right, talented and driven, Chrysoberyl is hanging on by her fingernails in the too-competitive art world of Iridis, struggling even to pay the rent on her artificially intelligent apartment. With a younger brother who is seriously ill, all she can do is hope for a break before it is too late to save him.
Salvation takes an unexpected form, though, when financial desperation induces her to volunteer for a medical experiment. She is asked to host sentient microbes, aliens capable of living in the outer lining of the brain. When she agrees, Chrys becomes the homeworld for a million intelligent creatures named Eleutherians. These new tenants worship her as the God of Mercy, and, with their assistance, her career takes off.
For the micros, a single day of Chrys's life spans an entire generation.
The speed at which they think and live enables them to collaborate with her on vivid and brilliant art ... and to get into trouble with lightning quickness. Micros are capable of accessing the pleasure center of the brain, and many carriers become addicted to the gratification the tiny creatures can dispense. In fact, all of Iridis is under siege by carriers of a micro strain seeking to convert and control all humans. Fear of this brain plague--and of legitimate carriers like Chrys--is extreme. She pays a high price for her fame and success: constant vigilance over the Eleutherians, the loss of friends from her pre-carrier days and the threat of violence from those who fear the plague strain.
Worse, the leaders of the brain plague have developed a personal interest in Chrys. Chances are good that she may be kidnapped and taken to the plague's world of slaves ... and nobody who has gone there has ever returned.
Intrigue, danger and romance
In Brain Plague, Slonczewski creates a world bursting with nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and genetic engineering. Then she overshadows these marvels with the dynamic micro culture housed in Chrys. Watching Chrys's emerging relationship with the Eleutherians is fascinating. The characterization of the micros and their periodic changes in leadership are deftly handled and often deeply moving.
Slonczewski explores the idea of microbial cohabitation rigorously, from its potential for addiction through the possibility of invasions of carriers by strains of brain plague. In her new role as both a micro homeworld and an emerging celebrity, Chrys must tend to her own career and that of the Eleutherians, who have their own interests. She also joins an elite corps of testers who ensure that other microbe carriers have not fallen prey to various microbial misbehaviors. While the life of a carrier is rich and rewarding, readers see that it is also heavily freighted with obligations.
Brain Plague may have less appeal for readers who like SF with deep political analysis. The implications of Chrys's role as the Eleutherians' god, for example, are explored primarily on a logistical basis, rather than a philosophical one. Further, this is a book about a wealthy and privileged elite. Chrys has an admirable social conscience, but she and the other carriers are well off in the extreme--protected, admired and powerful. As a result, the conflict of the novel sometimes takes place at a comfortably padded remove from the characters. With so many resources to call on, Chrys and her million followers are able to negotiate even extreme hazards with relative ease.
Even so, Chrysoberyl's journey with the Eleutherians is simultaneously dangerous and enticing. Brain Plague is fully as charming as the microbes who inhabit it, with plenty of surprises and ample sources of reader delight.
