Best Nanotech in Fiction

What is, so far, the best science fiction ever written about advanced nanotechnology? I'll list a few favorites and then ask you to suggest others.

• The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson (1995) -- This is tops, in my view. It's hard-edged SF, with a fascinating scenario, great characters, and a thrilling finale.

• Axiomatic, by Greg Egan (1995) -- A peerless collection of short stories by one of our finest writers, not all the tales about nanotech but enough of them that it must make this list.

• Slant, by Greg Bear (1997) -- A fast-moving novel with plenty of nano interest and no shortage of big ideas.

• The Stone Canal, by Ken MacLeod (1996) -- The first of two books set in a nano-enabled 24th century; the sequel, not as good IMO, is The Cassini Division.

• Queen City Jazz, by Kathleen Ann Goonan (1994) -- This is a quirky mix of fantastic nanotech, genetic engineering, and a bit of magic, but Goonan is such a talented writer that she draws you in to her invented world. Two sequels, Mississippi Blues and Crescent City Rhapsody, do not work quite as well.

• Nanotech, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois (1998) -- Another collection of short stories, including one each by Greg Egan, Greg Bear, and Kathleen Ann Goonan. Some of them are dated, but overall this is an excellent compendium.

Notice anything about this list? Everything on it is from the mid to late 1990s. Does that say something about me, or about the decline of nanotech fiction since then?

Here are two other nano-based novels that I don't recommend:

• Nano, by John Robert Marlow (2004) -- Of the two listed here, this one is better. It's got a scary premise that has relevance to CRN's work, but unfortunately the writing is mediocre and the science is unconvincing.

• Prey, by Michael Crichton (2003) -- By far the best known and most widely read nanotech novel, this one's a real disappointment. Crichton is capable of top-notch fiction (Congo, Sphere, Timeline, Jurassic Park), but he seems to have lost his touch recently. Prey is pretty much a mess, filled with cardboard characters and ridiculously fantastic "science." Don't bother.

That's my subjective opinion. What are your favorites?

(NOTE: For a list of recommended non-fiction books on nanotech, click here.)

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Comments

[Hal Finney]

Greg Bear's Moving Mars has some nanotech based scenes, including an attack by nanotech based weaponry - actually not too different from some of the scenarios you guys play with. One of my favorite books.

I suspect that one reason we don't see so much nano in present-day sci-fi is because the Empire has Struck Back and most hard SF writers no longer see Drexlerian nanotech as a major component of future technology. For an example of post-Drexlerian nano see Charles Stross' Accelerando. Their nanotech does not rely on clumsy arms and mills; instead they set up a quantum superposition of wave functions, an atom-level hologram which congeals into whatever molecular arrangement is desired.

[NanoEnthusiast]

I suspect that a major problem is that it is hard to come up with a society that uses nanotech in every way possible. For example, for a plot point you might need nanobots swimming in someone's blood stream, but you do not want to think through the economic implications of a nanofactory. Of course, how could you make enough nanobots to have any use in the body if they are not mass-produced? You can't do that without a nanofactory, therefore a lot of authors will simply ignore nanotech rather that construct a society that uses nanotechnology unrealistically. It is very hard to conceive of a society with strong nanotechnology. The number of previous constants in human affairs that become variables is very large. Most SF tries to change only a small handful of variables.

Hal, the kind of manufacturing you referred to is an outgrowth of "atom optics". I think Stross used it to be provocative. As far as I know, only two scientists are working on it (atom holography manufacturing) Lute Maleki of JPL and Pierre Meystre of University of Arizona.

Neil Asher's "The Engineer" short story - bionano

Greg Bear's "Blood Music", altho' it may be considered a bit soft on the bio-side of the bio/nano interface

[Chris Phoenix, CRN]

As a story, I liked The Cassini Division better than Stone Canal. Also, I liked the (earlier) novella version of Blood Music a lot better than the novel.

David Marusek's We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy is probably top of my list. It appears in the Nanotech collection. A lot of the other stories in that collection just use nanotech as background, and tend to make it semi-magical or else poorly-defined and weakly applied. Marusek actually thought through what nanotech would mean to society, and did a good job of sticking to physics. And it's an excellent story, too.

Diamond Age has some annoying problems--physics contradictions, recycled subplots--it has lots of cool ideas, but I wouldn't rate it highly because I don't like science fiction authors who are careless with the science.

I think the reason nanotech fiction faded out is that humans can't write post-singularity stories.

Chris

[Tom Mazanec]

http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
Has a fascinating attempt at post-singularity interstellar society.

[Michael Martine]

People can and do write post-singularity stories. Accelerando by Charles Stross is one such.

I highly recommend John C. Wright's Golden Age trilogy and Sean McMullen's "Calculor" series of books.

[Michael Anissimov]

Golden Age rules. Humans can't write post-Singularity stories, but we can write ultratechnological stories, with humanlike characters.

I like a lot of things from the mid to late 90s, because I grew up then. Most adults I know seem to be into the music, books, and art that were popular when they were young.

Have you read Asteroi? That's supposed to be good.