More interesting than the narrative in itself are the details and setting, which is a modern corporation operating in the defence market. Its business is advanced research in the field of nanotechnology.

A variation of an almost banal application of this technology generates a threat to the human race. Small variations and variously combined details create a potential Armageddon: the line between research and destruction, we are being told, is easily blurred.
The novel talks about corruption and the subtle and discreet mechanisms of power but also of the unscrupulousness of researchers and managements who tend to underestimate environmental impact and social risk.
The central figure in the story is the “Swarm”, a swarm of nanocomputers that evolve and behave according to the general theory of self-organization. We are thus offered a pretty good synthesis of mathematical and organizational theories based on the model of complexity.
Further reading: Mark Buchanan, Nexus. Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks, W. W. Norton and Co., 2002; Steven Johnson, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, Scribner, 2001.
Is there a general law of complexity embracing everything from the interactions between brain cells to food chains and the Internet and that in general explains the behaviour and learning capacity of complex systems? Nexus answers yes.
Prey explains what this general law might explain and tells us something of the consequences.