Nanotime - Hardcover

Bart Kosko is a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California.

Bart Kosko knows too much. No, he's not a character in NANOTIME, with secret agents out to get him, he's the author and he just plain knows too much. He's an authority on neural networks, the economics of oil, mathematics and philosophy, and has given a great deal of thought about the future - all of which spills out in a flood in his first fiction (he's written three textbooks and articles for magazines from Buzz to Scientific American). Fortunately, one of the things he knows is how to build an exciting near future thriller. John Grant knows too much too, the only difference being that he is a character in NANOTIME, with CIA and Mossad agents and Sufi terrorists after him. He's the main character, the owner of a patented Super-molecule that will revolutionize power production in the oil starved near future, and Israeli intel's best chance at bringing down Hamid Tabriz, a brilliant mathematician and terrorist. John's best friend is the 18th century philosopher John Stuart Mills, personified by an "intelligent agent" he has carefully fed everything written by or known about the philosopher and who talks to him through a "raisin" tucked into his ear. What with his human friends being turned into microchip controlled killers and the world slipping into an orgy of cruise missile madness, he could certainly use a friend. He could also use a good driver, as his insistence on manual driving rapidly racks up more infractions than his bank account can stand. Personally, I could have used a measure of angst to leaven the anger that builds through a plot that admittedly keeps looking for ways to kick him when he's down. NANOTIME reads more like a spy thriller than SF, but the world of 2030 is created through a terrific piece of futurist extrapolation by the author. Chinese expansion (Forget Mars, it's China that needs women!), Arab oil, border guards between US states and the incessant drone of news on the Internet. Unlike much Cyber-Fiction, the central characters aren't the disenfranchised recyclers of technology, they are its creators, unbottling the djinns of cheap power, cybernetic brain control and smart missile diplomacy. This is a book about world building, chock full of ideas about the social and technological implications of oil, population, philosophy and artificial intelligence by an accredited futurist. It is not a warm and fuzzy tale about love, though occasionally it manages to score a few points for friendship. The intel types are callous, the politicos driven by their own agendas and oblivious to fact, and the hero self absorbed and angry. If you live for character driven plot, Bart Kosko isn't your man. If on the other hand, you like spy novels and fast paced technothrillers or futuristic World's Fair dioramas, if your fancy runs to Clancy (Tom) rather than LeGuin, you may find just what you are looking for in NANOTIME. Like James Halperin's THE TRUTH MACHINE, I expect readers to be split on this book, but for the many it is aimed at, it should score a direct hit. -- Ernest Lilley, SFRevu November 1997 Vol. 1.5