Bloom

*** A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK *** Mycora: technogenic life. Fast-reproducing, fast-mutating, and endlessly voracious. In the year 2106, these microscopic machine/creatures have escaped their creators to populate the inner solar system with a wild, deadly ecology all their own, pushing the tattered remnants of humanity out into the cold and dark of the outer planets. Even huddled beneath the ice of Jupiter's moons, protected by a defensive system known as the Immunity, survivors face the constant risk of mycospores finding their way to the warmth and brightness inside the habitats, resulting in a calamitous "bloom." But the human race still has a trick or two up its sleeves; in a ship specially designed to penetrate the deadly Mycosystem, seven astronauts are about to embark on mankind's boldest venture yet—the perilous journey home to infected Earth! Yet it is in these remote conditions, against a virtually omnipotent foe, that we discover how human nature plays the greatest role in humanity's future. REVIEWS "Tense, dynamic, intelligent... terrifyingly vivid" —David Brin "An ingenious yarn with challenging ideas, well-handled technical details, and plenty of twists and turns." —Kirkus Reviews "BLOOM is tense, dynamic, intelligent, offering a terrifyingly vivid view of how technology can rocket out of our control" —David Brin, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of The Uplift War "A view of mankind's future and the universe reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke." —The Denver Post "In nearly every passage, we get another slice of the science of McCarthy's construction, and a deeper sense of danger and foreboding... McCarthy develops considerable tension." —San Diego Union-Tribune "The Mycora are an astonishingly original concept, one of the most chilling versions of…