The Sci Fi Guy

After reading Michael Crichton’s nanotech novel, Prey, I started thinking more about what nanotechnology can do for the real world, as well as the world of science fiction. I’m not talking literally how are nano-bots going to write novels, but more the aspects of what this technology can do to propel characters and storylines forward. It also got me searching my bookshelves for another author that’s used nanotechnology in his stories - and I couldn’t figure it out! I think the author was Ben Bova, who wrote about a nano-infested individual that was kept alive and in excellent health by these technologies. The flipside of that story (and again, as soon as I figure out what the book is called I’ll update this post!) was that nanotechnology was banned from the face of the earth for fear that a single cluster of nanobots could destroy the world’s eco system.

Talk about great ways to setup some great science fiction!

Nanotech fundamentally deals with man-made machines at the microscopic and atomic level. There are lots of interesting applications that science fiction authors can use this technology for, because the supposed limits of nanotech are no where near known.

One of the best application ideas that I’ve heard of is the notion (again from the book that I can’t remember and the character name that I can’t recall) is that individuals could be injected with nanobots that would essentially repair their host’s body. Imagine the opportunities in sci fi to create characters that are essentially immune to a wide variety of ordinary disasters, and augmented with electronic upgrades without the normal “borg”-like appearance that we assume cyborgs would require. Nanobots could embed themselves against the back of the optic nerve, giving an individual better-than-perfect vision, or even the ability to zoom or rotate images on the fly. Another application could be nanobots that operate in the mouth, stomache, and digestive system, rooting out poisons that might have fallen a “normal” hero.

The uses for nanotech are also great in the concept of shipbuilding and interestellar travel. One of my favorite concepts is a space elevator (check out spaceelevator.com for some real world developments in the field), which would require carbon “nanotubes” to be produced. Carbon nanotubes are essentially the only thing with the tensile strength to build an elevator - but once constructed, basically any material could be sent in and out of the atmosphere without the tremendous cost of rocket launches (not to mention the enviornmental implications of sending large quantities of stuff in to orbit). Another idea that I think scifi writers could use nanotech for is to coat the surface of a space ship. If interstellar debris creates damage to the hull of a ship, these nanobots could respond immediately, making repairs quickly and keeping the contents of the ship intact.

If you’ve got some recommendations for good scifi that features nanotechnology, I welcome you to leave a comment so I can take a look!

Truth be told, I’m a sucker for page-turning science fiction thrillers, and almost nobody does it better than Michael Crichton. Prey was written in 2004, and features a chilling tale of nanotechnology gone awry.

The story begins with Jack, a stay-at-home-dad not necessarily by choice, but by requirement. His wife, Julia, works for a startup company that’s working on cutting edge nano technology, and Jack recently suffered a significant setback in his career.

What follows in Prey leads Jack to question whether or not his loving wife of more than a decade is having an affair on him. She’s dressing more seductively, spending less and less time at home, and nearly ignoring her children. Beyond that, her demeanor is erratic: one minute she’s enraged by little family matters, and the next she’s trying to play the part of a nice home maker. But when Jack finally reaches the breaking point, everything changes within a few short hours. His former company calls him, requesting his urgent return to work as a contractor for Julia’s company - and his background of distributed computing and intelligent agents becomes the focal point of the next few harrowing hours.

Prey is, simply put, a novel about the potential future of nanotechnology. Out in the Nevada desert, the company that Julia works for has built a nano prodution facility that has gone wrong - what was supposed to be a secure manufacturing facility is now a breeding ground for a rapidly developing form of nearly intelligent life.

I’ve read several of Crichton’s books, including Jurrasic Park, Next, Sphere, and State of Fear, and each one of them has an amazing amount of depth, even as a page turning thrill ride. It’s almost impossible to put down Prey - each chapter cliffhangs on to the next. The story itself is told in less than a week of time, which really propels the drama forward. Flipping through the last 5 pages of the novel reveals dozens of sources that Crichton used to research the novel. In individual pieces the current nanotech research is fairly limited, but Crichton takes a leap forward and combines numerous facets of this new technology to create the nemesis we discover in Prey.

I’m not one to feel necessarily threatened by the future of nanotechnology. I’ll be the first to say that I think innovations like carbon nanotubes will truly put the world on a new pace of advanced construction - perhaps even my favorite - the development of a space elevator. A guy can dream, can’t he? But what Crichton points out deftly in this novel is that we must keep a close eye on those companies that are innovating nanotechnologies, because a misstep could result in dramatic and potentially devestating failure.