The Diamond Age

The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson  499 pp.

This is a convoluted description because of avoiding spoilers. In a future incarnation of Earth, a nanotechnologist named John Hackworth makes an illegal copy of a state-of-the-art interactive device called the "Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" with the intent of giving it to his young daughter. Before he can give it to her he is robbed of it by a gang of street urchins. One of the gang gives the book to his younger sister, Nell who rapidly finds herself engrossed almost to the point of addiction. The book is intended to guide the young women to "interesting lives." The Earth of the Diamond Age, where it is cheaper to make windows from sheets of diamond instead of glass, is divided into differing branches or tribes of society called phyles and the thetes, or those without a tribe. The prominent phyles are the Neo-Victorian New Atlantis, the Han (Chinese Celestial Kingdom), and the Nippon (Japanese) with many lesser phyles intermingled in their societies. With the help of the primer and Miranda, the actor who embodies its contents, Nell grows into a strong, self-sufficient, and worthy leader who becomes the leader of thousands of young women raised on the primer. I am undecided where to place this one in my " Best Stephenson Books" list. It's somewhere in the middle, better than his Baroque Cycle but not as good as Reamde, Fall, and Snow Crash. 

Midnight Robber

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson  329 pp.

This is an richly and believably detailed novel of two planets: Toussaint, a Carib colonized planet of extreme nano-technology, and New Half-Way, an alternate version of Toussaint without the technology that serves as a place of exile for convicts. The tale is told in and all the human characters speak in an Afro-Caribbean patois which makes the audiobook a joy to listen to. The main character is Tan-Tan who begins the story as a young girl. When her father kills her mother's lover with a poisoned machete he takes Tan-Tan and escapes to New Half-Way. Soon he becomes a dissatisfied, bitter man who begins to abuse Tan-Tan. The teen-aged Tan-Tan escapes into the bush to live with the Douen, a race of non-humanoid creatures native to the planet who take her in reluctantly. In the short time that she is there she struggles with the guilt she is living with which increases when her presence causes destruction in the lives of the Douen. No spoilers about the ending. This is the first book I've read by this author and I look forward to reading more.

The Punch Escrow

The Punch Escrow by Tal M. Klein  356 pp.

In the year 2147, Joel Byram works at training artificial intelligence to be more human. His wife is a researcher for the corporation that has developed teleportation (think "Beam me up" on Star Trek).  Everything about life in the 22nd century has been altered by genetic engineering and nanotechnology right down to the mosquitoes which now consume air pollution instead of blood. The secretive and somewhat sinister teleportation company is opposed by a fanatical religious group who sees teleporting as a corruption of the body. When a planned trip to Costa Rica for Joel and his wife is disrupted by a terrorist attack, the result is the creation of two Joels during the transporting process. It is then that the "dirty secret" about the transporting process comes out as the corporation attempts to eliminate the Joel in New York while the Joel in Costa Rica has no idea what has happened. It's an interesting premise that will give you second thoughts about how nice it would be to instantly travel from place to place.

Chasing the Dime

Chasing the Dime / Michael Connelly,  read by Jonathan Davis, 371 p.

Henry Pierce is about to become very rich.  He's developed a nanotechnology that will revolutionize medicine, as long as he can make a deal with the big investor coming to town in a couple of days.  The plan gets sidetracked when his new telephone number turns out to have belonged to a murdered prostitute, whose clients call Henry day and night.  Henry can't help investigating, and complications ensue.