Larry Niven, Matthew Joseph Harrington.
The Goliath Stone.
Tor. 2013
Twenty-five years ago. Doctor Toby Glyer and William Connors made a revolutionary breakthrough in nanotechnology.
Their controversial nanites were capable of everything from miracle cures for the terminally ill to Al for asteroid-mining missions.
But when the nanite-run Briareus mission to divert an Earth-crossing asteroid dropped out of contact soon after reaching its target,
the entire program was shut down and the use of nanotechnology forcibly suppressed.
Now a much, much larger asteroid is on a collision course with Earth—and the Briareus nanites may be responsible. While governments scramble to find a solution, Doctor Glyer knows that their only hope of avoiding Armageddon lies in the nanites themselves. On the run, Glyer must track down Connors and find a way to make contact with their wayward children before a two-hundred-gigaton asteroid smashes into Earth. Will Glyer’s nanites be Earth’s salvation, or destruction?