instill democracy and human rights throughout the world, and he will do anything within his power to realize that actuality. But in the course of trying to be the world's champion, he runs the risk of plunging the globe into eternal chaos.

The 400-pound gorilla in this story is the assembler breakthrough, a development that threatens to change the world as we know it forever. What assemblers are and their potential to restructure the world is best left unrevealed here. It is sufficient to say that this technology, as elucidated in Gillette's book, is both awesome and fearsome. In an author's note at the end of the book, Gillette explains that molecular nanotechnology (MNT) is real and imminent; he believes that by the end of this decade MNT will arrive whether we want it or not. The author wrote this book to expose the inherent dangers of this new technology, a technology that offers a promise of nearly infinite good, but also a danger beyond reckoning if it falls into the wrong hands. Gillette lists several website addresses for those who wish to discover further information about this potentially dangerous technological development.

What spooked me the most about this book was reading it during the countdown to the invasion of Iraq. Gillette made sure to keep his story up to date, so references to Saddam Hussein, the terrorist attacks of September 11th, and the threat of radical Islamic terrorism added a significant dimension of immediacy to the story.

I think the overarching theme Gillette is searching for here was best expressed by Benjamin Franklin, who once wrote, "Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." In order to make the world "safe" for Raphael's democratic dream, everyone must eventually give up his or her liberty. Raphael's quest against Islamic fanaticism leads to a dangerous fanaticism about democracy. In other words, absolutes, whatever their stripe, will always resort to totalitarianism in order to succeed.

"Conquest of Paradise," whether its message of out of control technology is true or not, should find a place on the shelf of anyone interested in the apocalypse genre. The first third of the book moves slowly, but by the time you pass page 100, the story starts to zoom. Books like this one justify the "publish it yourself" industry.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Alternative to 'Left Behind' begs for more..., May 22, 2003

By 

Jayson (Rancho Santa Margarita, ca, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Conquest Of Paradise: An End-times Nano-Thriller (Paperback)

With a very small niche of 'fictional' books based upon the biblical end times, and usually dominated by the easy reading kid glove series of 'Left Behind', Britt Gillette's 1st attempt is outstanding.

While loosely interpreting prophetic events, Gillette makes this novel plausible to those that like to read a more technically and smart novel. However, it is not so advanced that only rocket scientists can follow. Imagine if you will biblical events crossing over into a Twighlight Zone and Star Trek episode...friendly, technical, and action packed.

Some criticize the first few chapters as being slow, however, I think it does a great job in fleshing out the main characters as we look at their specific origins. Though the events of the 1st few chapters don't necessarily tie into the main plot, they plant the seeds on how characters will react to certain situations during the main events.

After events of September 11th, many of the most powerful leaders of the free world take on a secret project to develop a new type of weapon, to stamp out terrorism once and for all. Nanotechnology promises to be the ultimate unstoppable force in which it has the potential to make nuclear weapons and all other conventional military obsolete.

To make nanotechnology a reality, the heads of many European countries form a new United Europe and elect Raphael Vicente as its new President. During his early months as President, the 'assembler' breakthrough is achieved, and one of his first goals is to stamp out all terrorists. Without giving the novel away, the nanotechnology becomes a force to reckon with and causes people to disappear, earthquakes, devastation on the oceans, while also providing many 'miracles'...curing the blind, making the lame walk, feeding the world and so on. Is Raphael the antichrist and he doesn't even know it?

Realizing that this is a fictional interpretation of Revelations will help the reader out quite a bit. My reason for not being 5 stars, was even though climax was great, I felt it was hurried in the end and then just stopped. The very last chapter threw me, and not quite sure how it fit in to the rest of the book, otherwise it almost demands a sequel and really deserves to be recognized as a great read.

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good story, March 20, 2003

By 

Dr. Lee D. Carlson (Baltimore, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Conquest Of Paradise: An End-times Nano-Thriller (Paperback)

The last six months has seen the appearance of novels that make use of nanotechnology as a major plot tool. This book, in spite of its ties to Christian religious eschatology, is actually one of the best of these. I found the first 140 pages or so of the story as somewhat "tiring", but the story quickly picked up after that, and I found myself totally engaged in the subsequent events as they unfolded. This book, like others that have preceeded it, could be interpreted as a sign of the anxiety that many feel regarding present and future developments in nanotechnology. And like these other books, the author includes an afterword that lists URLs for informational websites on nanotechnology. The author cautions the reader as to the enormous power of nanotechnology as he believes it to be.

Since the book is (science) fiction and is written to entertain rather than inform, one should not expect to find total conformance to scientific principles or facts. For example, in the story the nanobots engage in the complete dissolution of a human being. But this would entail the breaking of molecular bonds, mostly hydrogen bonds in water molecules since the human body is mostly water. This is not troubling from a scientific standpoint in and of itself, given the size of the nanobots and the fact that they are designed to carry this out. However, in the story the nanobots do this within a time period of just over two minutes. This would result in a rapid release of heat, which would destroy the nanobots themselves. Further, in the story the nanobots engage in both replication and destruction at a global scale, and at timescales that are short enough that the subsequent release of heat would act as a deterent to further activity by the nanobots. Nanobots and the processes they engage in of course are subject to the second law of thermodynamics. Also, in the story the nanobot's mobility is extremely sophisticated, since they are capable of traveling through the air at high speeds. This is also troubling from a scientific standpoint, since the turbulence in the atmosphere at the scale of the size of the nanobots would disrupt their ability to navigate coherently and efficiently.

The author wants to stay close to a particular doctrine of Biblical prophecy. This is apparent in the use of a newly created European Union, which, say some interpreters of Biblical prophecy, was predicted to happen in the "final days" before the advent of the second coming of Christ. The major powers of the world are engaged in an intense research effort to develop a "nano-assembler" and the race ends with an assembler controlled by Raphael Vicente, the leader of the new European Union. His altruism and ambition results in an apocalyptic horror of global proportions, only to be alleviated by the second coming of Christ.

Indeed the story is very entertaining and worth reading, and as a eschatological/science fiction hybrid, it might also be interpreted as a sign of current attempts to justify the Christian religion scientifically. Ideas from all the branches of science, such as physics, biology, and chemistry are being used to give Christian more substance and credibility. Some may frown on this strategy, believing that science and religion never have any intersection. But historically science and religion have coexisted, with the tension between them have varying degrees of intensity. There are many fine scientists alive now that profess to be born-again Christians, and they make excellent contributions to scientific knowledge. Whether these individuals are Christians who sometimes practice science, or scientists who sometimes practice Christianity is a matter of debate possibly, but the truth of their scientific results are certainly independent of the their belief in Christianity.

... and the status of this book as good fiction, which it is, is also independent of the author's Christian beliefs.