[Nanotech 03] • Crescent City Rhapsody

Marie Laveau is a mob boss resurrected from a hit that left her body shredded by bullets. Her miraculous resurrection is achieved by the fledgling science of nanotechnology, and a grateful Marie will stop at nothing to ensure the Good News of nanotech is spread through her hometown and beyond. Meanwhile, a brilliant and reclusive astronomy professor picks up some strange signals dearly originating from an intelligent source somewhere out in space -- at the same time that the first of a series of worldwide radio blackouts occurs. The lives and stories of other characters -- including a Tibetan refugee, a nanotech spy, a New Age believer, and representatives of a dying alien race -- intersect and entwine as Goonan's tale of the birth of a brave new world unfolds in a zesty mix of art and science, music and biology from an author praised as "a major voice in the field."