The first book Nexus in the series was optioned in 2013 by Paramount to be made into a film. The entire series is a heckuva fun ride; I inhaled all three books during Thanksgiving break last year. They are incredibly hard to put down once you start them. Beware!
I was skeptical at first about this book (there's a LOT of mumbo jumbo and touchy-feely language in the very beginning) but I became increasingly enthralled since after the opening sequence Nexus hurtles along at a breakneck pace, introducing nuanced and interesting dilemmas for the characters as the story rushes forward.
Any STEM academic will recognize the cultural milieu in which much of the story in Nexus takes place. The main character is Kade Lane, a late-stage graduate student who has discovered a breakthrough to expand the Nexus operating system to enhance the duration and intensity by which human brains can interact with each other remotely. There is a lot of clever-sounding technobabble involving computational neuroscience, programming and biology that will appeal to most scientifically oriented readers.
Additionally, the world building of Nexus is top notch. The story is set in the mid-21st century and includes excerpts of documents which refers to (future) historical events which give a compelling sense of verisimilitude to the book. For example, one of the primary antagonists in the plot is Samantha (Sam) Cataranes, who works for the Emerging Risks Directorate (ERD) of the Department of Homeland Security. The ERD uses all sorts of technological forms of surveillance and weaponry to protect the United States from various technological advances that are perceived to be destabilizing or open to potential exploitation by evildoers. As someone who works inside a federal agency, the depiction of government action (and inaction) appear to be right on point.
The plot follows Kade and Sam as they go to an international biotechnology conference in Bangkok Thailand in order to meet the world's leading scientist in the area of nanotechnology (who is going to offer Kade a postdoc position in her lab) and teach her more about how Kade's scientific breakthrough could change the world (and the humans who live in it). Of course there are people who are determined to maintain the status quo and they want to steal Kade's invention and use it for their ends (or suppress it's development). The struggle between these forces is thrillingly depicted in an exciting and suspenseful way by the author, Ramez Naam.
If you liked Marcus Sakey's Brilliance trilogy (and I certainly did), I'm confident that you will enjoy Nexus. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the Nexus trilogy and hope that it maintain's its quality and energy.
Title: Nexus.
Author: Ramez Naam.
Paperback: 460 pages.
Publisher: Bad Robot.
Date Published: December 18, 2012.
Date Read: November 23, 2016.
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.
Very fun technothriller!
The second book in the Nexus trilogy, Crux, extends the story begun in the first book, Nexus, by broadening the dilemmas encountered by the characters to even larger scale. At the same time Crux reveals ever widening conspiracies by government agencies as they grapple with the technological advances engendered by the widespread distribution of the drug Nexus which allows human-to-human brain communication and control.
Crux is pretty good but not as good as its prequel, Nexus. It's still very well plotted and also action-packed but to me the story itself doesn't really advance as far as the first one did. (This is a known common problem with middle books in trilogies.)
I've seen in other reviews of the books that Naam has been called a "plot artist" instead of a writer and I think that is unfair, but I would agree that plotting and pacing are his strong suits and characterization and lyrical/lexical expression are not.
This is not to say that Crux is bad, it's just not as fantastic as the first book (Nexus) was. The series (so far) is at least as good as the Brilliance series by Marcus Sakey and the Tao series by Wesley Chu and occupies a similar narrative space (action-packed, techno-thriller set in the near future with SFnal elements).
Title: Crux.
Author: Ramez Naam.
Paperback: 512 pages.
Publisher: Bad Robot.
Date Published: August 27. 2013.
Date Read: November 25, 2016.
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A-.
The final book in the Nexus trilogy ratchets up the suspense, stakes and action to pulse-pounding levels.
The killer app (or key idea) of Apex (and the series as a whole) is the existence of Nexus, a drug which allows one to access and manipulate the human brain like a computer operating system. Additionally, Nexus-enhanced brains can communicate with other Nexus-enhanced brains similar to internet-connected computers.
Ramez Naan takes this technological development and explores how the world would react were this to happen (roughly 25 years in the future), paying particular attention to the governments of United States, China and India. It is an exciting and frighteningly realistic portrayal of how events can be influenced by the decisions and actions by a few key people (the President, White House Chief of Staff, National Security Adviser, etc).
The main character we follow through all three books is Kaden Lane, who developed Nexus 5, which is much more powerful and longer-lasting than earlier iterations of psychotropic drugs. Kaden is flawed but we get to know him quite well, and he matures a lot as the story develops through the three books of the series. The Kaden of Book 3 is definitely NOT the same naive graduate student of Book 1. In addition to Kaden, we also follow the fortunes of Feng, a cloned biologically enhanced bodyguard who was tasked with protecting Kade but now treats him like a brother and Sam(antha) Cataranes, a Nexus-running, US government operative who was tasked with controlling Kaden to satisfy her mission orders but who has a change of heart when she meets a child exposed to Nexus in the womb in Book 2.
In addition to Nexus, Ramez Naan also posits other technological and sociological advances that greatly enhance the story. Overall, Apex is a near-future, hard sci-fi techno-thriller, and an excellent read.
Title: Apex.
Author: Ramez Naam.
Paperback: 608 pages.
Publisher: Bad Robot.
Date Published: May 5, 2015.
Date Read: December 3, 2016.
OVERALL GRADE: A- (4.0/4.0).
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.
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