The Bohr Maker

[sawyl]

Following up on a piece on self-publishing on Charlie Stross' blog, I've finally got round to reading Linda Nagata's The Bohr Maker — a book that has been on my to-read list since Al Reynolds' post on Vast a couple of years ago.

Set in a future where advanced nanotechnology is possibly but heavily circumscribed, it follows a semi-synthetic man, Nikko Jiang-Tabayan, who is willing to do whatever it takes to escape from the build-in obsolescence that it is killing him. When Nikko's scheme to seduce Chief of Police Kirsten Adair round to his point of view fails, he is forced to adopt a more radical approach. Acting through a proxy, he arranges for the theft of the last sample of the Bohr Maker, a set of instructions that will transform the holder into the brilliant molecular engineer with the capability to achieve almost anything.

But when the plan goes awry, Nikko realises that his rash behaviour has put others in danger by bringing them to attention of Chief Adair: his younger brother Sandor, who was to have been an unknowing go-between; Phousita, a young woman living in a slum in central asia who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; Arif and the lost street children that make up the rest of the Phousita's community. There then follows a grand chase as Nikko's electronic ghosts try to stay one step ahead of being wiped by the police, Sandor tries to avoid the police, and both try to help Phousita and Arif get to the relative safety of the Jiang-Tibayan home community of Summer House, a space habitat in Venus Orbit.

The Bohr Maker is a skillful mix of nanotech and space age SF that is fully equal to its more famous contemporary, Stephenson's The Diamond Age. The society it conjures up is extremely convincing; if anything the way the Commonwealth aggressively impose their own laws on anyone or anything that may have violated it, regardless of whether they've signed up to advantages and protection of the Commonwealth, seems more relevant in a world of drone strikes and regime change than it did when the book was published in the mid-90s. It's also interesting to note the similarities between Commonwealth Police and Reynolds' slightly more benign Panoply in The Prefect.

All things considered, The Bohr Maker an excellent novel that would appeal to anyone who likes Reynolds, Stross, or, especially, Paul McAuley's Quiet War series. It's really shocking that Nagata isn't better known — I'm definitely going to enjoy zipping through the rest of her back catalogue!