Kathleen Ann Goonan's first novel, " Queen City Jazz, propelled her into the front ranks of speculative fiction. Her lyrical and imaginative renderings of a near future transfigured by the wonders and dangers of nanotechnology provide readers tantalizing glimpses of scientific advances just beyond the cutting edge...and the unpredictable human consequences following in their wake. Now comes Goonan's most ambitious, penetrating look yet into the exotic future already flowering around us--and perhaps within us. "It begins with silence. A powerful electromagnetic pulse high in the atmosphere triggers a communications blackout, causing electronics and computers to fail the world over. In that moment of anachronistic quiet, a brilliant astronomer named Zeb Aberly, scouring the heavens with equipment of his own design, makes the discovery of a lifetime: the pulse originated in space--and it carried a message from an intelligent source. But Zeb is not alone. Shadowy forces within the government seek to decipher the message and to keep its existence secret at all costs. Fleeing for his life into the back streets and alleys of Washington, D.C., Zeb embarks on an odyssey that could cost him his family, his sanity, and everything he loves."And it begins with murder. In New Orleans, mob boss Marie Laveau--a descendant of the famous voodoo priestess--is brutally gunned down by nameless, faceless enemies. But Marie's vast wealth has purchased the best li