Customer Reviews

The Cunning Blood

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Jeff Duntemann's first novel is a wild and entertaining ride - all the way to Hell and back! The bulk of the novel's action occurs on the planet Hell - a distant world settled by humans as a prison. The Earth authorities have developed and let out ("free range") self-replicating nanobots which attack any electrical circuit, destroying it within minutes. Earth assumes that, without electricity for computers, the colony will remain stuck with 19th century technology, and unable to threaten Earth.
Boy are they wrong! The colonists have been developing all sorts of non-electric technologies, such as pneumatic computers, to further their goal, namely, revenge on Earth. And that's where things get interesting. Although nanotechnology has been essentially banned on Earth, certain secret societies have been nurturing the technology, quite literally in their bloodstreams.
I found The Cunning Blood a great read, written by an observant person with a refreshing willingness to look at both sides of an issue. For instance, the society on Hell is organized on libertarian principles. But, thanks to some solid writing by Duntemann, we get to see the downsides to the libertarian ideal.
In short, this is a great read. I can't recommend it enough!

I bought this book because I have Mr. Duntemann's Wi-Fi book, which was terrific. I picked it up at an SF con the night the publisher released it. I opened it to a random place and started reading. (This is one of my tests for good SF books.) I just couldn't stop, even though I didn't know everything about what was going on.

The central gimmick is an Earthlike prison planet where the "prison" is a bacteria-sized nanomachine that homes in on electrical conductors and chews the metal until the connection breaks. Electricity is therefore impossible there, along with computers and space travel, so the planet has developed all kinds of technologies that don't require electricity, like catalytic chemical lights, Sterling heat engines, hydraulic and other mechanical computers, and diesel engines. (I didn't know Diesel engines operate without electricity, but it's true.) They use steam engines as well, though I wouldn't call this a steampunk story. The engineers on Hell (the prison world) actually accomplish simple things with electricity by using liquid mercury running through thin hoses instead of wires! The book is full of cool ideas like that. The Hell civilization consists of hundreds of societies (with Greek letter names, like fraternities) that cooperate like city-states in Renaissance Europe, each one specializing in some aspect of civilization, like farming or building aircraft. The story focuses on a society that does nothing but R&D and eventually figures out how to make orbital spacecraft work without electricity.

The best technology in the story, however, are the nanocomputer AIs. The main nanocomputer character is called the Sangruse Device. ("Sang ruse" is French for "cunning blood.") It lives in human bloodstreams in the form of millions of tiny devices the size of blood cells. It talks to the human carrying it by tapping on the human's ear bones, and the human talks back by framing words without actually speaking them. Because nanotechnology is suppressed by Earth's global government (run by the Canadians!) secret societies build nanocomputers and carry them in their bloodstreams to keep from being discovered.

The main character, Peter Novilio, carries the Sangruse Device, which is extremely powerful and pretty paranoid. The book starts out a little like a buddy movie with one buddy inside the other, gathering intelligence for Canada. Then the Sangruse Device slowly begins to take charge, and treats Peter more like a disguise. There's treason and counterplots and an illicit colony of convicts attempting to re-establish American government on Earth.

I won't spoil the plot here, which is extremely complex and goes from one end of the book to the other at a dead run. The writing is fast and vivid, and doesn't bog down in long sections of dialog. It's mostly action, and when it isn't action it's SF idea-making at its best.

I can't recommend this book enough, especially if you grew up on Larry Niven and Robert Heinlein, like I did.

This is a work of Science Fiction; it is certified 100% free of dragons, elves, dwarves, and swords with proper names.

Once upon a time... oh, drat, now they've got me talking like that. Start again... A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a genre of speculative writing known as "Science Fiction." There were giants in those days: Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, Wells, Niven and Pournelle, Laumer, and many more. It was an active field, and in those, our younger days, our sense of wonder was never left wanting.

Then something happened. There was a disturbance in the Force. Perhaps it started around 1970 with the first Hobbit infestation. Or perhaps, in roughly the same era, the pestilence came riding a dragon. Whatever. What was once a broad field was whittled down to a few specialist publishing houses, and these houses being the commercial interests that they are, latched onto a formula that made money for them, and continued to publish more of the same. "Fantasy and Science Fiction" is as unlikely a pairing as "Tantric Poetry and Differential Equations."

Jeff Duntemann's "The Cunning Blood" comes as a welcome return to the old style of science fiction. Duntemann proposes a few altered ground rules, gives his machinery a shove, and sees where it leads. In this case, a future Earth, ruled by a pacifist, nanny-state Canadian hegemony, where any act of violence, from homicide to punching a guy in the nose in a barroom scuffle, results in a one-way trip to Hell, a penal colony planet. And nanodevices, of several species. These include a dumb but voracious variety in Hell's biosphere that attacks any conductor of electricity (and therefore is supposed to ensure that Hell remains technologically backward -- or so 1Earth's government assumes) and the Sangruse Device -- several generations of much smarter, networked nanodevices which flow through the bloodstreams of certain key individuals in the story in a symbiotic relationship, where the reader is never quite certain whether human or nanodevice is in charge. And he speculates how a society where electrical devices fail faster than the wiring harness of an English sports car in a rainstorm might nevertheless achieve a high level of technical development.

Any good story has conflict, and "The Cunning Blood" has conflict aplenty, on multiple levels: between Earth and its penal colony Hell, between various versions and mutations of the Sangruse Device, and between individual humans. There is enough intrigue, double-dealing, and characters with their own hidden agendas to make this a real page-turner. It isn't until we near the end of the book that we realize that the conflict between humans is a mere sideshow to something much larger.

I won't give away any more of the plot here. The other reviews already give a good taste of what's in store. But I will close with the following observation: books like this renew my faith that Science Fiction is still alive and well -- somewhere. I wasn't disappointed by this book, and I don't think you will be, either.

This book was a shockingly good read and an extremely pleasant find. A while back, when running low on new books to read, I searched through the databases on Amazon for five stars reads in various genres. I ordered a number of books by new authors with mixed results. This book was by far the best of the lot and I highly recommend it to anyone.

Set in the future, where Earth is essentially run by women, Canadian women at that, black market nanotechnology has begun producing new intelligences, colonies of nanites, deliberately built that have their own bizarre sentience and which live in the blood and bodies of individuals. Near space has been tentatively explored, but the only real achievement is to set up a penal colony (shades of Australia) where the female dominated government deports those who engage in any act of violence. The penal colony itself is seeded with non-sentient nanites which attack electrical sources, thereby keeping the technology of the penal planet to that of 1800's earth. Supposedly.

This is a stunning read, rife with ideas, a veritable tour-de-force of science education. The author has a command of science far beyond that of most writers and constantly astounds the reader with technologies with are non-electrically based yet grounded in the real world. Beyond that he has spun a tale with gripping, believable and three-dimensional characters, intricate plotting, fantastic story-line, and enough conflict to keep you mesmerized. This is a ripping good story which I enjoyed immensely, and it gave me maximum dosages of the two things I like best: ideas that make me think and non-stop action. I found myself amazed that I had never heard of this author or book before. This one should have won the Hugo award in my opinion.

It's 366 years in the future. Nanotechnology is everywhere, but humanity is still humanity, and the social ills that entails have continued right along, evolving to fit the times. Meet Peter Novolio. Peter is in trouble with the law. Meet Sangruse 9, the distributed, sentient, self-evolving nanomachine symbiont that lives in Peter's blood as his constant companion. Peter and 9 are going to Hell, the prison planet, where an atmospheric nanomachine infestation detects and eats electrical conductors. It's a one way trip. There's no contact at all from the surface of Hell to the Earth. There hasn't been in years. End of story, right? Wrong. Peter's banishment is only the beginning. In the face of nanotechnology and sheer human determination and ingenuity, and a small but potent society of people like Peter, nothing could be so simple. By the time the story is resolved, the futures of Hell, Earth, and everybody, biological or nanotechnological will be forever altered by The Cunning Blood.

Duntemann pulls off several impressive stunts in this book. He deals with a dystopian future without being grim. He deals with super-technology without loosing the reader's sense that this is all plausible, that this really could happen this way. He blends in social satire without bludgeoning us over the head with it. Most importantly, he manages to have nanotech as the keystone technology of his novel without letting it become arbitrarily powerful and magical. He creates machine personalities that are neither god nor slave. And he weaves the whole shebang together in a classic science fiction style that takes Progress as a given without entirely ignoring the nature of the human beings who drive it. These are difficult balances to strike, and Duntemann does it with aplomb.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who loves (and misses) old school science fiction.

Set on Earth in 2372, the planet is ruled by Canadians who force a politically correct society that has abolished violence along with freedom. Offenders are exiled to a planet named Hell, which has been seeded with nanomachines to keep the Hellions living in primitive conditions - but nobody has checked on Hell for a long time, and a secret society's involvements in Hell reveals a blossoming high-tech civilization with one purpose: to exact revenge. A gripping political battle evolves in a very unusual blend of hard science and military science fiction.

This book was a little challanging to read because I found I occasionally had to stop and ponder the ideas presented. I can't believe there are so many ways to develop technology that are not dependent on a steady supply of electricity. Is Earth's dependence on electricity holding us back from developing these alternative technologies? It's an interesting idea. Also, the nano computers were really cool. I liked the fish tank that turned into a computer monitor.

There was plenty of action involving space travel and battles with mastadons and futuristic doomsday weapons. With all those great visuals, this book would make a good movie. Secrets were revealed throughout the book which kept the plot moving along.

Overall, a great read for anyone who appreciates science in their science fiction.

Great start, better middle, died a slow and painfull death. Worth it as a paperback. Not a classic by any stretch.

This is one of the most exciting Sci-Fi reads I have found in awhile!The idea of a creature (a nano creature)inhabiting people is just wonderful,imagine having your own sidekick in your body who is a sort of super hero at the same time.
I enjoyed the idea that for a good way through the story there were more than one protaganist to root for.
I also think that the authors development of unusual technologies is great fun and quite believable I especially like the world of OVOD/Hell.
Buy this book you will really enjoy!

For purposes of full disclosure, the author and I are friends even though I haven't seen him in several decades. (We are planning a school reunion for this June.) However, he has no idea I've read his novel and even less of an idea that I am writing a review here. (Surprise Jeff!)

Science fiction is a genre I haven't read in about 25 years and even then I wasn't a particularly hard-core fan. It generally just has too much, well, science in it for my taste. So I'll leave that aspect for others to review as I have no idea how much of the fascinating technoligy he writes about in his book is feasible or believable to others. (Heck, it's ALL believable to me since I don't have a clue.)

However, I have read my fair share of fiction and feel competent to comment on those aspects of this story. A good novel to me is one that makes me want to keep reading. It's one where I care about what is going to happen and want to find out how it turns out. A good story keeps me up later than I intended and has me reading farther than I meant to at any given time. On those measures, this story succeeds admirably. It caught my attention and didn't let it go. I wanted to find out what would happen to the main protagonist Peter, the Sangruse Device living in his blood, 1Earth, Hell and the rest. The action pretty much is continuous from start to finish. But there is some interesting social commentary woven into the story as well. And it thankfully avoids the sexism which was so prevalent in much of the science fiction I've read previously.

My bottom line recommendation is to read it whether you are a sci fi fan or not.