The Earth is the graveyard of billions, thanks to mathematician and rogue cryptographer Jack Potter and the treacherous extraterrestrial creature known as Wheeler, Jack's one-time business partner in the trade of alien and human technologies.But Potter and a handful of others managed to escape the holocaust thanks to the miracle of teleportation. From the cold gray ruins of the Moon, the last pitiful remnants of the human race now stare down at the devastation that one of their diminished species unwittingly helped to bring about. Here at civilization's end, a beautiful Chinese mind assassin, a cold-blooded cybernetics genius, a DNA-manipulating "gene witch," and Jack himself stand at the threshold of a new day -- when accelerated evolution will open the door to the full achievement of human potential; when the epic saga of humanity will begin again and Jack will ultimately be redeemed...if he doesn't go insane first.
But Wheeler is still out there -- and out to finish what he started. And this universe isn't big enough for Jack Potter to hide himself in.
REVIEW
A Solid Sequel What would you do if you were somehow responsible with blowing up the human race, except for a small handful of people you chose to save? In only a true sci-fi manner, could that question resolve itself in a funny, ironic, dark, and somewhat optimist way.
The book picks up exactly at the close of Signal to Noise, with Jack trying to keep his sanity and some group of companions alive and together, while not being discovered by Wheeler. Nylund continues his fast-paced writing style, with the addition of a few new characters to add to his mosaic environments. While dealing with the aftermath of having 6 billion dead, Nylund poses the issues of how far would you go to save the few left, how far would you allow yourself to be gene edited to perfection and what would that perfection create. In addition, just to make things interesting, if there are multiple copies of a people arethey required to be committed to the same partner?
Nylund uses a good deal of hard science in both books, but it doesn't come across as either overwhelming to the detriment of interesting characters, or used just to create a "solution" to a predicament. Nylund really ends up throwing a lot of philosophy and questions into such a fast-paced story that I found it enjoyable to read both books a second time a year later.
