Nexus: Nexus Arc Book 1

If I could give this book six stars, I would ... it's truly that good. And this is even more incredible considering that this is this author's first real work of fiction. Everything about this book is captivating. The central concept (that of nano-scale bots that, over time, modify, enhance, and upgrade the very structure of your brain until it becomes cybernetic) is, initially, somewhat hard to swallow. Indeed, some of the exposition concerning how this works, how it's possible, etcetera, proves to be the weakest area in the book, and while it's not entirely conveyed as magic, it's more often than not glossed over a little. Ultimately, that doesn't affect the plot, though. Very quickly, you come to accept the concept of the Nexus, how it works and what it does, in a natural, off-hand way. It's at this point that the story really hits its pace and holds it unflinchingly throughout the book, while also seemlessly layering in lengthier dialogue that takes a "debate" format (a la Michael Crichton) in extolling the virtues of the technology while condemning the supposed downsides. As a concept, conflicts about the Nexus upgrade reads like a cross between the classic drug debate and the continual striving to achieve equality for all people. Perhaps it's intentionally that the author subtley likens the Nexus "drug" to other middle-of-the-road controlled substances like marijuanna; indeed, many of the scenes involving regular users of Nexus reads either like a hippie commune or a hangout with pot. But the author handles this more intelligently than that; Nexus is quickly shown as something with far greater potential than simply "a drug" to get high with. It's through the miriad conflicts between characters on each side of the "problem" that the author demonstrates his mastery of concept about a controversial near-future technology. And this is where the story gets even better. After some initial warm-up, lengthier bits of exposition, character introductions, and conflict creations, the plot doubles its pace and doesn't let up. It quickly becomes a globe-trotting, crime-fighting adventure worthy of any cinema-quality production. But this is not to say anything is rushed; even at this stage, there continues to be extensive discussion concerning the nature of Nexus and whether it should be banned or embraced. This is handled so well that any reader can easily find themselves agreeing with either opinion, and potentially being right in their conclusion. Ultimately, a lot of people die in this novel, and so the reader couldn't be faulted for seeing Nexus as a bad thing (again, think of the War on Drugs). As far as characters go, the author handles this superbly as well. You can pretty easily relate to just about any of the people involved in the plot, right down to some of the bad guys and "throw-away" characters that are only present for one chapter. The backgrounds of many of these people are introduced beautifuly and are (maybe other than for ONE of them) largely believable. There is plenty of internal conflict that occurs with the main characters, and this too is realized naturally and in such a way as to make you sympathetic to them, even if they're supposed to be an antagonist. When it comes down to it, this book handles A LOT of near-future concepts effortlessly and naturally. Try cataloging all of them once you finish, and you might be surprised at how many things come up. But more than just being a concept sci-fi, the plot approaches things in such a smooth way as to make the book surprisingly easy and enjoyable to read. Michael Crichton was one of the greatest concept sci-fi writers to live, and his passing was unfortunate, but if you loved his work, you'll probably love this author just as much.

I found the first few pages of 'Nexus' a little stilted and was slightly worried that it would be another good idea badly told. I needn't have been. 'Nexus' is well paced and utterly thought-provoking, and after my shaky start it launched into a compelling story that packs a punch as both an action adventure and extremely believable future view. The premise is pretty straightforward - naive geeks create mind altering nano-tech with no comprehension of how the "Powers That Be" will come down on them - but the characters and the nuances of what it means to turn your brain into a minicomputer that can be programmed at will are what powers the plot. Our geek hero is Kaden Lane, a young, idealistic neuroscientist in training who has already pushed way beyond the boundaries of what is legal in this future United States, let alone what is moral. His apparent nemesis is Samantha Cataranes, a super secret agent with an inimical view of Kade's way of being. Forced together as pawns in a larger game, their journey of private challenges and personal growth is emotive and engaging. The whole point of Nexus is to get under the skin of another person, and Naam does this particularly well. His vision of a übertech United States essentially at war with the future is fundamentally scary - and all to realistic. Lie, cheat, steal...whatever it takes to maintain the status quo is the motto of the Government of the Day, and if that means dropping Special Forces into other countries for a little snatch and grab, well that's OK so long as nobody leaves a trace. The fact that they do so with a vast array of very sneaky spy toys only adds to the fun. Indeed, the "concept count" for Nexus is very high, with Naam ranging wide on neuroscience, biological enhancements, brains in a box and general weaponry. But unlike some other authors, these concepts remain accessible to us mere mortals (Stross, I'm thinking of you). All of which means that as I write this, 'Nexus' has only 4 and 5 star reviews, which across 80-odd people reinforces that this is a novel worth reading.

Nexus by Ramez Naam. Wonderful book. If you like high tech with high ideas then you'll inhale this book. The writing while not flashy is very smooth and professional. Surprising given this is his first work of fiction. Characters are well drawn with depth and interest, perhaps they fit a little too closely to type, but they are people worth caring about. The plot has a sense of the inevitabel as it is grounded in the idea that history repeats itself not because of any sort of magic, but because human nature itself does not change. Yet there's still enough freedom that the plot stays interesting throughout and the ending is both satisfying and pragmatic. Nexus is very H. G. Wells. There's a big bold futuristic idea, in this case it's how nanotech will create transhumans and bootstrap nextgen posthumans, and then see how that big idea plays out in the arena of our human capacity for great good and even greater evil. Invisible Man, War of the Worlds, Time Machine, Island of Doctor Moreau, follow this pattern with humans always weighing out as wanting. In Nexus humans are still on probation, but the book radiates with the same sort of optimism you'll find in the psychedelic era writing of Gordon Wasson, Gerald Heard, Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, John Lilly, and Timothy Leary. There was a hope at the time drugs could open the human mind to a greater understanding that would lead to transcendence. A new way of humans to be with each other. For some, in the right circumstances, this is no doubt true, but these powerful drugs, released in a common culture free of shamans, were abused and trivialized. The psychedelic era ended with a predictable reactionary anti-drug movement firmly in place. Then end game was clear relatively early on, but how it worked its way through a twisty backstabbing path was fun to watch. We have our extremes set against each other. The War on Drugs types who think the way to protect the world is complete control, even while they themselves become completely corrupted in the process. I'll call these the Sith. Then there are the profiteers. They look to exploit any new development for profit without regard to morality or consequences. These are the Merchants. Then there are the utopians who can only see the upside to their favorite development. These are the Hippies. Then there are people who just want to be better. Enhancement is seen as a good thing. These are the Humans. Then there are the elites who want control so they can profit and/or believe they are the only ones who know how the world should be run and everyone else's freedom is a purposeless misguided waste. I'll call these the .01%. So, we have nanotech in Nexus following a similar path to the psychedelic movement, yet nanotech technology has an even greater more tangible promise, along with an even greater more tangible terror. What happens then when you chum the social and political waters with a revolutionary technology like nanotech, that promises vastly enhanced intelligence, a group mind, and the possibility of absolute mind control? How will humans handle it? Nexus doesn't answer that question because it is unanswerable. There will be as many answers as there are humans. The interesting broader implication is that technology will change humans so much they will not be human anymore. If you aren't human then why not just kill and control humans? The implication being only your kind deserves respect. As humans we have this same issue with animals and when we visit people from different cultures. You can imagine when much more powerful aliens visit they will have the same issues. Robots will no doubt have the same issue towards humans in an uncomfortably short time. Why shouldn't the strong crush the weak? Why shouldn't those who are different be treated as other? Nexus casts back thousands of years ago for approaches to the how-we-can-all-get-along problem. It will seem very familiar to Buddhists and early followers of Jesus. Technology both amplifies and destroys. In the end it's about making a personal choice to be better than we are. Not everyone will make that choice, but we should always be aware it is a choice that is constantly being made, regardless of technology, tribe, nationality, or species.

Ramez Naam astounded me with Nexus. In this novel Naam has not only extrapolated a very believable, very frightening, future world, he has populated his creation with interesting characters who don't just talk or info-dump to each other. They think, they feel, they doubt. Through these people, Naam tells one hell of a story. Naam knows how to hook a reader. Consider this opening: -------------------- 1 THE DON JUAN PROTOCOL Friday 2040.02.17 : 2255 hours The woman who called herself Samantha Cataranes climbed out of the cab and walked towards the house on 23rd Street. ------------------ The chapter title is definitely intriguing, the timestamp says "yeah, we're in the future here and by the way, we're on military time." And why exactly is this woman "calling herself" Samantha Cataranes? A good writer tells a tale that draws the reader forward page by page and Ramez Naam is more than a good writer, he's a great writer. That's what surprised me. It's not that the writing is flashy, it's that the story telling is superb. The story is one of consequence. In the future, people are augmented. Contact lenses are computer displays. Soldiers have genetically enhanced muscles and reflexes. Some people have developed a drug called Nexus that enables a kind of brain to brain techno-telepathic linkage. Nexus is illegal and the next generation of Nexus, Nexus 5, is extremely illegal, very sought after and very powerful. Because Nexus 5 lets the people run software in their heads. Kaden Lane is a young scientist working on Nexus and the woman who calls herself Samantha Cataranes is working for people very interested in his work. And things get very interesting, very fast. In describing Nexus as a novel, it's tempting to compare Naam's work to that of other, more established novelists. The book has the pace and technical depth of a Michael Crichton novel but in my opinion Naam does a better job with his characters. Ironically, despite their augmentation, they come off as very human. The world of Nexus is slick and dark and paranoid, like the worlds described by folks like William Gibson or Cory Doctorow but even paranoids have enemies. Nexus is a very philosophical novel that is also a non-stop thrill ride. Naam manages to write believable gun fights and surprising effective scenes of software debugging and computer hacking. It's a neat trick. He has written an action thriller with a strong mental element and some very heroic Buddhist monks. Nexus is Naam's first novel, but it reads like something written by a wise, assured master at the top of his game. Perhaps Naam himself has had an upgrade? Or maybe he's just amazingly talented and smart enough to learn from other great writers. In any case, I've got one inexpensive, legal prescription for anyone looking to upgrade their brain with a smart thriller that will make you think: Nexus.

Interesting concept and story elements, although so far it is somewhat predictable and marred by some instances of poor writing. Caution: Spoilers follow. Pro: The book introduces us to a generally highly realized world set in the near future with a level of technology that seems certainly within our grasp. The Nexus drug, based on nano-technology, is the next step in communication. But it, and other similar technologies, also serve as an evolutionary threshold separating human from post-human. The concepts introduced in the book are interesting and examined fairly well by the characters. One question asked was would you withhold language and writing from a population even if you knew that some people would misuse them to subjugate people or instruct others to create weapons of mass destruction? Does the benefit of having a population gifted with language and writing outweigh the horror that might come from a dictator or terrorist that uses language and writing to enslave or kill? The same goes for Nexus... this to me is by far the greatest pro for the book. Con: However, these types of questions are postulated by the characters in the somewhat predictable and somewhat clumsy plot line. The story stars an educated idealist, a soldier with a terrifying past, a mysterious Asian woman, and subversive governments. All are fairly run of the mill tropes. The story is marred on occasion by poor writing. There are several instances where a phrase is repeated within a very short span. "Her mind is so vast," appears twice within a very short span. "The door exploded inward," appears three times within a very short span. I had to pause for second and wonder if I just fell asleep and re-read the same paragraph or if this was a new paragraph - very distracting. Speaking of exploding, everything seems to "explode" in this book. Doors, emotions, pain, people, heads, buildings, cars.. they all "explode" in this book. Obviously, its time for the author to get a new thesaurus. Nonetheless, I'd say the book is worth a read for its exploration of human/post-human/trans-human concepts. But certainly don't pay full price.

Ramez Naam is an ex-Microsoft project manager who has written a non-fiction book ( More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement ) about the possibilities of biotechnology and brain-computer interfaces, and extended those ideas even further into the future as a fictional account in Nexus. The ideas are fascinating. In his authors@google talk, Naam talks about the requirements for 'Google in your brain': data in, data out, encoding/decoding, multiple data types, safe/secure/deployable. He makes a convincing case that we have very primitive forms of data i/o, encoding/decoding and multiple data types (audio, video) today in the form of medical devices like the Cochlear implant and primitive computer-assisted vision for the blind. Advances in computing power, miniaturisation, and communications are going to enable even more powerful functionality in the future. Naam explores the possibilities of networked, customisable human brains from many different angles. There's the cyberpunk crowd that wants to have raves where you experience the emotions of everyone around you, the Buddists who meditate for hours as a single focused mind, various governments who want to limit access to the technology but also use it to boost the capabilities of their soldiers and armies, cults whose leaders use it as a form of mind control, and all manner of other criminal/illegal/unethical things that are possible when you can control someone else's mind. So the ideas are brilliant, the science is great, and Naam's technology background is present everywhere: I certainly can't think of another novel where 'stack trace' was used correctly, or a compiler hack described complete with a Ken Thompson reference. Unfortunately the novel is weakened by an over-abundance of action fight scenes, guns, explosions, and just general Michael Bay-ness. The opening sequence when Kade uses a pick-up line program followed by a pornstar program was ridiculous, and read like a teenage programmer's fantasy: if only I could write a program to get girls! Just need some sleazy lines and some porno moves! I was more convinced by the Bruce Lee program as a sort-of crude predecessor to Keanu's "I know Kung-Fu" moment in the matrix in the more distant fictional future. As a Bay Area resident I liked the local references, and the party in Hangar 3 at Moffett. The ability of multiple cooperating governments to suppress important information despite the massive connectivity and diversity of the Internet was also an interesting case study for the future. "Broad dissemination and individual choice turn most technologies into a plus. If only the elites have access, it's a dystopia." If you like action novels, you'll probably love this. Personally, I'd rather Naam and China Miéville took some Nexus 5, joined their minds, and re-wrote this as a dark techno underground thriller :) 3.5 stars

Take the posthuman Slan of A.E Van Vogt. Mix with the cyberpunk of William Gibson and especially the anti-authoritarian cyberpunk of John Shirley's "Song Called Youth". Add a large measure of Greg Egan a dash of Kim Stanley Robinson. Sprinkle on some Corey Doctorow and spice with a large dose of wicked super agent versus super agent conflict and what do you get? "Nexus". The bracingly original Neuro-Punk novel by new author Ramez Naam. I read Nexus in a single delicious gulp, totally trashing my absurdly busy life for almost thirty hours. Well researched near future tech. Interesting characters. Rapid fire plot. Buddhism and psychotropic drugs both treated with great knowledge and respect. Neuroscience written like the author spent his life in the field. Naam has chops. Handles both a complex cast of characters, and some ywell researched and thought through future tech, both with a fierce, unwavering intelligence and a rather deep understanding of the human condition. Ethics. First and foremost Nexus is a novel about ethics. About figuring out the right course of action and then taking it. No simple answers but some powerful arguments against the wrong answers. Second it is about consciousness -- what it means to be a conscious entity -- no simple pop-psyche analysis here. Rather a deep and compassionate look into what makes a mind a mind. Is it perfect? Hardly.. Too many characters with too many traumatic pasts. Too much violence. Some, though not too much, of the first novel bane -- the author's need to throw everything that's important to him into the stew. Hopefully Naam's next novel will be a little slower paced, a little less focused on hand-to-hand combat and a little less about heroism. Sometimes reading Nexus you feel as if he wrote a slow thoughtful novel about the future of neuroscience, the potential for technology mediated mind to mind contact and the relationship of meditation to both. Then layered on this action/adventure plot just to attract a larger audience. Well. It worked. The action adventure plot keeps the pot bubbling and lets a lot of interesting, thoughtful perspectives go down very smooth.

An intriguing, well-conceived, and meticulously thought out exploration of the near-future development of brain-to-brain interface technology. Sounds like pure fantasy but the concept is based on real-life developments in brain-to-computer, computer-to-brain, and brain-to-brain technology which is in development today. Nexus is the first of three books to examine not only one possible path to implementing this technology on a massive scale, but also of the ethical, legal, and political ramifications of such technology. Issues of thought control, body hacking, invasive surveillance are pitted against the democratizing and liberating possibilities of sharing other people's thoughts and feelings. Great potential evil and great potential good could come of the same technology. So who will control its use? Should such technology be stopped--or indeed CAN it be stopped? Nexus delivers a thought provoking look at all sides to the debate, and does so in the context of a well paced narrative complete with conflicted, well developed characters, with enough tech to satisfy the avid SF reader, but enough action and intrigue to satisfy those in want more than just nerd bait. It's a very good read. Well worth a read.