Nanotech Series by Kathleen Ann Goonan, Rodney Crosby

In Verity's world, nanotech plagues decimated the population after an initial renaissance of utopian nanotech cities. Growing up on an isolated farm, she finds her happy life changing course when Blaze, the only young man in the community and Verity's best friend, is shot. With Blaze's body wrapped in a nanotech cocoon, Verity sets off on a quest to the Enlivened City of Cincinnati... moreIn Verity's world, nanotech plagues decimated the population after an initial renaissance of utopian nanotech cities. Growing up on an isolated farm, she finds her happy life changing course when Blaze, the only young man in the community and Verity's best friend, is shot. With Blaze's body wrapped in a nanotech cocoon, Verity sets off on a quest to the Enlivened City of Cincinnati. It is a place of legend, where huge bio-engineered bees carry information through the streets and enormous nanotech flowers burst from the tops of strange buildings. It is the place where Blaze might be brought back from the brink of death. But Cincinnati is a city of dreams turned into nightmares, endlessly reliving the fantasies of its creator, a city that Verity must rule--or die. less

The journey of Verity across the wonderfully altered landscape of mid-America began in Queen City Jazz: "A dizzying novel that takes full advantage of the creative potential of nanotech," said The New York Times. Now it continues down the river in Mississippi Blues. Verity takes the wildest cast of characters since Philip José Farmer's Riverworld, both living and resurrected, down the river to possible salvation in New Orleans and beyond in a great SF epic.

What would it feel like to live through a biological revolution? Many science fiction writers chronicling a vast technological shift lose sight of the people who would have to deal with it. Not so Kathleen Ann Goonan, whose Crescent City Rhapsody is the third of her Nanotech Cycle novels. Each of her characters is profoundly real, and the things that happen to them are as confusing, awe-inspiring, and terrifying as you might expect... moreWhat would it feel like to live through a biological revolution? Many science fiction writers chronicling a vast technological shift lose sight of the people who would have to deal with it. Not so Kathleen Ann Goonan, whose Crescent City Rhapsody is the third of her Nanotech Cycle novels. Each of her characters is profoundly real, and the things that happen to them are as confusing, awe-inspiring, and terrifying as you might expect. Goonan's story begins with the assassination of Marie Laveau, New Orleans cyber-entrepreneur and grand-niece of the famous voudoun queen. By prior arrangement, Marie is resurrected into a cloned body and prepares for revenge, but she awakens into a world beset by the Silence--periodic bursts of microchip-destroying radiation from space. Enter Dr. Zeb Aberly, a bipolar astrophysicist whose manic episodes help him understand that the Silence contains an alien message and perhaps the potential to change humanity's biology radically. Meanwhile, in Japan, a young biotechnician seals her fate when she helps steal the recipe for a Universal Assembler, a nanotech tool of fearsome power and destructive capability. The stage is set for a revolution, and Goonan delivers, with complex, interwoven story lines that resemble the rhythms and structure of a jazz composition. Brightly colored lines were inching their way up buildings like plants in a fast-growing jungle. She moved briskly, but her heart was lifeless. She was looking at her past and seeing a future that she was not a part of. People sat leaning against buildings here and there, which was the hardest to see. They were not begging. Their brains were changing. They were adapting to the new city. As cities become organisms, a new generation of profoundly different humans comes of age and hope dawns in Crescent City, and Goonan directs the show with artistic flair. Crescent City Rhapsody is confusing and delightful, a swoony harmony of words swirling around crisply melodic ideas. --Therese Littleton less

Once the world worked differently -- before "the Silence" from space quieted the airwaves. Once there was a haven called Crescent City, built through the wonders of nanotechnology to transport its enlightened inhabitants into the cosmos. But humanity has failed the city... moreOnce the world worked differently -- before "the Silence" from space quieted the airwaves. Once there was a haven called Crescent City, built through the wonders of nanotechnology to transport its enlightened inhabitants into the cosmos. But humanity has failed the city.Dania Cooper, a brilliant scientist and resilient survivor, and Jason Peabody, a recipient of the DNA-altering virus affecting a remarkable few who were born at the Silence's onset, must now flee the sentient metropolis -- embarking on a bizarre odyssey across a perilous, unrecognizable landscape of tragically "youngening" children, of plague-ravaged humans in foreboding "flower cities," of conscious machines and talking animals. For a world that is not as it was is on the brink of yet another astonishing transformation -- either by grand design or random cosmic accident. less