Mark Moberly holds a secret, the key unlocking a force powerful enough to destroy civilization. Unknowingly he gives this key to others, beginning the spread of the disease-like knowledge. Only too late do the infected realize the destructive power of the mere existence of this information, an easy to follow recipe for bombs with a near nuclear effect. Though he's a good man, as are the government agents chasing him, the only way to prevent every person from gaining this awful knowledge is through Mark's death, and the deaths of the people he's contaminated. Unless this disease is snuffed out every person on the planet will possess a power that terrorists and dictators have previously only been able to dream of. From one bit of science fiction speculation – an accidental side effect of a Nobel Prize winning invention – comes a story so resonant of modern events that it carries a special, and horrific, realism. Guilty of only common motivations, the characters in Eight Billion Gods are victimized by fear, ambition, and dumb luck.