Booklist Review

In statistics, the Greek letter sigma is the sign used to denote standard deviation. An event with a standard deviation of seven has odds against it of roughly 99.99 percent. Th. 7th sigm. of the book's title is a young man named Kimble, who lives, by his own choice, in the most dangerous place in the world: New Mexico, where the bugs metal-eating, self-replicating machines that mysterious appeared half a century ago have taken up residence. (The bugs aren't fond of water and so stay in the arid Southwest.) Although it sounds like the premise of a postapocalyptic science-fiction adventure, the novel reads more like a western, the bugs functioning mainly as a way to isolate Kimble and his community from the rest of the country, as though it were a Wild West settlement. Like many of Gould's novels (e.g., Wildside, 1996), the novel features a young hero and a coming-of-age theme, as Kimble discovers he has a unique gift that can be used to protect the people he loves and perhaps save the world, too. Nicely handled.--Pitt, Davi. Copyright 2010 Booklist