From Publishers Weekly
Screenwriter Marlow's derivative, fast-paced debut, a near-future thriller, features the latest thing in tech menaces-nanotechnology. The assassination of billionaire Mitchell Swain, just as he's about to unveil microscopic robots that will solve all of humanity's problems, puts the inventor of Swain's revolution, the geeky John Marrek, in deadly peril. Agents of an evil U.S. government with their own nanobots try to stop Marrek from following through with Swain's program, but he finds supporters in a stereotypically beautiful female journalist, Jennifer Rayne, a virtuous president and an honest air force colonel. In chapter after cinematic chapter of dueling nanos, Marrek's disassembling nanobots wipe out whole teams of government hit men while the assembler bots cause redwoods to sprout in seconds to block pursuers. Along the way, Marrek delivers ethical and informational lectures to Jen, justifying high body counts and painting a nano-ified future in the brightest of colors as long as good guys like him are in control. Marrek and the government's nanos finally square off in the Bay Area, with the fate of the world at stake. If the politics or science were anything to take seriously, readers might have cause for alarm. As it is, the action is all that counts in this slick formula effort, which reads like a novelized screenplay. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
Mitchell Swain, richest man on Earth, is assassinated just before he can announce a revolutionary new technology, leaving developer John Marrek responsible for it now. While he is destroying evidence of his lab, reporter Jennifer Rayne, her journalistic instincts demanding she discover the motivation for the assassination, interrupts. Because she'll provide useful second opinions, and she is cute, John decides to take her with him as he flees those out to stop the release of nanotech. The chasers pursue, guns blazing, but John has a nanogun, and it disassembles them. Rogue elements in the U.S. government, some of them using everything the military has at hand, are after John and Jennifer, but then John's infant nanotech AI comes online and saves them by taking over military defenses. The baddies desperately release nanites that destroy San Francisco and, because of faulty programming, continue destroying. The AI saves the day, and eventually, John agrees to work with the government. This reads like a big-budget summer blockbuster with interesting but overgeneralizing afterwords. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
John Robert Marlow's debut novel, Nano, leaves apocalyptic classics like Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer and Stephen King's The Stand in the dust. A near-future technological thriller with terrifyingly feasible implications, Marlow's novel delves into the wonders -- and dangers -- of nanotechnology.

Mitchell Swain is the richest, and arguably the most powerful, man in the world. When the founder and CEO of the tech pioneering corporation Microtron calls a press conference to announce "the most important discovery in the history of the human race," millions stop to listen. But just as Swain is about to unveil the Last Big Breakthrough, he's assassinated. Does anyone else know what was he going to reveal? Reporter Jennifer Rayne vows to find out.

As Rayne investigates further, those whose help she enlists end up dead. When she finds the scientist to whom Swain had covertly funneled billions, an enigmatic genius named John Marrek, they become fellow fugitives desperately fleeing murderous government agents. While on the run, Marrek tells Jennifer about Swain's dream of seeing nanotechnology create a virtual paradise without hunger, disease, death, or even war. But some government leaders will do anything to possess the technology and turn it into a weapon of mass destruction, or more specifically, a weapon of mass disassembly.

Impeccably researched, action-packed, filled with incredible plot twists (the ending will blow readers away!) and with pacing that can only be described as breakneck, this is a spectacular page-turner that demands to be read. Paul Goat Allen

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Nanotechnology promises all things: immortality, invincibility, wealth beyond imagination - and the utter destruction of mankind. One man has it, and no one knows who..." "Mitchell Swain is the richest man in the world, until he announces the "ultimate technological breakthrough." The world stops for the press conference - and sees him assassinated. No one knows what he was going to say." "Almost no one." "Jennifer Rayne intends to find out. A leading journalist covering high-tech, she was scheduled to interview Swain after the press conference. Instead, she investigates his murder. What she finds is a scientist to whom Swain has funneled billions...a desperate U.S. government following the same clues ...and a bizarre technology that promises invincibility, immortality, and the ability to destroy any enemy - or the earth itself. Mankind has entered the final arms race." "It will last two days." As this fast-paced nanothriller unfolds, readers are taken on a tour de force of nanotechnology's promises and perils - until the fate of the earth itself hangs in the balance.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Screenwriter Marlow's derivative, fast-paced debut, a near-future thriller, features the latest thing in tech menaces nanotechnology. The assassination of billionaire Mitchell Swain, just as he's about to unveil microscopic robots that will solve all of humanity's problems, puts the inventor of Swain's revolution, the geeky John Marrek, in deadly peril. Agents of an evil U.S. government with their own nanobots try to stop Marrek from following through with Swain's program, but he finds supporters in a stereotypically beautiful female journalist, Jennifer Rayne, a virtuous president and an honest air force colonel. In chapter after cinematic chapter of dueling nanos, Marrek's disassembling nanobots wipe out whole teams of government hit men while the assembler bots cause redwoods to sprout in seconds to block pursuers. Along the way, Marrek delivers ethical and informational lectures to Jen, justifying high body counts and painting a nano-ified future in the brightest of colors as long as good guys like him are in control. Marrek and the government's nanos finally square off in the Bay Area, with the fate of the world at stake. If the politics or science were anything to take seriously, readers might have cause for alarm. As it is, the action is all that counts in this slick formula effort, which reads like a novelized screenplay. (Feb. 11) Forecast: Backed by blurbs from Vernor Vinge and Steve Alten, this should attract some of the same audience that went for Michael Crichton's similarly themed 2002 thriller, Prey. Bookstore success could help speed the screenplay, already in the Hollywood option process, into production. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews