Bloom
Wil McCarthy
303 pages
published in 1998

I quite liked Bloom the first time I read it, soon after it had been published; I'm happy to say that I still like it after rereading it. This should not be surprising as it is a well written, fast-paced hard sf novel, with an interesting setting. Not to mention that it's one of the few modern science fiction novels not part of a series. It's short too, barely over 300 pages, which means you can read it in a day or two instead of having to struggle with it for a week or longer, as with so many other novels. One more fun detail: it's set in 2106, exactly 100 years from now.

Bloom's 2106 is not the best future we could have. Earth has been overrun by Mycora, technogenic live as McCarthy calls it, a much more interesting variation on the nanotech grey goo nightmare, with only a few thousand survivors making it off Earth in time, the rest of the biosphere having been dissolved and remade in more Mycora life. That's not the end of it, because soon after the Mycora moves off Earth and in time takes over the entire inner Solar System. The remaining survivors cling to life in various asteroid settlements (the socalled Gladholds) and on the moons of Jupiter (the Immunity), where it's too cold and dark for the Mycora to settle. They're not quite safe though: Mycora spores do blow in from the inner system and penetrate the colonies every now and then, creating Mycora "blooms" that need to be destroyed immediately if they're not to undergo the same fate as Earth.

We learn this background gradually, through book and news report extracts written by the protagonist, John Strasheim, which open most of the chapters. Strasheim is one of the few (amateur) journalists left in the Ganymedes colonies, doing it as a hobby, his real job being a cobbler. Journalism is a luxury, but shoes are a necessity and there are too few people to do all the jobs that needs doing. It's clear John, like most people in the Immunity, is suffering from survivor guild and sublimates it into work. Not surprising really, as the takeover of Earth is not that long ago, no more than a few decades ago.

It's thanks to his journalistic hobby that Strasheim is asked to go along to the first manned mission back into the inner system, in order to plant sensor packages at the Earth and Mars poles. The sensors were meant to warn the Immunity if ever the Mycora had learned to invade the cold poles, because if it could live there, it could migrate to the outer system. Yet despite this benign goal, there seem to be some people going to great lengths to try and stop it, even to the point of starting Mycora blooms themselves. Certainly the Temples of Transcedent Evolution have always urged for a greater understanding and accommadation to the Mycora, but surely not even they would want to stop the expedition, unless there's something more going on than Strasheim knows about...

What I liked about Bloom is how McCarthy manages to mix the excitement and beauty of the Mycora concept to us readers, with the revulsion and horror it evokes in the survivors of the destruction of Earth's ecosystem. You can almost feel the low level depression and guilt the characters labour under, without the book itself being depressing. The situation is treated quite realistically, with life going on but muted and with none of the bravado and pleasure some writers would have their characters experience the almost complete destruction of civilisation with.

Nor is the Mycora presented as magic nanotech: it has its limits, seems to obey the laws of physics, yet is still quite dangerous. Here again I liked the way in which McCarthy manages to teach us about it quite naturally, by extracts from Strasheim's writings about it and in the story itself, by having him learn about it himself, on a level that is fitting for somebody whose whole life is determined by it, yet who never had much interest in reading up on it.

Read more about:
Will McCarthy, Bloom, science fiction, book review