Plague Year by Jeff Carlson is the first book in his science fiction trilogy about nanotechnology that was designed to fight cancer but instead evolves into the Machine Plague as it not only kills the cancer cells it was designed for, but every other kind of cell it can find in a warm blooded organism. It speedily spreads across the globe changing the world forever. The few survivors are the ones that climbed to high elevations, since the nano doesn’t survive at over 10,000 feet.

Surviving at such altitudes is extremely difficult and the descriptions of both scavenging and cannibalism are distressing and grisly. The story is centered on two individuals, survivor Cam who was a ski bum in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, and Dr. Ruth Ann Goldman, who could be the world’s best chance at finding a cure. Of course there is more to this story than survival and medical research. Politics are playing an important role in who survives and who doesn’t, both on the world stage as Russia is fighting both the Muslim world and India in order to control the world’s high altitudes, and, in America, where there are class divisions as to who gets food and help, and who are left to fend for themselves which in turn has created terrorist cells.

My copy of this book is the author’s cut, and actually I think I would have preferred the edited version as I found this to be a little too wordy with scientific explanations. This is meant to be a thriller and long-winded science lectures took away from the excitement. Also I had difficulty in accepting the idea that an ideological obsessed politician would be more interested in using the nano technology to create a weapon of mass destruction than in saving civilization. ( )

Interestng take on the world of nanos and the human race. A little slow in parts. ( )

Plague Year begins rather interestingly with scenes of cannibalism and you find yourself wondering what the heck is even going on, initially anyway. After 20-30 pages things become much clearer and the struggles of an almost defeated group struggling to stay alive on a freezing hilltop resorting to eating their fellow survivors paints quite the grim picture of society in the new world.

I found the story to be entertaining and quite compelling, whilst initially the changing of perspectives seemed a little jarring once you're used to the flow of the book it works well.

The ending was a good cap for the experiences told within this installment of the story line leaving plenty of action left to unfold in the following installments. ( )

Carlson gives us a nanopacalypse like no other. There’s no care-free scavenging. Go below 10,000 feet, and you’re infected by tiny machines (designed to cure cancer) that liquefy your body. But, unlike a lot of post-plague stories, there’s no inevitable doom once you’ve got it. Get back above the “death line” quick enough, and you’ll probably live. But this is no cosy, back to nature story. Not only have billions of humans died. So have most of the mammals and birds. The earth’s ecosystem is messed up big time.

At high altitudes throughout the world, humanity carries on. In Asia, China and India go at it. Russian must fight to keep its highlands. And, in America, what’s left of the government is in Leadville, Colorado.

Separated from the main action are Carlson’s three main characters: Cam, a young ski bum who happened to be at the right height to survive; his fellow survivor Sawyer, brutal, clever, scheming, secretive; and Ruth, a nanotechnology research at the International Space Station trying to find a solution to the plague despite bad equipment and squabbling colleagues.

Ranging from Earth orbit to Colorado to Sacramento, Carlson keeps the narrative engine stoked. In the first sentence, the cannibalism has already begun, and the grim tension never lets up as Carlson jumps from scene to scene, backfilling the details in to give us some nasty surprises and, at one point, some downright beautiful writing.

Realistic science and characters, social decay, combat, and alpine adventure, make this a very likeable novel. ( )

I think I liked this, but at the same time I have some mixed feelings. I'm not sure the way it was cut together was the most effective option, and here's the thing - I think it's interesting the way he explored the dark places in us and the brutality of humanity, but the fact is that no one in this novel liked anyone else, and that makes it a lot harder to identify with any of them. ( )