Small Miracles

I read part of Small Miracles by Edward M. Lerner. The technological gimmick, nanomachines that enter peoples brains and alter them was interesting. However, once the protagonist deliberately altered his friends brain, I lost interest in the book.

Part of it was simply a childish reluctance to read about bad things but it also, I think, had to do with the fact that nanomachine infection led, in all hosts, to possession by a super-intelligent psychopathic personality that was motivated to spawn more of the same.

I had two problems. One is the obvious fact that psychopaths have difficultly cooperating amongst themselves. This is probably why, though you find groups that in real are lead by psychopaths, groups that consist mostly of psychopaths don't have much power. In the story, however, the psychopaths organize to present a threat to the humanity of the world.

In real life non-targeted brain alteration would probably have different effects on different people and they would not perceive themselves as all being members of the same team though they'd all have similar abilities and disabilities.

Though Small Miracles is a good story it would have been interesting to see more internal action as the people who were changed confronted their new abilities and disabilities.