r. Jaron Kwok is an information scientist working for the U.S. National Security Agency, helping to develop the first quantum computer that will be the key to beating the Chinese in the cryptographic information-security cold war. His study of mystical 16th-century documents written by intellectuals such as Giordano Bruno and Matteo Ricci have brought him close to a breakthrough. And then he disappears from his Hong Kong hotel room while visiting a virtual reality, leaving behind the melted remains of his computer equipment and a strange, unidentifiable ash.
Dr. Ben Cho, Kwok's NSA backup, is assigned to investigate, along with Detective Lu Mei-lin of the Hong Kong police. The only clues to Kwok's disappearance are the complex ash and a complex set of visual images and data sent throughout the Internet at the moment of his disappearance. As they separately, and then cooperatively, investigate the evidence, it becomes clear that there are many groups, both governmental and nongovernmental, that are desperately interested in understanding what happened, including Chinese crime clans, VR computer hackers and secret societies called the Tetragrammaton Project, the Kitchener Foundation and the Instrumentality. What are these diverse groups seeking, and what connection does it have to such disparate elements as Kwok's disappearance and mysterious message, 16th-century intellectuals, the 20th-century stories of SF writer Felix Forrest and 21st-century quantum physics?
The international intrigue proceeds at a fevered pace as Cho and Lu try to solve the mystery, not knowing whom to trust. The ash Kwok left behind turns out to be a form of "binotech," complexly coded biological nanotechnology that is activated by exposure to Cho's blood. When Cho finally determines what has occurred, he realizes that much more is at stake than just code-breaking superiority between the U.S. and China—he must act immediately to save our entire universe from potential quantum elimination.
An extremely succcessful secret history
Howard Hendrix has proven to be a superior writer of complex and ambitious science fiction, and The Labyrinth Key, his fifth novel, is a worthy addition to his oeuvre. Although the basic structure is of a fast-paced near-future thriller of international political intrigue, The Labyrinth Key is by no means a quick and easy read, due to the mind-numbing complexity of the concepts on which it is based. (The novel does include a somewhat helpful addendum that seeks to explain some of the science and history that Hendrix used as the basis for the novel; readers might be well advised to read it before starting the novel itself.)
The concept of quantum computers is based on the many-universes theory, where each quantum event spins off two separate universes; a quantum computer could calculate complex algorithms instantaneously by maintaining contact with these multiple universes. If the human mind could be similarly quantum-connected, communication could occur between universes. Hendrix postulates that some human intellectuals may have been able to engage in a limited way in such communication, and that a number of secret societies have developed to try to influence humanity's future development, some wanting more emphasis on maintaining humanity's biological heritage, some preparing for a more post-human future. Readers of 1950s SF author Cordwainer Smith (actually Paul M.A. Linebarger) will recognize the term "Instrumentality." In Hendrix's novel, Linebarger forms the basis for the fictitious SF writer Felix Forrest.
Hendrix's writing style is effective but highly variable—one could almost imagine that some of the action sequences of this novel were written by Tom Clancy, while some of the scientific discussions remind one of Gregory Benford, and two sequences involving hiking in the Sierra Nevadas could have been written by Kim Stanley Robinson. The past few years have spawned several other novels of cryptology and secret histories, most notably Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, but Hendrix has been perhaps the most successful incorporating such concepts into a hard-SF context.
