Description:

Technology’s advances are unable to stem the forces of war, overpopulation, and environmental pollution. Global politics are a complex mess of alliances and hostilities, and the world seems to be poised on the brink of self-destruction. The United States is at the forefront of the world’s attempt to solve what appears to be an unsolvable problem; but even the help of its immensely powerful supercomputer, SAM, is of little avail. Yet as grim as things seem, Mai Roberts, the brilliant African scientist in charge of the UN’s Nextfest Summit on Sustainable Growth, is brooding over an even grimmer – but perhaps ultimately effective – solution. Mai Roberts lets loose a lethal nanobiological agent, a scrap of homemade germ warfare that quickly spreads through Nextfest and then across the planet. With the population greatly depleted, many of the dangers that had faced the world due to overpopulation gradually fade away. The survivors are left with the challenge of rebuilding human society.