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26th out of 57 books
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69 voters
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Plague Year (Plague #1)
by
Jeff Carlson (Goodreads Author)
The nanotechnology was designed to fight cancer. Instead, it evolved into the Machine Plague, killing nearly five billion people and changing life on Earth forever.
The nanotech has one weakness: it self-destructs at altitudes above ten thousand feet. Those few who've managed to escape the plague struggle to stay alive on the highest mountains, but time is running out-the...more
The nanotech has one weakness: it self-destructs at altitudes above ten thousand feet. Those few who've managed to escape the plague struggle to stay alive on the highest mountains, but time is running out-the...more
Paperback, 304 pages
Published
July 31st 2007
by Ace
(first published 2007)
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Shelves:
apocalpyse,
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thriller,
authors_jeff_carlson,
read-2009
Nice first novel. The narrative flow and prose in the first part of the novel was a bit clunky, otherwise this would be four-star. Carlson clearly researches his topics, and managed to transport the reader into a high altitude survival event. I'd encourage a more realistic 'tramatic stress' orientation on the part of the individuals. Good nanotech overview.
Hope he does well as I think he will be a rising author in the genre.
Hope he does well as I think he will be a rising author in the genre.
This was a hit and miss post-apocalyptic tale set in the near future. A nano-tech virus has swept the earth, killing anything below 10,000 feet. To survive you have to move up in the mountains and have to do unspeakable things. I liked the survival elements of the book but there are two stories--one of the survivors and one of scientists trying to find the cure for the nano virus. I didn't like the science element at all. It was clunky and just eroded any tension and suspense from the survival p...more
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I can dig emotionally dark stories. I don't want to wallow in them all the time, but there's plenty of good material in the abyss. As tour guides go, Carlson is one of the better I've had. He gives his readers a flashlight and a sandwich and an apple in a paper bag before he sends them into the darkness.
At first, I was worried that the whole book was going to be an unrelenting tale of gloom in desolation. But Carlson had the inventiveness and sense to bring exciting and unexpected ...more
At first, I was worried that the whole book was going to be an unrelenting tale of gloom in desolation. But Carlson had the inventiveness and sense to bring exciting and unexpected ...more
Interesting take on end-of-world genre using man-made nano-technology.
Our story begins in the after-math one year after the world as we know it has died off. People, animals, etc leaving only insects and reptiles to populate the earth. We learn about the world's end during our story in flashbacks to find that a man-made nano-technology had been accidentally released onto the world. It was being created to cure cancer and was not yet perfected, obviously. The only survivor's are ...more
Our story begins in the after-math one year after the world as we know it has died off. People, animals, etc leaving only insects and reptiles to populate the earth. We learn about the world's end during our story in flashbacks to find that a man-made nano-technology had been accidentally released onto the world. It was being created to cure cancer and was not yet perfected, obviously. The only survivor's are ...more
Very good, light read for the plane. An excellent apocalyptic setting, that held together well throughout the book.
In Plague Year, a "nanotech" virus got loose and reduces all warm-blooded creatures to mush. The catch? There is a governor that says it can't survive if at the standard air pressure at 10,000 feet. So everyone made a run for the mountains and small pockets of humanity survive, barely, with the occasional foray below the magic line, at a terrible physical cost....more
In Plague Year, a "nanotech" virus got loose and reduces all warm-blooded creatures to mush. The catch? There is a governor that says it can't survive if at the standard air pressure at 10,000 feet. So everyone made a run for the mountains and small pockets of humanity survive, barely, with the occasional foray below the magic line, at a terrible physical cost....more
Summary:
Cam and his small community of fellow survivors live on a small mountain peak just over 10,000 feet above sea level. Below this altitude is an invisible ocean of fatal nanotechnology. Cam’s community struggles to survive until a stranger arrives to help them, setting off an unforeseen series of events.
Nanotech specialist Ruth works in the International Space Station, far above the machine plague below. But in order to craft a cure, she must go back to Earth and fin...more
Cam and his small community of fellow survivors live on a small mountain peak just over 10,000 feet above sea level. Below this altitude is an invisible ocean of fatal nanotechnology. Cam’s community struggles to survive until a stranger arrives to help them, setting off an unforeseen series of events.
Nanotech specialist Ruth works in the International Space Station, far above the machine plague below. But in order to craft a cure, she must go back to Earth and fin...more
I finished this earlier today. It's a cool new take on the post-apocalyptic world scenerio, with humans destroying the world. And in true SF form, it's the cool way that we do it that draws you to the book. Essentially, in our attempt to cure cancer using nanotechnology, an "accident" releases a prototype of the nanotech . . . which subsequently destroys living tissue, not just cancer. Everyone would have died, except that the prototype had a built in failsafe, a circuit that self-...more
Where to start - ok the first thing to say is this certainly was a different read - the idea of a bio-engineered plague to end all of life or at least human civilisation is not the first and i am sure not the last (think white plague by Frank Herbert or Blood Music by Greg Bear) but this was an interesting addition to the genre all the same. One thing i would say though is that this is the first of a trilogy - and it certainly felt it - some characters took long descriptive paths to get to a cer...more
Man, what a ride! This is one of the best techno-thriller I've read in years. A chilling cautionary tale about the dangers of nanotechnology, PLAGUE YEAR hooked me early on and kept me hooked. From the awesome opening line ("They ate Jorgensen first.") to the hopeful but open-ended conclusion, author Jeff Carlson really kept me guessing. Carlson's command of the science involved makes it fascinating and believable and his understanding of human nature makes the relationships in thi...more
Good first novel. I listened to the audio version and enjoyed it. I'm a big fan of post-apocalyptic fiction and his story was a good one. Carlson gives the reader micro (a band of mountain-top survivors) and macro (the new US government in Colorado) views of life after a nano-tech plague, and does a good job of getting the reader to care about his characters. Overall it was a little uneven, the climactic scene at the end seemed to drag on a bit long for me, but as a whole Plague Year was enj...more
I'm a big fan of "end of the world" type stories, and this book caught my eye... actually it's sequel (Plague War) caught my eye first at the library and I waited until I found this book to read them both.
Very interesting stuff in this set of books - a nano technology "plague" (originally meant to attack cancer cells) is accidentally released in a Northern California lab, and this book deals with the consequences of about 95+ % of the world's population being wiped...more
Very interesting stuff in this set of books - a nano technology "plague" (originally meant to attack cancer cells) is accidentally released in a Northern California lab, and this book deals with the consequences of about 95+ % of the world's population being wiped...more
In Jeff Carlson’s debut techno-thriller – the first in a trilogy – he pulls out all the stops to hook new readers with a nanotech virus that has wiped out most of the population. Everyone essentially has the virus, but the key to survival is to be at an elevation of at least ten thousand feet, where the nanobots are inoperative.
High up in the California sierras there are some people eking out their survival, struggling to get by day by day. In the past they have scrambled below the c...more
High up in the California sierras there are some people eking out their survival, struggling to get by day by day. In the past they have scrambled below the c...more
With a first sentence about cannibalism you would think this would be an interesting, fascinating read. It has so much potential with a nanotech virus, a destroyed world, and a reduced population struggling to survive. Instead this work focuses primarily on the egos involved in the story rather than the actual people. These people are faulted to a fault. It seems that anyone who does not have an extreme selfish streak are the ones who die regardless of their value in curing the disease or th...more
A pretty good science-gone-bad thriller with a mean pulse running through it. Sometime in the near future some nanotech escapes from the lab and starts killing people by basically eating them from the inside out. The nanites have a built in fuse, at 70% of standard atmosphere they self destruct. You have to go up to approximately 10,000 feet altitude to hit that percentage. All the survivors on earth are above that altitude, huddled on the tops of the worlds tallest mountains. Everything warm bl...more
Plague Year is not only a story of post-apocalyptic survival, but one of loyalty, guilt, and ego or perhaps hubris. It is the story of good, but not necessarily nice, people who do bad things and heroic things. It's about the necessity of secrets. It's about the desire for power and glory. But most of all, it's about human beings who, in the middle of the worst disaster of not only their lives but also human history, can be petty, altruist, vicious, and caring, sometimes all at the same time.
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This was a well-executed, entertaining story. The pace was great, the characters were complicated, interesting, and believable, and the overall idea was original. As I was reading I saw the scenes as clearly drawn as great video drama like Battlestar Galactica, Dexter, or Stargate Universe. With its pacing and string of cliffhangers, it could easily be made into a season of 22 episodes. Some producer ought to be reading this review and saying to him/herself, "hmmmm"
It's ...more
It's ...more
I thoroughly enjoyed this book - it kept me gripped from the very beginning. I would have given it 5 stars except for the fact that there were a couple of parts that began to drift slightly - but not for long. Carson depicts his post-apocalyptic world with a stark realism,; it is brutal. Half-starved survivors of a dreadful technological plague live high up over a drifting sea of invisible death. The world depicted holds no hope, only pain, hunger and brutish survival. Highly recommended.
Good solid dystopian entry of a trilogy. Shows depravity to which men sink and the need for redemption. it's about stopping a man-made plague of nanos that were supposed to cure cancer and instead eat every living thing below 10,000 feet - can't stand the lower air pressure? It shows the internecine conflicts between scientists as they race to find a cure. It's about human weakness, goodness,and what can drive a man to the brink of death.
A brief review as I am only 75% done--I'll finish tonight. I saw this book at Borders, read the jacket, then read the hook on the first page. Done deal and to the register I went. It is actuallty better reading it. It builds and builds and is never slow or dull from the beginning. Read the first page and you'll know what I mean.
The story is takes place not too long after a plague (human created nanotech--not virus) is wiping or has wiped all mammalian life from the planet below 9,000...more
The story is takes place not too long after a plague (human created nanotech--not virus) is wiping or has wiped all mammalian life from the planet below 9,000...more
Beware nano techology! The technical jargon was way over my head but all sounded plausible. If it gets out of control, it can wreak untold havoc. This book was quite brutal in spots and I really liked the characters. It rushes you right along to the ending which was abrupt. I felt like it ended too quickly and neatly and left me with too many questions. It was a good read all in all.
Since I am a definate post apocalyptic fiction fan, I had to give this a read, and it was good. A definate solid 3 stars. The author is not afraid to let some of his characters die (often times in books like this the main characters always live) and it was an interesting look at nanotechnology. Will have to check to see if there are any other similar genre books by this author.
Sucked in by a great jacket design/description, I bought this book after only a glance thinking it would live up to the tag lines. It did not.
The premise was wonderfully promising, but left me wanting more in its execution. Not one of the characters was presented sympathetically; I found none of them even remotely likable, which made it very hard to stay in the story. There was so much promise of a plague and nanotechnology, and very little in the way of plausible (in fiction) sci...more
The premise was wonderfully promising, but left me wanting more in its execution. Not one of the characters was presented sympathetically; I found none of them even remotely likable, which made it very hard to stay in the story. There was so much promise of a plague and nanotechnology, and very little in the way of plausible (in fiction) sci...more
The first time I got to a complicated action sequence and thought, "Wait, who are all these people?" I said, "Bad reader! Back to the beginning!" and started over, paying more attention this time. The second time I got to a (different) complicated action sequence and realized that I had no idea who I was reading about AGAIN, I put the book away.
I love Post Holocaust stories and this one's premise is truly unique. I get itchy beneath the skin just thinking about nanobots run amuck. That said, it was a little too dark for me in places and the female pov wasn't as strong as I'd like. More Stephen King than Dean R. Koontz.
Excellent, but not optimistic enough for me;)
Excellent, but not optimistic enough for me;)
A plague of pressure-sensitive nanotech originally designed to fight cancer wipes out all life below 10,000 feet elevation. An interesting book about how the patches of people with competing interests survive in the mountains attempting to find an answer, with a bit of an Outbreak-style too-quick-to-believe solution.
I had a mad desperation to finish this book. Carlson does an excellent job of mixing high tech with base human emotion, and reminds us that even in dire situations humans are willing to turn on each other to get what they want. The scenario is refreshingly different from the usual end-of-the-world riff. An excellent first novel.
Good book and thoroughly enjoyed it. SThought the 10,000 feet rule left things a bit too restrictive for plot enhancement. also I think the nano should have been restricted to human destruction only as I can't see how the planet ecology could recover and sustain humanoid life going forward
In short: Chillingly realistic. Carlson creates grittily real characters in a nervously almost-feasible apocalyptic scenario. His descriptions of the effects of the nano plague and the reactions of the characters to the terrible and unavoidable nature of those effects are quite convincing. I would give five stars, save (1) that the writing in the action scenes gets a bit muddled at times and (2) the ending lost some of the tightness of the rest of the novel.
Still, a very good read...more
Still, a very good read...more
I liked the concept. The writing is a bit long-winded when the author describes the protagonists relationships, but overall a darn fine read. I've read all three books in the series and see the same style carried through all three. They read as if he wrote one story and ended up breaking it into three books.
Overall: Recommended!
Overall: Recommended!
This was pretty good - interesting look at the darker side of humans and what we will do when our backs are against the wall and we're struggling to survive. The first line of the book - "They ate Jorgensen first." Wow! What an opening line!
Interesting book - kind of a combination medical thriller and sci-fi. The premise is some nanotechnology was created with the idea to eradicate cancer. However, when the nanos get loose, they end up creating a plague that kills everything warm...more
Interesting book - kind of a combination medical thriller and sci-fi. The premise is some nanotechnology was created with the idea to eradicate cancer. However, when the nanos get loose, they end up creating a plague that kills everything warm...more
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Jeff Carlson is the international bestselling author of the Plague Year trilogy. He is currently at work on a new stand-alone thriller. Readers can find free fiction, contests, videos and more at www dot jverse dot com
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