Directive 51

Barnes, John. Directive 51. New York: Ace 2010. Reviewed by Ed Carmien, SFRA Review #294 (Fall 2010): 10-11, our source here.[1]

Classified by Carmien as a combination of technothriller and SF, with the SF clearly of the techno-apocalyptic variety.

Carmien notes (with evaluations we "redact") that Directive 51 "posits [... a] world-wide conspiracy [...] skilled at creating multiple nanotech plagues that destroy the machinery and materials of modern life: plastics, petrochemicals, electronics." There is an "Internet-based cultural 'life-form' at work, which reinforces and rewards [...] behavior that leads to this apocalypse [...]." The assault on complex technology involves "thousands of" human agents releasing nanoweapons that "attack [...] important building blocks of technological civilization," and Earth's "moon itself has been seeded with some kind of nano-based Von Neumann machines that produce nuclear missile which target radio-emitters on Earth months after civilization all but collapses."

Note for "nanites [...] nuclear weapons of massive size [... and] moon-based devices intended to assure the Earth is forever after free of radio emitters" and the civilization that supports them.

RDE, Initial Compiler, 18Dec18