I really liked THE COLLAPSIUM, but this sequel is even more fun and leaves me hoping for more. The ending is open enough for another sequel.

While THE COLLAPSIUM had a "Tom Swift" type quality, this one is a boy's adventure story retold for adults. While satirically light hearted, it does have a disturbing underlying theme reminding me of THE LORD OF THE FLIES.

This adventure is quite independent of THE COLLAPSIUM and just as enjoyable whether or not you've read the earlier book.

The conflict between the main two characters fuels the book. Like THE COLLAPSIUM, the themes of immortality and of cloning duplicate selves are thoroughly examined, especially in light of the psychological effect on human nature. This time, it's the effect on young people being raised with expectations of immortality that's spotlighted.

Highly recommended to all science-fiction fans, and to those periphally interested in the genre.

I think this book would stand well on its own, but it is equally amazing as a sequel to The Collapsium, which seemed impossible to top. I rarely have the feeling that I can't put a book down, but this one kept me up all night and home from work the next day. The realism and depth of this society, and its fascinating uses of technology such as programmable matter and solar/laser sails, do not stop the book from being both funny and moving at the same time. What is it really like to be immortal, in an immortal society where every need is fulfilled? McCarthy's answers are surprising but ring true. Wow.

Prince Bascal is frustrated as the heir to the solar system-wide Queendom of Sol because everyone is immortal so he can never become the ruler. Currently the bored royal attends summer camp at a remote locale where "troubled boys" are exiled so that they can gain an appreciation for civilization after time in the wild. However, Bascal has had enough of the confines of Camp Friendly and with several other campers, he uses Fax Technology to escape to Denver on planet Earth.

Bascal and cohorts cause havoc until the Constabulary arrests them. His mother Queen Tamra lectures him on behavior of a future monarch, but Bascal points out he will never be the ruler. Having a taste of revolt and sneaking an earthling female Mary into his entourage, Bascal begins a revolution against the ruling party while the government bungles in their efforts to stop the wild bunch from winning the Fax Wars.

THE WELLSTONE is a wild futuristic satire that entertains while pushing the audience to think through to outcomes of current solutions to problems. The story line hooks the reader the moment Bascal and horde escape camp using Fax technology. Their subsequent adventures are fun to follow as if Wild In the Streets occurred across the Solar System. The key characters seem real enabling fans to believe in Fax Technology and immortality though wonder why we do. Will McCarthy provides a winner that will leave the audience applying his logic to modern day issues in order to estimate the outcome not just the output.

Harriet Klausner

"One part STARSHIP TROOPERS, one part OUTER LIMITS-style psychological suspense... McCarthy cranks up the tension effectively. Recommended." -- Charles DeLint, Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. . "A short, fast-moving tale of human and alien psychology. The exploration... is well done and fascinating. I like McCarthy's details. Not many authors can create truly alien aliens, but McCarthy appears to be one of them." -- Janice M. Eisen, Aboriginal SF. . GET THIS BOOK BACK IN PRINT!

AGGRESSOR SIX is not only one of the best first contact stories I've ever read, it's also one of the very best first sf novels. The 'Aggressor Six' of the title is a group of five people and a Martian retriever trying to simulate, and thereby understand, the behaviour of an insectoid alien hive culture before it wipes out yet more human colonies. Intelligent and fast-paced, the novel had me completely hooked by page 2 and wouldn't let me go: the characters are interesting, the writing taut and economical, and the inherent tension would do credit to a Hitchcock movie. It amazes and saddens me that so wonderful a book is out of print, unfilmed, and so little known.

I went on a trip down south this march and desired to get a couple of books that would not require a great deal of thinking and would keep me entertained. This book was one of them, and in that sense it did indeed fulfill the need I required. On the other hand, this does not say much for it as a book.

There is an interesting view of the future with the paranoid "Gray Party" seeking to control everything, the uncovering of a conspiracy and the cool gadgets that McCarthy comes up with. At the same time, I felt like the world he created made the mistake that many SF writers do...there is too much "Ooooh!Ahhh!" expected by the way it is written. It seems that it was to make us think it is all so neat. Now, if only I hadn't seen that in dozens of other books out there, not to say bad science fiction movies.

While I found the plot interesting, especially when our hero must hide from the authorities who wield their weapons of technology (hmmm...didn't I see that in Blade Runner?) it was too contrived and to unbelievable.

In terms of his writing style, McCarthy does seem to know some technical terms, but he throws them around and mixes it with "golly gee whiz" dialogue that makes for abrupt reading. His characters (especially Bowser) have some strange element about them that almost seems sinister - but I don't think he means them to have that.

It gets a three star because it did do the job *I* intended, but I doubt the job McCarthy intended.

I have never read anything by Wil McCarthy previously, and he seems to be a decent writer. This novel is a combination murder mystery and science fiction tale. David Sanger is a nanotechnology researcher (the science of manipulating the ultra small, in case you don't know) and during a trade convention becomes entangled with a murder he did not commit, and it gets intense and complicated from that point on..........no more here, no spoilers!

Although it was not a page turner for me (it almost was) still it is one of only a handful of science fiction novels that portray the coming era of nanotechnology, in this novel it is in only the nascent beginnings. This is hard science fiction without any fantasy whatsoever, completely to my tastes. Character and plot development were acceptable, although the ending seemed to be a trifle rushed. Also, the novel could have been a bit longer to flesh out the nanotechnology ideas more thoroughly.

I loved this one-- it was, to me, the perfect combination of a thriller and a thought-provoking science fiction novel. The novel takes place in the research laboratories of the beginning days of nanotechnology (prefiguring the awesome nanotech of McCarthy's later novel BLOOM). There is some interesting speculation about the effects of longevity on society, and the effects of nanotechnology, but the science speculation is not overshadowed by the thriller plot and the realistic characterization. A definite rec if you like both thrillers and sf, as I do.

This is a great story about a humanity that has overcome war to colonize the stars. I always find the prospect of a universe bound by the laws of relativity a somewhat depressing concept. And yet, the humans of the story go on with their lives and toil enduring decades of travel between destinations. What is more amazing than their discovery of alien artifacts is their daring and ingenuity that allows them to grasp a technological prize and overcome one of the great obstacles nature has placed on matter. The hard sci-fi part of the book is very well written. The book may seem slow in the beginning, but read on. I think you will also find it is worth it.

Lest's see... stories by Gregory Benford, Paul Di Filippo, Stanley Schmidt, Tanya Huff, and 10 others including Wil McCarthy himself. The skew is mainly but not totally toward hard science fiction. Some of the fairy tales are recognizable (even named the same as the original), and some are not. Are they well disguised, or perhaps original? Fine reads in any case. Much better than you usually find in these concept anthologies.

McCarthy's introduction is illuminating: "Fairy tales are among our most formative influences, adding a visceral heft and sting to the purely verbal warnings of authority. But fairy tales, without exception, hinge on a supernatural occurrence. And in a way, this seemed to undermine their authority, to relegate them to some other universe where things like that could really happen."

Though not quite up to the level of Starlight, this is an excellent collection by some of the best writers in the field.

Let's, see, in _The Collapsium_ we have two mad scientists -- one malevolent, the other merely socially retarded -- vying for the affections of the Queen of the Solar System. In their final confrontation each one pulls out his super-weapons, one of them invented on the spot, to foil each other's advanced technologies. Oh, and the fate of both the sun and the human race are at stake.

Haven't we seen SCORES of stories like that already?

Still, I found myself entertained, despite my observation that if you've read a couple dozen science fiction novels, you've pretty much read them all. I liked McCarthy's description of how the characters deal with the existence of multiple copies of themselves made possible with their matter-faxing technology, and how said gadget keeps them "immorbid," that is, no longer vulnerable to disease and the programmed deterioration we call aging. And his description of the protean "wellstone" technology just barely sounds plausible, since as I recall from my college chemistry, the chemical properties of matter depend entirely on what the outermost electrons are doing. By manipulating the quantum states of electrons using advanced silicon chips, you could conceivably have a programmable sort of matter like wellstone that can assume the chemical characteristics of most physically possible solids, if not the physically impossible ones McCarthy alludes to.

Despite the recycling of very old science-fictional ideas, this novel is worth a read, though I recommend waiting for the paperback.

This is a sweet little gem of a book that combines good storytelling with wild science that really hangs together quite well.

Since I see so many glowing reviews (and really agree with most of them), let me just tell you what disappointed me about the Collapsium: the story is brilliant and witty as it begins and seems to become less so as it progresses, until at ending (despite saving the solar system several times) our protagonists are roughed up and punished with imposed roles as "fitting rewards" to their efforts.

An interesting comment on the culture created here, but a bit of a downer for this reader.

I enjoyed the craft and storytelling, loved the characters and science, but found an entertaining read becoming too suddenly grim and sad.

This is a story with fabulous science, easily the equal of anything Larry Niven or Stephen Baxter have served up, or better. You can't swing a dead cat in this book without hitting another mind-blowing concept. Yet McCarthy's style is not the stiff deadpan of a NASA flight controller (which he is), but the romping satire of a Neal Stephenson or Salman Rushdie. It's an eerie combination. The language is deceptively simpler and more casual than "Bloom" or "Murder in the Solid State", but hiding behind it are layers of technical and human detail that lend this book the feel of a genuine classic.

The world and characters are quirky and compelling. Never mind that the sun is going to be crushed into a black hole, I wanted to live here anyway. The author's love of the place is obvious and infectious. The story moves from court politics to murder to battles in space, heady sf fare with a hard strange twist, but the opening and closing scenes which bookend this action set it apart, as a work of genuine thought and depth. I've read it twice in six months, and still want more.

While the book presents some interesting and perhaps even thought-provoking ideas, I don't think the author has a clear understanding of the physics behind "programmable atoms," or quantum dots. To be perfectly honest, I don't think he understands basic physical or chemical properties either.

Had I not donated the book to the local library (I have no use for it anymore) I would pull some exact quotes, but McCarthy states some real zingers, like how an atom's properties are completely and singularly dependent upon it's outermost electrons. Elsewhere in the book he states that protons and neutrons are always paired together. So the addition of another electron means you've made a new atom, one step up in the periodic table? What are ions, then? Perhaps I am being too harsh; his statements may hold true when provided in context. The problem is, he never explains any context. These statements are made as absolute truth. Oh yeah, and with an obvious bias towards physicists he states that engineers are lazy, wanting equations handed to them from a textbook without understanding the science behind the equation. I won't even dignify that comment with a response.

It's a shame that some deeper understanding of the subject matter did not rub off on McCarthy while he was busy interviewing the half-dozen-or-so physicists upon whose research the book is loosely based. Granted, the book is not intended to be a graduate-level text on quantum mechanics, but I presume it's target audience consists of readers with some scientific-background who will immediately spot flaws in the author's logic.

Basically, the approx. 200 page book is about 150 pages of filler (mostly bad science and character descriptions of the professors and their respective university campuses). The other 50 pages include the appendix, bibliography, and index. If you want to learn about the theory and applications of quantum dots and wells, just search google and save yourself a buck.

"Hacking Matter" deserves 4-5 stars for addressing a very interesting topic - artificial atoms - and 3-4 stars for its presentation. The book can be divided into two parts. The first section, about 110 of the book's 200 pages, gives us a tour of actual research in solid-state physics and its implications for material science. The second launches us from real developments to speculative devices and applications. McCarthy tries to focus the book on programmable matter and only touches on other aspects of nanotechnology. I think that's a great idea, but it should have afforded him the opportunity for deeper explanations of research and ideas that were only briefly described.

McCarthy is facile with language, as might be expected from a writer of fiction. But while the reading flows easily, the first section suffers from an uneven handling of the material. For example, McCarthy delays the discussion of atomic orbitals until the middle of the book, and even then it's a watered-down introduction with the reader directed to a freshman chemistry textbook for more information. Given the complexity of the topic, I felt he should have assumed a certain level of reader compentency, start with a more detailed review of the atom with better diagrams of orbitals and material characteristics, then build from there and drop the "monkey on limbs" analogy. In contrast to some areas of hand-holding explanation, some quotes from physicists, given without further explanation, assume a certain level of sophistication from readers:

"In general, high temperatures tend to equal more interactions, because there are a lot more blackbody photons emitted from hot surfaces, which can then be absorbed and destroy atomic superpositions. But photon-photon interactions have such a low cross section you don't have to worry about it for optical quantum states. A photon that's in a quantum superposition is therefore going to be a lot more stable at room temperature." (p. 71)

Perhaps it's praise to McCarthy that I wanted more of the first 100 pages -- like a thorough introduction to atoms and how material properties arise, side-by-side diagrams of natural and artificial atoms in terms of scale, electron density plots, more details on the research, etc. It's fascinating stuff and there are references at the end of the book.

The speculative portion of the book, although it occasionally veers from the focus on programmable matter, is well-written and thought-provoking. McCarthy notes that the interviewed researchers are reluctant to speculate, and he steps into that void and presents some possibilities. One chapter describes a hypothetical construct for handling an array of quantum of dots: a "Wellstone Fiber" invented and submitted for a patent by McCarthy and his partner.

Back in the late 80s, K. Eric Drexler, referenced at least twice in "Hacking Matter," used his book "Engines of Creation" to speculate on possible directions for nanotechnology, well ahead of actual technical developments. While some of Drexler's ideas may not be realistic, he did galvanize interest in the subject. I can't help but think McCarthy is trying to play that role for artificial atoms and the funding of condensed matter physics research. For those of us who don't think that much about material science, this book provides a good wake-up call in the form of an entertaining read.

I purchased this book for the title alone, while shelf-browsing at ETcon 2003; to see a non-fiction book discussing programmable matter on the cover was enough to catch my attention.

I found it a casual, yet enjoyable read; it threads gently through the prerequisite background, glossing over the specific details to keep the primary focus of the book intact; as it turned out, this didn't affect my enjoyment at all, while providing lots of jumping-off points for the interested observer to research further.

Managing to not get distracted by the fact that such things as "electron shells" and "thermochromatics", it introduces the reader (educated as they may or may not be) to the concept of a kind of material whose properties can be changed at will, by humans (not just nature). The core concept at hand is "quantum dots", and the text returns over and over again to this, diverging occasionally to provide anecdotes, or ways these semi-magical materials have already been (or soon, could be) used.

Overall, I felt the book a good read; if you're looking for an introduction into the world of quantum dots, dynamically modifiable materials, and science the likes of which one would formerly have expected from science fiction. It's not a book in which can be found explicit technical details, though there's more than a hundred references in the end-of-book bibliography; for that alone, it would be a perfect entry point for research.

Highly recommended.

What I found to be so different about this book was its perspective. As a shoe maker and journalist, the main character lends a touch of humanity to a book that could have wallowed in too much technology. Scenes at the asteroid settlement were wonderfully descriptive and funny. However, with a couple of exceptions, the characters were not as well developed as I would have liked. I liked the premise of the ending, but the execution seemed too quick, and was a jarring halt to the carefully constructed suspense that had me reading at breakneck speed. Some of the gadgets described, such as the tickle capacitor enabling the captain to have a sense of humor (however imperfect!) were amazingly creative. McCarthy has a unique voice, and will be one to watch.

Well, I suppose with several novels depicting nanotechnology (the science of manipulating individual atoms into perhaps useful devices) in a favorable light, there needed to be a well written novel illuminating the hazards, and Wil McCarthy has done just that.

Imagine a nightmare world where humanity has fled the inner solar system due to nanotechnology getting out of control and multiplying, devouring everything on earth and the nearby planets, eating people, dirt, rocks, anything. Humanity has tenuous footholds in the asteroid belt, some moons of Jupiter, and Saturn's moon Titan. These humans use their Immunity to fend off the stray mycora (Microscopic machines) that would bloom and eat everything around them if not stopped. These mycora are able to evolve and reprogram themselves, and they populate interplanatary space in addition to the inner planets, their area of habitation includes only the warm inner solar system, so far. It is in this scenario that has the ship Louis Pasteur dispatched into the inner solar system to investigate the 'mycosystem' which is the area inhabited by the mycora. Most of the book is written in the first person narrative of the mission reporter and historian John Strasheim. I found the plot reasonably well executed, as were the characters. However, to my taste I thought the part about how the mycora had evolved into complex forms was a bit far fetched, and I can't say more here without being a spoiler.

Nanotech is something that will someday be very handy in our everyday lives, but as with most technology has it's good and bad sides. This novel examines the dark side of this technology and how we must be very careful as we proceed with it. At the end of the novel there is an interview with Wil McCarthy.

I'm not a huge fan of hard SF, but "Bloom" won me over. Mr. McCarthy's knowledge and handling there of, is brilliant in this, his fifth novel. I agree w/ some of the other reviews, in that some of the dialogue/interplay between characters wasn't the strongest point in the book. However, the setting, the mind sets, the new society which mankind finds itself in explains the character's interactions to me and it was done exceptionally well.

All that said, what I found really interesting was the tech details of the ship's flight, as well as the biological patterns of "life", either imagined or real, which are discussed throughout the story. Those are the true jewels of this novel, and no other reader/reviewer has mentioned them!

I'm buying and reading the rest of his novels asap.

Like other books by McCarthy, has some interesting ideas and plenty of action. The book has an epic scope and feel, and one does come to emphasize with the embattled protagonist.

But not an excellent book. Adequate entertainment. I thought it was significantly better than Murder in the Solid State, and perhaps slightly worse than Bloom. Good enough so that you are willing to read more books by McCarthy.

I have not read Aggressor 6.