Complete and utter blank - driving me crazy

[sfdarling]

Don't remember the title, the author - I just remember it was a recent book (comparatively in the history of SF) and it was most likely published around 2001-2005. I picked it up when I was a kid and read it... it was really fascinating - but the flipside is that I vaguely remember what the book was about. It was set in the future. There was an electric disturbance in the atmosphere that somehow effected the unborn children in human women... caused them to be special. Some of these mothers effectively went 'underground.' Parts of the novel were set down South, like in Louisiana (either Baton Rouge or New Orleans) - and some other parts had elements of clones... enhanced intelligence in successive generations of humans... government and corporate conspiracy to hunt and silence all.

There was a part in the novel I specifically remember with one of the male characters insisting on driving an old automobile that ran on diesel/gasoline (unclean fuel) while everyone else drove electric clean models. It was a truck I think.

That's all I can really remember... it wasn't a fluff novel - pretty thick. The only reason I picked it up was because it was in the New Releases section in the library when I was a kid and I was attracted to the cover (I think it was a blue sky design..?)

I want to read it again through the eyes of an adult to really appreciate some of the concepts that were over my head when I first read it.

Again, any help - a title, or examples of stuff that's similar... it'd be amazing.

Thank you!

 

[Perpetual Man]

Having successfully answered one of these things recently I'm tempted to try again, but this time I'm nowhere near as sure about the answer.

Some of the elements match up, but not all. For me the memories are vague to.

Crescent City Rhapsody by Kathleen Ann Goonan.

It's a pretty thick book, set in the near future. There has been some kind of event that saw the release of nano-technology that has reshaped the world. A lot of it is set in the US South, particularly around New Orleans. People have been changed by the Nano incursion, living longer and it is having an effect on the children. There are aliens involved (I think) and I'm pretty sure one of the male characters liked driving around in an old battered truck, when mostly everyone else was using hi-tech vehicles.

Might not be an exact match but it has a few similarities

 

[clovis-man]

Crescent City Rhapsody by Kathleen Ann Goonan.

You're probably right, although it sounds a little like Queen City Jazz also.

 

[Perpetual Man]

It could be either, both by the same author with similar themes... can't remember whether they were linked or not though

 

[Parson]

I read Queen City Blues, not really my style so I didn't follow up but I think it much more likely the book being searched for is Crescent City Rhapsody, or one of the other of her "nano tech quartet."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Ann_Goonan

 

[zaltys13]

Hi,

This sounds a bit like Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds, if you substitute the Southern thing for a Parisian thing

From memory a lot of the other stuff gels nicely though.