Lord of All Things — Andreas Eschbach

Winner of the 2012 Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis for best German science fiction novel, Lord of All Things is also a story about love against all odds.

They are just children when they meet for the first time: Charlotte, daughter of the French ambassador, and Hiroshi, a laundress's son. One day, Hiroshi declares that he has an idea that will change the world. An unprecedented idea of how to sweep away all differences between rich and poor.

When Hiroshi runs into Charlotte several years later, he is trying to build a brighter future through robotics. Determined to win Charlotte's love, he resurrects his childhood dream, convinced that he can eradicate world poverty by pushing the limits of technology beyond imagination. But as Hiroshi circles ever closer to realizing his vision, he discovers that his utopian dream may contain the seeds of a nightmare -- one that could obliterate life as we know it.

Crisscrossing the globe from Tokyo to the hallowed halls of MIT to desolate Arctic islands and Buenos Aires and beyond -- far beyond -- Lord of All Things explores not only the dizzying potential of technology but also its formidable dangers.