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Nexus #3
Apex
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Science Fiction (2015)Global unrest spreads as mass protests advance throughout the US and China, Nexus-upgraded riot police battle against upgraded protestors, and a once-dead scientist plans to take over the planet's electronic systems. The world has never experienced turmoil of this type, on this scale.They call them the Apex - humanity's replacement. They're smarter, faster, better. And infinitely more dangerous.
Humanity is dying. Long live the Apex.
Humanity is dying. Long live the Apex.
608 pages, Paperback
First published May 5, 2015
About the author
Ramez Naam
30 books1,410 followersRamez Naam was born in Cairo, Egypt, and came to the US at the age of 3. He's a computer scientist who spent 13 years at Microsoft, leading teams working on email, web browsing, search, and artificial intelligence. He holds almost 20 patents in those areas.
Ramez is the winner of the 2005 H.G. Wells Award for his non-fiction book More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement. He's worked as a life guard, has climbed mountains, survived dust storms in the desert, backpacked through remote corners of China, and ridden his bicycle down hundreds of miles of the Vietnam coast. He lives in Seattle, where he writes and speaks full time.
Ramez is the winner of the 2005 H.G. Wells Award for his non-fiction book More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement. He's worked as a life guard, has climbed mountains, survived dust storms in the desert, backpacked through remote corners of China, and ridden his bicycle down hundreds of miles of the Vietnam coast. He lives in Seattle, where he writes and speaks full time.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 500 reviews
March 27, 2016
Executive Summary: This series has been a fortuitous discovery, and Mr. Naam does an excellent job bringing it to a satisfying conclusion.
Full Review
This series is yet another reason I'm glad I found Goodreads. I might never have discovered it otherwise.
The fact that I read this book, rather than waiting for the audio book to come out should be a good indication as to how I excited I was for it. My reading time is precious and my reading speed poor. I made sure to clear my schedule so I'd be able to jump right into this on release day.
The book starts with a bang. Literally. It pulls you right in and your off and running. Unfortunately I found it got a bit bogged down in the middle due to many additional POVs and sub plots. I struggled a bit, and my reading pace slowed down. This wasn't helped by a weekend trip, which is often when I do most of my reading.
Thankfully Mr. Naam does a good job tying all of these stories together in a meaningful way. The last 20% or so was impossible to put down and I devoured it at a record pace.
Apart from the pacing issues in the middle, my main complaint remains the same as for the previous books. I feel like the side effects of Nexus are completely neglected. This isn't "hard" sci-fi by any means, but Mr. Naam does a great job of keeping things in the realm of plausibility.
I was excited to see some mention that the long term effects of the drug were going to be studied, but then nothing else was mentioned, and the concept was never explored. I struggle with the idea that apart from the variance during the initial "calibration" phase there is no difference from person to person and the drug and Operating System just seems to work flawlessly for everyone.
Is this due to the Operating System being able to handle difference in brain chemistry? We see differences in capabilities of people who were exposed to the drug while their brains are still developing. Young children do better than adults, but are still not as adapt as those children exposed in the womb.
Too much detail would have likely bogged the story down, but I hope if Mr. Naam revisits this world in a future novel these ideas are explored in greater detail.
That said, much like the other books in this series, this book is a lot of fun that leaves you thinking about it long after you put it down. I wasn't really sure how things would end up, but I think it was done in such a way that I'd be content if this was the last book about Nexus Mr. Naam wrote.
The characters are excellent as in the previous novels. Mr. Naam offers a variety of ideas and opinions through a diverse and interesting cast of characters, where even the minor characters feel well developed.
Rangan's story ended up being the one I was most interested in. This was followed closely by Yuguo. I guess because they were the closest to the various protests going on, this put them on the "front lines" so to speak.
Sadly, much like the last novel, I found Sam to be a bit underutilized. This is likely a result of all the new POVs added. That isn't to say this book is hurting for female characters however. I especially enjoyed the addition of Carolyn Pryce, who plays a prominent role throughout the novel.
And of course, Feng continues to be a favorite, adding some great humor into what is often a dark story.
After reading this series, I will definitely be on the lookout for Mr. Naam's next book. If you're looking for something new and different, you should really give this series a look.
Full Review
This series is yet another reason I'm glad I found Goodreads. I might never have discovered it otherwise.
The fact that I read this book, rather than waiting for the audio book to come out should be a good indication as to how I excited I was for it. My reading time is precious and my reading speed poor. I made sure to clear my schedule so I'd be able to jump right into this on release day.
The book starts with a bang. Literally. It pulls you right in and your off and running. Unfortunately I found it got a bit bogged down in the middle due to many additional POVs and sub plots. I struggled a bit, and my reading pace slowed down. This wasn't helped by a weekend trip, which is often when I do most of my reading.
Thankfully Mr. Naam does a good job tying all of these stories together in a meaningful way. The last 20% or so was impossible to put down and I devoured it at a record pace.
Apart from the pacing issues in the middle, my main complaint remains the same as for the previous books. I feel like the side effects of Nexus are completely neglected. This isn't "hard" sci-fi by any means, but Mr. Naam does a great job of keeping things in the realm of plausibility.
I was excited to see some mention that the long term effects of the drug were going to be studied, but then nothing else was mentioned, and the concept was never explored. I struggle with the idea that apart from the variance during the initial "calibration" phase there is no difference from person to person and the drug and Operating System just seems to work flawlessly for everyone.
Is this due to the Operating System being able to handle difference in brain chemistry? We see differences in capabilities of people who were exposed to the drug while their brains are still developing. Young children do better than adults, but are still not as adapt as those children exposed in the womb.
Too much detail would have likely bogged the story down, but I hope if Mr. Naam revisits this world in a future novel these ideas are explored in greater detail.
That said, much like the other books in this series, this book is a lot of fun that leaves you thinking about it long after you put it down. I wasn't really sure how things would end up, but I think it was done in such a way that I'd be content if this was the last book about Nexus Mr. Naam wrote.
The characters are excellent as in the previous novels. Mr. Naam offers a variety of ideas and opinions through a diverse and interesting cast of characters, where even the minor characters feel well developed.
Rangan's story ended up being the one I was most interested in. This was followed closely by Yuguo. I guess because they were the closest to the various protests going on, this put them on the "front lines" so to speak.
Sadly, much like the last novel, I found Sam to be a bit underutilized. This is likely a result of all the new POVs added. That isn't to say this book is hurting for female characters however. I especially enjoyed the addition of Carolyn Pryce, who plays a prominent role throughout the novel.
And of course, Feng continues to be a favorite, adding some great humor into what is often a dark story.
After reading this series, I will definitely be on the lookout for Mr. Naam's next book. If you're looking for something new and different, you should really give this series a look.
September 16, 2017
Apex is a great conclusion to the Nexus trilogy, a cyberpunk science fiction that blended thought-provoking social commentary with relatable characters and emotional resonance.
Imagine having the internet, a virtual reality platform and personal hard drives hosted in the brains of thousands or millions of the human race. And it's an open shareware where anyone with unlimited connectivity can freely contribute any application. This, in essence, propagates a single vast mind which is greater than the sum of its parts. That is what Nexus is capable of accomplishing. Take one step further to host Nexus in a quantum mind and you will get sentient artificial intelligence. Upload this onto a human clone and a post-human is hence created.
Amazing. Beautiful. Frightening.
After the ending of the previous book, I expected a nightmare of artificial intelligence dominance and destruction to descend upon the world. While it certainly did, it was not entirely in the fashion that I’ve anticipated. The story took a bit longer to engage me than the previous two instalments, as many new characters were introduced to demonstrate the greater proliferation of Nexus and its implications – both good and bad. In the end, even though there were a lot more new characters, it was necessary to serve the plot towards its denouement. A concatenation of events led to an ending that was akin to watching an imminent train wreck of massive proportions in slow motion. It was nerve-wracking and intense!
As with the first two books, this one continued the series' thought-provoking narrative. Of governments and policies being an extension of personal agenda and experiences of the leaders. Of the simple iteration of Prisoner’s Dilemma between the major forces in the world and the annihilation that can ensue. And how violence necessarily begets violence.
I recommend this series to fans of near-future science fiction. The books were not without its flaws as there were times where I found it repetitive. Regardless, with a highly engaging story and great characters, it is definitely worth reading.
This review can also be found at Booknest
Imagine having the internet, a virtual reality platform and personal hard drives hosted in the brains of thousands or millions of the human race. And it's an open shareware where anyone with unlimited connectivity can freely contribute any application. This, in essence, propagates a single vast mind which is greater than the sum of its parts. That is what Nexus is capable of accomplishing. Take one step further to host Nexus in a quantum mind and you will get sentient artificial intelligence. Upload this onto a human clone and a post-human is hence created.
Amazing. Beautiful. Frightening.
After the ending of the previous book, I expected a nightmare of artificial intelligence dominance and destruction to descend upon the world. While it certainly did, it was not entirely in the fashion that I’ve anticipated. The story took a bit longer to engage me than the previous two instalments, as many new characters were introduced to demonstrate the greater proliferation of Nexus and its implications – both good and bad. In the end, even though there were a lot more new characters, it was necessary to serve the plot towards its denouement. A concatenation of events led to an ending that was akin to watching an imminent train wreck of massive proportions in slow motion. It was nerve-wracking and intense!
All politics is personal. It turns out all policy is personal, too. She’d thought once that policy was a rational thing. That it could be decided based on logic and analysis, optimized to maximize the likelihood of best outcomes, either for the world, the nation, or at least for one side or the other. But no. None of those could compete with the personal experience of one man.
As with the first two books, this one continued the series' thought-provoking narrative. Of governments and policies being an extension of personal agenda and experiences of the leaders. Of the simple iteration of Prisoner’s Dilemma between the major forces in the world and the annihilation that can ensue. And how violence necessarily begets violence.
I recommend this series to fans of near-future science fiction. The books were not without its flaws as there were times where I found it repetitive. Regardless, with a highly engaging story and great characters, it is definitely worth reading.
This review can also be found at Booknest
July 30, 2018
I loved the first two books in this series, Nexus and Crux so I couldn't wait for the final book to come out in May 2015. However, I couldn't get into Apex when I first got it. It was slow, too many new POV characters, largely uninteresting. So I put it down and figured I'd come back to it later. Over a year later, I did and much to my chagrin, my initial impression was correct and the book was ultimately a disappointment.
Apex picks up immediately after the events of Crux (which I largely forgot [my fault] but Ramez Naam does a good job of inserting small recaps here and there). Naam introduces too many new characters late in the game that I mostly couldn't get behind. The only one I felt invested in was Carolyn Pryce, National Security Advisor to the US president. I was irritated when I had to spend time with Breece or one of the many Chinese scientists instead of Kade or Feng. As for Sam: It's a shame she was wasted for 90% of this book. But so were Kade, Feng, and many others.
The story is poorly paced. I didn't get into it at all until the halfway mark and I'm not sure if it's because the story got better or I had Stockholm Syndrome. The many POVs dilute the story and take focus away from Kade, Sam, Feng, and Su-Yong. The events in Washington DC felt out of place and largely disconnected from the main plot. I could have easily done without them (including Rangan who I never cared about). Naam doesn't have a flashy or poetic writing style. It gets the job done and nothing else so I didn't even have nice prose to keep me interested.
I don't want to spend my whole review hating on the book but one more aspect I would have liked to have known about: Are there any adverse effects of Nexus? I mean, you're taking a drug that messes with your neurons. There has to be some side effects. Early onset Alzheimer's? Dementia? Why isn't anybody studying this?
There were many cool ideas in the Nexus arc that I wish Naam had explored more. Unfortunately Apex was a huge letdown.
D+
Apex picks up immediately after the events of Crux (which I largely forgot [my fault] but Ramez Naam does a good job of inserting small recaps here and there). Naam introduces too many new characters late in the game that I mostly couldn't get behind. The only one I felt invested in was Carolyn Pryce, National Security Advisor to the US president. I was irritated when I had to spend time with Breece or one of the many Chinese scientists instead of Kade or Feng. As for Sam: It's a shame she was wasted for 90% of this book. But so were Kade, Feng, and many others.
The story is poorly paced. I didn't get into it at all until the halfway mark and I'm not sure if it's because the story got better or I had Stockholm Syndrome. The many POVs dilute the story and take focus away from Kade, Sam, Feng, and Su-Yong. The events in Washington DC felt out of place and largely disconnected from the main plot. I could have easily done without them (including Rangan who I never cared about). Naam doesn't have a flashy or poetic writing style. It gets the job done and nothing else so I didn't even have nice prose to keep me interested.
I don't want to spend my whole review hating on the book but one more aspect I would have liked to have known about: Are there any adverse effects of Nexus? I mean, you're taking a drug that messes with your neurons. There has to be some side effects. Early onset Alzheimer's? Dementia? Why isn't anybody studying this?
There were many cool ideas in the Nexus arc that I wish Naam had explored more. Unfortunately Apex was a huge letdown.
D+
August 3, 2015
This third novel is a serious departure from the first two. Global politics and truly high stakes action is involved, including several full-featured revolutions, the machinations of an evil world-mind, and a nuclear war. Sound pretty epic? It is.
And there was enough action and solid pace to make the introduction of many new characters worth continuing.
Don't worry, though! If you're worried that those surviving main characters don't carry over into this novel, rest assured. All of them have central roles, and it was satisfying enough to be a retelling of Siddhartha. (Although, to be perfectly honest, I much prefer this version. It's as accessible as only a transhumanist revolution featuring love and hate can make it.)
I always thought my idea of throwing thousands of poisonous snakes into a locked congress was a good idea, but Mr. Naam had a better idea. Read this novel and tell me if I'm wrong!
Did I think the novel surpass the first? Hard to tell. It's very different. The first novel was full of sympathetic and idealistic characters that I really latched on to. The second novel really departed from that, and so I was stuck in the pov's of morally ambiguous people who eventually redeemed themselves with their choices, or not. The third novel focused on anger and revenge versus redemption, but on a nicely grounded but still global scale, jumping from China to India, to the US, and back again.
One thing I really loved was the huge homage to Gibson's Idoru, made to serve an awesome purpose. I found myself cheering. :)
I still want to be a part of Nexus. I'd down the drug in a heartbeat. Maybe I have a lot of faith in humanity.
And there was enough action and solid pace to make the introduction of many new characters worth continuing.
Don't worry, though! If you're worried that those surviving main characters don't carry over into this novel, rest assured. All of them have central roles, and it was satisfying enough to be a retelling of Siddhartha. (Although, to be perfectly honest, I much prefer this version. It's as accessible as only a transhumanist revolution featuring love and hate can make it.)
I always thought my idea of throwing thousands of poisonous snakes into a locked congress was a good idea, but Mr. Naam had a better idea. Read this novel and tell me if I'm wrong!
Did I think the novel surpass the first? Hard to tell. It's very different. The first novel was full of sympathetic and idealistic characters that I really latched on to. The second novel really departed from that, and so I was stuck in the pov's of morally ambiguous people who eventually redeemed themselves with their choices, or not. The third novel focused on anger and revenge versus redemption, but on a nicely grounded but still global scale, jumping from China to India, to the US, and back again.
One thing I really loved was the huge homage to Gibson's Idoru, made to serve an awesome purpose. I found myself cheering. :)
I still want to be a part of Nexus. I'd down the drug in a heartbeat. Maybe I have a lot of faith in humanity.
September 3, 2018
Whoa! Tremendous third book of the trilogy! This ambitious and technologically fictional-but-prescient novel crosses the globe between Washington and China in a blockbuster war-of-the-worlds kind of finish.
An exceptional finale to a great trilogy. Highly recommended. Kudos to Naam.
An exceptional finale to a great trilogy. Highly recommended. Kudos to Naam.
December 14, 2015
2 Stars
Apex was a huge disappointment for me.
It was long, drawn out, predictable, boring, and little happens for much of this book. It is completely unlike the first two books. I pretty much hated it.
The series had potential to be an all time classic and for the first two books it still is. The conclusion is not up to the standards set in the first two books.
I love the high concepts in the series but hated the ending.
Oh well, it happens.
Apex was a huge disappointment for me.
It was long, drawn out, predictable, boring, and little happens for much of this book. It is completely unlike the first two books. I pretty much hated it.
The series had potential to be an all time classic and for the first two books it still is. The conclusion is not up to the standards set in the first two books.
I love the high concepts in the series but hated the ending.
Oh well, it happens.
May 28, 2015
Ramex Naam’s Nexus Arc has become wildly popular since I read the first installment back in early 2013. I’ve enjoyed this series and would recommend it to pretty much anyone interested in near-future scifi, but I have to admit that Apex was a rather lukewarm finale.
While Naam has created a vibrant speculative landscape full of tantalizing and terrifying futuretech, he has also failed to temper his obnoxious penchant for dull, sloppy prose. I wouldn’t have thought it possible that the third book in a successful series could contain worse writing than the previous two, but Naam proved me wrong. Apex is a choppy, terse narrative that also becomes bloated with its own linguistic heft. The book contains even more cliches, needless repetition, and superficially “profound” moments than Nexus and Crux combined (it doesn’t help that Apex is considerably longer than both previous novels).
An additional frustration is that Naam expands his story far beyond the initial core characters that carried him through the first two books. These mid-21st-century cardboard cutouts were never the most engaging bunch, but Naam did a serviceable job of developing them into relatable and somewhat believable individuals. While Apex does reveal their final journeys, those stories are diluted by a deluge of new characters, many of whom do nothing more than serve plot-based ends to keep the narrative moving––rather slowly. Naam tries desperately to make these new characters sympathetic and interesting, but his efforts largely fall flat. The result is that Naam takes his story to the next level of “epicness” by sacrificing the page-counts of the people we’ve actually come to give a shit about. Not a good move. This might not be a problem for all readers, but it tainted my emotional connection with the story, even to the point of dulling the impact when one of the series’s main characters bit the dust.
My final critique before I get to the good stuff (and there is good stuff) is that there are a lot of scenes in this book that would be more at home in a Michael Bay movie than in an intelligent scifi book. Lots of futuristic war machines, drones, covert ops, explosions, etc. These scenes are relevant to the overall story, but get dragged out to the point of ridiculousness. Most of the battles/protests represent a preoccupation with turbo-changed intensity rather than authentic character or plot development. And, worst of all, they’re just plain boring after a while.
The good news is that, despite is flaws, Apex delivers on the topics that made the first two Nexus Arc books so engaging, and even pushes the series’s boundaries in some welcome ways. Naam stays committed to teasing out the possible boons and hazards that could stem from the global introduction of Nexus technology, and definitely sends what is in my opinion a thoughtful, compassionate message about how to confront trans- and posthuman developments. As with Nexus and Crux, the near future world presented in Apex is both rapturous and terrifying.
There are two story elements where Apex really shines: (1) Naam’s fascinating and creative depictions of posthuman consciousness, and (2) a more complex portrait of world governments than was presented earlier in the series. Apex deals with two different (and somewhat opposed) forms of posthumanity––unified, ego-driven posthumanity and distributed, selfless posthumanity. Both styles of enhanced consciousness are legitimate in their own right, and both demonstrate important ideas about the possible futures of conscious experience and action.
Singular (and at least partially insane) posthumanity:
"The foam, below her. The quantum foam. Planck space. The substrate of reality. She can sense it now. She can feel it. She can see it though she lacks eyes, see it like she can see the very code that makes her up.
It is fractal. A radiant chaotic webwork undergirding reality. Impossibly bright lines of insane energy densities against a luminously black background. Yet the closer she stares at the black the more she realizes that it is not black, it is full of even more impossibly bright lines at finer and finer scales, repeating the intricate chaotic vein-like pattern at every level, again and again and again.
Forever.
And then her perspective reverses, and she realizes it is not the lines she should be staring at but the gaps between them, for the gaps are full of bubbles, bubbles in the quantum foam, and every bubble is a universe being born, a parallel universe. The quantum cluster she runs on is giving birth to these universes continuously, creating them with every calculation, spreading itself into them to perform its work at such miraculous rates…
She can see into these other universes now, and in each of them she sees the same face reflected back at her. My face. Me.
Su-Yong Shu.
Tortured. Ascendant. Trapped. Free. Dying in nuclear fire. A goddess ruling over a world transformed. A thousand possibilities. A million. A billion. More. An infinite set of universes radiating away from her, all accessible through the entangled permutations of the quantum processors that make up the physical layer of her brain." (94-5)
Collective posthumanity (enabled by large numbers of Nexus-linked minds):
"A meta-brain, organic, functional, real, operating in the ways Su-Yong had been built to simulate, offering correction for the errors in her simulation code that had built up, that had compounded, that had driven her insane over time.
A peace, a stability, formed of a base so broad, a base of not one brain, not one life, not one perspective, but thousands, complementing one another, embracing one another, encircling and intertwining with one another.
A compassion. A compassion so deep, so heart-felt, a mind that knew this woman had suffered, that had seen glimpses of her torture. A compassion for all beings, for all minds, for all creatures who thought or felt, for her in particular, who’d felt so much for so long in so much agony.
A joy. A wild, multifarious, explosive, riot of joy, of moments, of glimpses, of experiences, of not just thousands of minds, but of now tens of thousands, of now hundreds of thousands of minds, as more touched them, as the core reached out to more minds, brought them together into joyous union, assisted by vast data centers of machinery that routed and filtered and coordinated connections, linked minds, sifted offered thoughts, identified love and bliss and passion and curiosity and delight and amplified them, selected for them, brought them here, through this link, through and around Kade, directly to this woman who needed them so badly.
Who needed to remember joy.
Who needed to see the good in humanity before she went to war with them." (552)
These passages nicely capture two extremes of posthuman experience: radically self-centered but almost infinitely powerful, and radically selfless and also almost infinitely powerful. It’s the apocalypse meets the rapture of the nerds. And while the reality of posthuman experience (should it ever arrive) will no doubt be vastly more complex, unpredictable, and possibly ineffable than Naam’s illustrations, his glimpses of techno-enlightenment are nevertheless insightful and fun. The implications for radically improved future projection––and therefore radically improved capacities for assessing and responding to global problems––are significant. Naam also toys with the intriguing question of whether different instantiations (copies) of the same posthuman consciousness could have different ethical outlooks and modes of perception.
The critical point, Naam emphasizes, is that humans can never safely play the jailor once the posthuman era has begun: “If you treat posthumans as slaves, if you torture them, if you make them prisoners…You’ll drive them to want revenge. You’ll make them paranoid and angry. You may drive them insane. You’ll create the war that none of us can win” (409). In a futurist milieu where opinions vary about whether various types of AI (AGI, ASI, whole brain emulations, etc.) would have significant moral status, Naam’s narrative imaginatively argues for the rights of all types of experiencing minds. His perspective is as ethically commendable as it is existentially prudent.
My main complaint about Crux was that Naam’s portrait of the US government seemed oversimplified, favoring the typical libertarian assertion that government isn’t good for anything other than bungling important issues and stifling freedom of expression. I’m happy to report that Apex contains a much more variegated view in which both the US and Chinese governments contain individuals with various values and goals that conflict in their efforts to come up with workable responses to Nexus technology. Naam doesn’t go so far as to lionize government officials (which would come off as disingenuous given the current political climate), but he leaves plenty of room for dissent, showing how governments struggle with their better and worse selves. Best of all, we’re left with a sense that while representative government can’t single-handedly solve the problems of the future, there is a positive leading role it can play when transparency, ethics, and scientifically-informed opinions win the day.
If you’ve already invested the time to read Naam’s first two novels, definitely give Apex a chance. There’s enough here to entertain, bemuse, delight, and inspire almost any reader. If you’re considering starting the Nexus Arc from the beginning, take heed: it might be worth it if you really dig cutting-edge scifi, but you’ll have to slog through a considerable amount of verbal flotsam and jetsam. I enjoyed this trilogy, but I'm also glad it’s over. Fortunately, a brand new Neal Stephenson novel is sitting on my desk––the perfect remedy for an enervated literary palate.
This review was originally published on my blog, words&dirt.
While Naam has created a vibrant speculative landscape full of tantalizing and terrifying futuretech, he has also failed to temper his obnoxious penchant for dull, sloppy prose. I wouldn’t have thought it possible that the third book in a successful series could contain worse writing than the previous two, but Naam proved me wrong. Apex is a choppy, terse narrative that also becomes bloated with its own linguistic heft. The book contains even more cliches, needless repetition, and superficially “profound” moments than Nexus and Crux combined (it doesn’t help that Apex is considerably longer than both previous novels).
An additional frustration is that Naam expands his story far beyond the initial core characters that carried him through the first two books. These mid-21st-century cardboard cutouts were never the most engaging bunch, but Naam did a serviceable job of developing them into relatable and somewhat believable individuals. While Apex does reveal their final journeys, those stories are diluted by a deluge of new characters, many of whom do nothing more than serve plot-based ends to keep the narrative moving––rather slowly. Naam tries desperately to make these new characters sympathetic and interesting, but his efforts largely fall flat. The result is that Naam takes his story to the next level of “epicness” by sacrificing the page-counts of the people we’ve actually come to give a shit about. Not a good move. This might not be a problem for all readers, but it tainted my emotional connection with the story, even to the point of dulling the impact when one of the series’s main characters bit the dust.
My final critique before I get to the good stuff (and there is good stuff) is that there are a lot of scenes in this book that would be more at home in a Michael Bay movie than in an intelligent scifi book. Lots of futuristic war machines, drones, covert ops, explosions, etc. These scenes are relevant to the overall story, but get dragged out to the point of ridiculousness. Most of the battles/protests represent a preoccupation with turbo-changed intensity rather than authentic character or plot development. And, worst of all, they’re just plain boring after a while.
The good news is that, despite is flaws, Apex delivers on the topics that made the first two Nexus Arc books so engaging, and even pushes the series’s boundaries in some welcome ways. Naam stays committed to teasing out the possible boons and hazards that could stem from the global introduction of Nexus technology, and definitely sends what is in my opinion a thoughtful, compassionate message about how to confront trans- and posthuman developments. As with Nexus and Crux, the near future world presented in Apex is both rapturous and terrifying.
There are two story elements where Apex really shines: (1) Naam’s fascinating and creative depictions of posthuman consciousness, and (2) a more complex portrait of world governments than was presented earlier in the series. Apex deals with two different (and somewhat opposed) forms of posthumanity––unified, ego-driven posthumanity and distributed, selfless posthumanity. Both styles of enhanced consciousness are legitimate in their own right, and both demonstrate important ideas about the possible futures of conscious experience and action.
Singular (and at least partially insane) posthumanity:
"The foam, below her. The quantum foam. Planck space. The substrate of reality. She can sense it now. She can feel it. She can see it though she lacks eyes, see it like she can see the very code that makes her up.
It is fractal. A radiant chaotic webwork undergirding reality. Impossibly bright lines of insane energy densities against a luminously black background. Yet the closer she stares at the black the more she realizes that it is not black, it is full of even more impossibly bright lines at finer and finer scales, repeating the intricate chaotic vein-like pattern at every level, again and again and again.
Forever.
And then her perspective reverses, and she realizes it is not the lines she should be staring at but the gaps between them, for the gaps are full of bubbles, bubbles in the quantum foam, and every bubble is a universe being born, a parallel universe. The quantum cluster she runs on is giving birth to these universes continuously, creating them with every calculation, spreading itself into them to perform its work at such miraculous rates…
She can see into these other universes now, and in each of them she sees the same face reflected back at her. My face. Me.
Su-Yong Shu.
Tortured. Ascendant. Trapped. Free. Dying in nuclear fire. A goddess ruling over a world transformed. A thousand possibilities. A million. A billion. More. An infinite set of universes radiating away from her, all accessible through the entangled permutations of the quantum processors that make up the physical layer of her brain." (94-5)
Collective posthumanity (enabled by large numbers of Nexus-linked minds):
"A meta-brain, organic, functional, real, operating in the ways Su-Yong had been built to simulate, offering correction for the errors in her simulation code that had built up, that had compounded, that had driven her insane over time.
A peace, a stability, formed of a base so broad, a base of not one brain, not one life, not one perspective, but thousands, complementing one another, embracing one another, encircling and intertwining with one another.
A compassion. A compassion so deep, so heart-felt, a mind that knew this woman had suffered, that had seen glimpses of her torture. A compassion for all beings, for all minds, for all creatures who thought or felt, for her in particular, who’d felt so much for so long in so much agony.
A joy. A wild, multifarious, explosive, riot of joy, of moments, of glimpses, of experiences, of not just thousands of minds, but of now tens of thousands, of now hundreds of thousands of minds, as more touched them, as the core reached out to more minds, brought them together into joyous union, assisted by vast data centers of machinery that routed and filtered and coordinated connections, linked minds, sifted offered thoughts, identified love and bliss and passion and curiosity and delight and amplified them, selected for them, brought them here, through this link, through and around Kade, directly to this woman who needed them so badly.
Who needed to remember joy.
Who needed to see the good in humanity before she went to war with them." (552)
These passages nicely capture two extremes of posthuman experience: radically self-centered but almost infinitely powerful, and radically selfless and also almost infinitely powerful. It’s the apocalypse meets the rapture of the nerds. And while the reality of posthuman experience (should it ever arrive) will no doubt be vastly more complex, unpredictable, and possibly ineffable than Naam’s illustrations, his glimpses of techno-enlightenment are nevertheless insightful and fun. The implications for radically improved future projection––and therefore radically improved capacities for assessing and responding to global problems––are significant. Naam also toys with the intriguing question of whether different instantiations (copies) of the same posthuman consciousness could have different ethical outlooks and modes of perception.
The critical point, Naam emphasizes, is that humans can never safely play the jailor once the posthuman era has begun: “If you treat posthumans as slaves, if you torture them, if you make them prisoners…You’ll drive them to want revenge. You’ll make them paranoid and angry. You may drive them insane. You’ll create the war that none of us can win” (409). In a futurist milieu where opinions vary about whether various types of AI (AGI, ASI, whole brain emulations, etc.) would have significant moral status, Naam’s narrative imaginatively argues for the rights of all types of experiencing minds. His perspective is as ethically commendable as it is existentially prudent.
My main complaint about Crux was that Naam’s portrait of the US government seemed oversimplified, favoring the typical libertarian assertion that government isn’t good for anything other than bungling important issues and stifling freedom of expression. I’m happy to report that Apex contains a much more variegated view in which both the US and Chinese governments contain individuals with various values and goals that conflict in their efforts to come up with workable responses to Nexus technology. Naam doesn’t go so far as to lionize government officials (which would come off as disingenuous given the current political climate), but he leaves plenty of room for dissent, showing how governments struggle with their better and worse selves. Best of all, we’re left with a sense that while representative government can’t single-handedly solve the problems of the future, there is a positive leading role it can play when transparency, ethics, and scientifically-informed opinions win the day.
If you’ve already invested the time to read Naam’s first two novels, definitely give Apex a chance. There’s enough here to entertain, bemuse, delight, and inspire almost any reader. If you’re considering starting the Nexus Arc from the beginning, take heed: it might be worth it if you really dig cutting-edge scifi, but you’ll have to slog through a considerable amount of verbal flotsam and jetsam. I enjoyed this trilogy, but I'm also glad it’s over. Fortunately, a brand new Neal Stephenson novel is sitting on my desk––the perfect remedy for an enervated literary palate.
This review was originally published on my blog, words&dirt.
November 7, 2015
Love love love this series. Ramen Naam is doing some of the best speculative writing on neuroscience, AI, the mind, and what it means to be human that I have ever read. He's got a lot of great essays and non-fiction, too–this is one sharp dude. I highly recommend the Nexus series (Nexus, Crux, and this book, Apex) to anyone interested in good scifi and/or having your mind opened to the possibilities (and dangers) that lie ahead for us.
May 12, 2015
A satisfying and somewhat terrifying conclusion to a trilogy I couldn't put down.
July 31, 2016
As part of my ongoing quest to finish up some series and trilogies I have started before this year, I requested the last book of the Nexus trilogy from interlibrary loan. I love Ramez Naam's treatment of the post-human idea (he calls it transhuman which is a more politically correct term in the 21st century probably), but there are some things that made me enjoy this book slightly less than the others. Still solid, still hard to put down.
Putting some of this behind a spoiler tag since it might spoil books 1-2 for people who hadn't read them.
Fun extra for me - we went to see the new Jason Bourne movie today so we had rewatched a few of them, and the music from it (and some of the visuals) were in my head as I finished the book. They fit together quite well, and while the world of the Bourne movies uses programmed soldiers to cause chaos rather than a drug, the same people pose the danger in letting society get out of control (the politicians and the hackers, of course... because technology is always a huge risk in the wrong hands.) It was a nice connection to have going on.
Putting some of this behind a spoiler tag since it might spoil books 1-2 for people who hadn't read them.
Fun extra for me - we went to see the new Jason Bourne movie today so we had rewatched a few of them, and the music from it (and some of the visuals) were in my head as I finished the book. They fit together quite well, and while the world of the Bourne movies uses programmed soldiers to cause chaos rather than a drug, the same people pose the danger in letting society get out of control (the politicians and the hackers, of course... because technology is always a huge risk in the wrong hands.) It was a nice connection to have going on.
April 14, 2015
APEX is the third volume of Ramez Naam's trilogy that began with NEXUS and continued with CRUX. These are near-future thrillers that deal with a technology that is able to link brains to one another. In the real world, there has already been research on technologies that would allow brain trasmissions on a very primitive level. Disabled people can, to some extent, relay commands to a computer through thought alone -- their neural impulses get transmitted to the machine, and translated into commands that it can understand. Even the transmission of simple sensations and feelings from one person to another seems to be possible. Naam extrapolates from these technologies to imagine a brain mechanism allowing people to network their thoughts and emotions with each other. It's sort of like WiFi for the brain -- I can share in the feelings and sensations of another person; we can communicate wirelessly; at the limit, brains can meld together to form a group mind; at another extreme, somebody can manipulate somebody else's motor reactions, forcing them to do things they don't want to do.
Naam's trilogy looks at the possible consequences (social, political, aesthetic, and spiritual) of such a technology being developed. It could be used to enhance personal experience, like at a rave (people are enabled, not just to share the same musical high, but actually to feel each others' reactions at the same time). It can also be used for terrorism and destruction. Attempts by various governments to suppress the technology can also have extreme effects -- think of current regulations on drugs and certain softwares, only amplified a million times.
NEXUS and CRUX looked at some of these possibilities -- a group of graduate students develop the Nexus technology, which allows brains to interact in real time; the technologie leaks out into the world as a whole; the US government tries to brutally suppress it, and ruins many lives in the process; the Chinese government seeks to adapt it as a weapon of war.
APEX moves beyond the more individualized use of such technology such as we see in the first two volumes, to consider how it might work on a mass scale. We get group minds -- children who were first exposed to Nexus in the womb, and Buddhist monks who are able to join themselves together during meditation. We also get a lot about the possible use of such mind technology in political protest -- which breaks out both in the US and in China in the course of the novel. Minds can link together for more effective resistance; but they can also be spurred on to hate and massive violence by the synergistic effect of mass mental transmission. The novel also features a crazed AI, the brain of a scientist that has been reproduced on a quantum computer, and whose mental links to others through the network allow her to wreak havoc on an unprecedented scale.
The book is exciting, gripping, and extreme; but at the same time Naam is really thinking hard about the possibilities for both good and evil that such a mind technology could unleash. He doesn't give us any easy answers. While the novel clearly suggests that government suppression of this sort of technology does far more harm than good -- in the same way that actual surveillance and censorship by the US and Chinese governments today does far more harm than good -- he doesn't underplay the negative effects of such a technology either. A new technology like the one envisioned in these novels really does change everything. But this does not mean it is either a panacea or a threat. Everybody will have to do things differently, once such a technology is established. But the technology itself enters into play with all sorts of other social, political, and economic forces, rather than determining any particular outcome.
The only criticism I have of this book, as of the whole series, is that, while its actors involve both hackers and governments, megalomaniacal millionaires and just ordinary folk, left wing political activists and Buddhist monks committed to peace -- the one element missing from Naam's picture is large globalized corporations. I think that such entities will have a major role to play, apart from either governments or citizens' groups -- and a role that will almost certainly be for ill -- in any such technological development. This dimension of the problem is missing. But all in all, Naam gives us a smart, as well as highly entertaining, look at how this particular technology might work, and more generally, at how technologies interact with other sorts of social, economic, and political forces, in a future which still remains entirely open.
Naam's trilogy looks at the possible consequences (social, political, aesthetic, and spiritual) of such a technology being developed. It could be used to enhance personal experience, like at a rave (people are enabled, not just to share the same musical high, but actually to feel each others' reactions at the same time). It can also be used for terrorism and destruction. Attempts by various governments to suppress the technology can also have extreme effects -- think of current regulations on drugs and certain softwares, only amplified a million times.
NEXUS and CRUX looked at some of these possibilities -- a group of graduate students develop the Nexus technology, which allows brains to interact in real time; the technologie leaks out into the world as a whole; the US government tries to brutally suppress it, and ruins many lives in the process; the Chinese government seeks to adapt it as a weapon of war.
APEX moves beyond the more individualized use of such technology such as we see in the first two volumes, to consider how it might work on a mass scale. We get group minds -- children who were first exposed to Nexus in the womb, and Buddhist monks who are able to join themselves together during meditation. We also get a lot about the possible use of such mind technology in political protest -- which breaks out both in the US and in China in the course of the novel. Minds can link together for more effective resistance; but they can also be spurred on to hate and massive violence by the synergistic effect of mass mental transmission. The novel also features a crazed AI, the brain of a scientist that has been reproduced on a quantum computer, and whose mental links to others through the network allow her to wreak havoc on an unprecedented scale.
The book is exciting, gripping, and extreme; but at the same time Naam is really thinking hard about the possibilities for both good and evil that such a mind technology could unleash. He doesn't give us any easy answers. While the novel clearly suggests that government suppression of this sort of technology does far more harm than good -- in the same way that actual surveillance and censorship by the US and Chinese governments today does far more harm than good -- he doesn't underplay the negative effects of such a technology either. A new technology like the one envisioned in these novels really does change everything. But this does not mean it is either a panacea or a threat. Everybody will have to do things differently, once such a technology is established. But the technology itself enters into play with all sorts of other social, political, and economic forces, rather than determining any particular outcome.
The only criticism I have of this book, as of the whole series, is that, while its actors involve both hackers and governments, megalomaniacal millionaires and just ordinary folk, left wing political activists and Buddhist monks committed to peace -- the one element missing from Naam's picture is large globalized corporations. I think that such entities will have a major role to play, apart from either governments or citizens' groups -- and a role that will almost certainly be for ill -- in any such technological development. This dimension of the problem is missing. But all in all, Naam gives us a smart, as well as highly entertaining, look at how this particular technology might work, and more generally, at how technologies interact with other sorts of social, economic, and political forces, in a future which still remains entirely open.
July 23, 2017
Darn its been near on a year since I read the last part which I could tell after only a few pages as its straight into the action & Im a little lost but we soon whip around all the plot threads & characters & ive got the thread of the story if not all the names..... I really should go back-2-back on some of these trilogies..... note to self.... AGAIN!
Its a fast paced read, very readable too which has been the draw for this trilogy throughout, not once has it bogged me down with tech heavy narrative. The characters too be they evil or for good are very likeable & have been well fleshed out during the trilogy & I find myself rooting for them on their adventures. The bond between them all is very close as is the way with a linked Nexus mind which again makes them even more endearing I would say.
As to the plot...... well you need to read the prior two in the trilogy tbh but a short synopsis...... Its now 2040 & as we near the completion (of the trilogy), the factions are fully laid out – The Americans who are anti-post human but quite willing to use them for their own gain & so maintain the dominance of a superpower (no change there then!), the Chinese the other superpower of the same ilk & the Indians, the “next” superpower but one that needs the nexus technology in order to be so. Then there is the 4th way..... a mad post-human scientist come entity for want of a better word who is hell-bent on revenge for years of captivity & enslavement by the Chinese government........ the world must pay!
For much of the story it builds with America in forever increasing turmoil through open revolt or China facing a swell of uprising after a government coup by hardliners whilst India embraces the Nexus tech. However in reality they are all playing second fiddle to the entity through it’s manipulations & machinations...... That’s a simplistic view for sure as all the characters stories intertwine be they MC or mere interludes & the multiple plots move ever forward at an increasing pace to the inevitable collision course(s)
5 Stars easily & didn’t think many would touch Vlad The Last Confession this year as my favourite book but Apex ranks alongside it for sure........ Another thing to note, each one of the Nexus series has made my top 10 reads for the last 3 years, says it all I think.
An exciting conclusion to what’s been a grand series. I hope to read more from this author.
Its a fast paced read, very readable too which has been the draw for this trilogy throughout, not once has it bogged me down with tech heavy narrative. The characters too be they evil or for good are very likeable & have been well fleshed out during the trilogy & I find myself rooting for them on their adventures. The bond between them all is very close as is the way with a linked Nexus mind which again makes them even more endearing I would say.
As to the plot...... well you need to read the prior two in the trilogy tbh but a short synopsis...... Its now 2040 & as we near the completion (of the trilogy), the factions are fully laid out – The Americans who are anti-post human but quite willing to use them for their own gain & so maintain the dominance of a superpower (no change there then!), the Chinese the other superpower of the same ilk & the Indians, the “next” superpower but one that needs the nexus technology in order to be so. Then there is the 4th way..... a mad post-human scientist come entity for want of a better word who is hell-bent on revenge for years of captivity & enslavement by the Chinese government........ the world must pay!
For much of the story it builds with America in forever increasing turmoil through open revolt or China facing a swell of uprising after a government coup by hardliners whilst India embraces the Nexus tech. However in reality they are all playing second fiddle to the entity through it’s manipulations & machinations...... That’s a simplistic view for sure as all the characters stories intertwine be they MC or mere interludes & the multiple plots move ever forward at an increasing pace to the inevitable collision course(s)
5 Stars easily & didn’t think many would touch Vlad The Last Confession this year as my favourite book but Apex ranks alongside it for sure........ Another thing to note, each one of the Nexus series has made my top 10 reads for the last 3 years, says it all I think.
An exciting conclusion to what’s been a grand series. I hope to read more from this author.
March 14, 2020
The final installment in the Nexus trilogy wraps up the storyline and is not a stand-alone story by any means. This time around there's a slow-build up in intensity over about 850 pages with a lot of action at the end but quite a few slow parts leading up to the finish. It feels a bit wordy in a way that the prior two installments didn't, but it's still a worthy conclusion to an award-winning science-fiction technothriller trilogy that explores the the idea of post-humanism.
July 26, 2018
Transhumanism
In his essay ‘Why Socialism?’ Albert Einstein remarks upon a concept that lies at the heart of this sci-fi series, the extinction of the human race:
Yikes! To be comfortable with the extinction of the human race. That’s some ice cold stuff right there.
Well… I feel the same. Not because I hate human beings, though. Rather, I feel the way I do because I love humanity. I’m not deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race – but I AM deeply opposed to the disappearance of humanity. Which is not a distinction without a difference. Let me explain:
Last year, in my studies of Artificial Intelligence, I discovered a large proportion of AI experts share the sentiments of the late Stephen Hawking when he said in a 2014 interview, “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
The end of the human race! Oh dear! …But, said that little devil on my shoulder, would that really be so bad? I mean, don’t we all understand where Einstein’s ‘intelligent and well-disposed man’ is coming from?
Look at what we’ve done to our home, Mother Earth. Look at what we do to our neighbors, the other animals on Earth. We kill over TEN BILLION chickens per year! Hell, look at what we do to our own fellow human beings. Our history is replete with exploitation, genocide, and hatred.
So would the end of the human race really be so bad? When I pondered the extinction of the human race as a real possible event, I wondered on which side I should stand. Which is the side that represents goodness? If I add up all the good of human beings and all the evil, which side weighs more? If I want to minimize suffering, should I contribute (in my own very tiny way) to the survival of the human species, or to its extinction?
Ultimately, I decided it was impossible to weigh humanity’s good against its evil. I am not God. I lack the knowledge to make even a remotely confident assessment. Instead what I do know is that, for all the evils human beings perpetrate, there is plenty of good in us too. Imagination, creativity, kindness, love – millions and billions of human beings both throughout history and alive today have cultivated these traits.
I decided, therefore, I want the positive traits of humanity to continue into the future. And I want the negative traits to die off.
But y’know what? I’m not sure the extinction of the human race would impede this desire. Quite in fact, I suspect the opposite is true. Homo sapiens may well be an obstacle. Whether you want to chalk it up to Original Sin or evolution or what have you, human beings can’t help but be bad much of the time. Humanity’s progress hasn’t occurred in the DNA of human beings – modern human beings aren’t appreciably different from cavemen, after all – but in civilization and the body of knowledge that underlies it.
Civilization’s power over the fate of humanity has its limits, though.
For example, humanity knows climate change represents a serious existential threat to itself. We know we’re on a time limit too before positive reinforcement cycles render us powerless to stop & reverse the tide. But are we frantically altering our habits and regulations of energy production and consumption? Are we doing all we can to protect the earth and maintain its habitability for our children and grandchildren? Nah. Large-scale human structures (governments, corporations, etc) are too slow and ponderous while individual human beings care primarily about their own comfort. Which is not a criticism. You should no more expect human beings (on average / in bulk) to suddenly stop prioritizing their own comfortable survival than you should expect your smart phone to cook you dinner. That’s just not how either is designed.
Of course, the human design has worked for thousands, millions of years. But in this new era of nuclear weapons, of increasing technological potency, of a densely crowded Earth? There’s too many of us, and we are simultaneously too powerful, yet still too stupid. Our design, I don’t think, is going to cut it, not if we want humanity to survive.
What we need is a better human. What we need is the post-human.
And so I have described what the Nexus trilogy is, essentially, about.
Nexus
Set some 20 years into the future, Nexus explores the arrival of post-humanity (sometimes called transhumanity) and its political repercussions. Specifically, the trilogy is named after the mind-altering nano-drug Nexus that gives human beings (A) unprecedented access to their own cognition and (B) unprecedented access to the minds of OTHER HUMAN BEINGS. All the good and ill that might come from that (mind control, purer expressions of love, communal knowledge sharing, etc) is explored. As is the inevitable division and pushback against anything that threatens the status quo. So you can expect the added spice of government conspiracy, dystopia, and political thriller. We see this from rotating PoVs that include the designers of Nexus 4 like Kaden Lane and Rangan Shankari, government super-soldiers like Samantha Cataranes and Watson Cole, and a whole slew of American, Indian, and Chinese government officials, revolutionaries, and even an Artificial Super Intelligence.
That much for the series’ topics and themes. They’re clearly right up my alley. I could talk about control strategies for Artificial Super Intelligences all day. And yet here I am, sitting on a 2 star rating. What’s the deal?!
I’ll just come right out with it. The artistry of the Nexus series is shit. These are not well-written books. Regardless of the plot, the characters, and the themes, the writing itself is inelegant. It’s ugly.
To be fair to the series, this took me time to fully appreciate. I had my first HUH? moment near the end of the first book, but it wasn’t until about halfway through the last book that I fully understood my problems with the writing. But once that understanding was developed, the series become almost unbearable to read. The last 300 pages were a true slog.
To back up this claim, I have four pieces of evidence, given in the order with which I noticed them:
Exhibit A: The Characterization of Sam Cataranes
I was enjoying book one, Nexus, quite nicely until about page 350-400, at which point
Now I’m not against characters changing. That would be silly. But it’s simply not an accurate depiction of human beings to show such a reversal in so short a period of time. We’re incredibly good at justifying our actions. We build up whole world views in this process. Dismantling those world views takes a lot of time and a lot of energy – even aided by advanced technology. This transformation here struck me as totally inauthentic, more a matter of plot convenience than of genuine humanity.
Exhibit B: The Sudden Drop in Average Page Length / Chapter
So, yeah, what the hell is up with the super short chapters? I first noticed this in Crux, after encountering a dense point where several 2-3 page chapters were back-to-back. It’s annoying. Just as I’d get accustomed to the setting, to the new character dynamics at play, NOPE, time to move on. It was like trying to fall asleep in an airplane, only for a bump of turbulence to wake you up just as your eyes started to close.
I hated it.
Chapters need some length and heft, some space to bloom. Instead it’s just PLOT POINT, PLOT POINT, PLOT POINT. Where’s the exploration?
Curious, I calculated the average page length per chapter of the three books (which were all from the same print-run). Average for Nexus: 9.9. Average in Crux & Apex: 6.66 and 6.44, respectively. That’s massive. A 35% reduction. What happened?
I began to suspect Ramez Naam had lost his interest and engagement in the story and writing process. He didn’t really want to put himself into the world and characters he created, not to the degree he had when writing book one, anyway. But he felt compelled to finish what he’d started, so again, PLOT POINT, PLOT POINT, PLOT POINT. The skeleton of a story, without the meat on the bones.
Exhibit C: The One Sentence Paragraphs
Oh God, the one sentence paragraphs.
As if the short chapters weren’t enough.
They’re everywhere.
Here’s an indicative example:
It’s like reading a children’s book, only with more explosions and unprecedented pain. Or, better yet, here’s an analogy in movie form. These books are edited like this: Bourne Ultimatum scene instead of like this Children of Men scene
The excessive one sentence paragraphs are only a fraction of what’s wrong with the above writing sample. Why is ‘the controller’ and ‘something’ repeated twice back-to-back? Why’d the author add ‘on the ground now’ after gunfire? Was gunfire previously in the air? Why does the author keep using sense words? In the writing profession, we call phrases like ‘He saw’ or ‘He heard’ distance words because they create a distance between the reader and the PoV by reminding them of the artificiality of the narrative. You don’t need such words. You can just directly describe. So instead of writing something like, ‘More gunfire, on the ground now. He heard the crack and whoosh of Molotovs breaking, fireballs erupting. He heard screams’ the author would have been better off writing something like, ‘More gunfire, on the ground now, followed by the crack and whoosh of Molotovs breaking and fireballs erupting, and the screams of burning soldiers.’ etc, etc.
Exhibit D: The Stream-of-Consciousness Escalatory Structure
This one’s amusing to me because it is a stylistic mistake that I used to make all the time until a critique partner kindly pointed it out to me.
Here’s a few examples from Apex:
“Around the whole world he feels that solidarity, a million minds crying out in righteous anger. Ten million. Who even knew how many?”
OR “Men and women are crying out for justice. Crying out together. Crying out in unison.”
OR here’s a good one: “A peace, a stability, formed of a base so broad, a base of not one brain, not one life, not one perspective, but thousands, complementing one another, embracing one another, encircling and intertwining with one another.”
I used to write this type of structure all the time, but I eventually realized it’s a form of micro stream-of-consciousness. Writing is challenging, intimidating, exhausting. Every word is a choice among a hundred synonyms, every sentence one of a million permutations, every page a universe carefully captured from among the infinite multiverse. So we naturally write out these different words and sentences in order to test them out and see which one fits best. After all, that’s how good conversation often works, as we struggle to pin down exactly what we want to say. But writing is not speaking. A good writer is supposed to edit the mess down to the single best choice – not leave the entire stream of drafting in there.
That isn’t to say such a structure doesn’t have its place. There’s nothing wrong with repetition or parallel lists. But they need to be used sparingly. They are not used sparingly in the Nexus series. This structure happens again and again and again, often back-to-back-to-back. More egregiously, its use cuts across PoV, so that nearly every character’s voice begins to sound identical.
The End
All of that is far from comprehensive of the issues I ended up having with the series. I especially started to become super annoyed by the pop-culturey way Buddhism was depicted (peace! meditation! monks!). The depiction of human beings was pretty simplistic in general, but I don’t want to get into that, as I don’t want to end on a negative note.
Truth is, I understand few readers have as much editing experience as I do and are therefore less likely to be annoyed by, or even notice, the writing issues I’ve mentioned above.
And, actually, this harsh critique notwithstanding, I imagine Ramez Naam and I would get along pretty well. Even if I don’t admire HOW he wrote these books, I admire what he was attempting to do with them.
So, let us return to Einstein’s essay. Shortly after referencing the ‘gentleman’ who apparently cares little for the extinction of the human race, Einstein goes on to write about every human being’s dual nature as both a solitary and a social being and concludes:
If nothing else, the Nexus series confronts this problem directly and offers a solution: hive mind – or at least a closing of that gap between our individual minds. Maybe human beings as we know them don’t have to go extinct. Maybe we just need better tools to join our minds together, so we can better share our knowledge and overcome our hatred-incubating tribalism. With such tools, maybe we have a chance to beat Fermi’s Paradox. Maybe, Ramez Naam suggests, we’ll not just make it to the future, but actually thrive there, in a Golden Age of Humanity that will put all the past Golden Ages to shame.
I can’t help but hope he’s right.
In his essay ‘Why Socialism?’ Albert Einstein remarks upon a concept that lies at the heart of this sci-fi series, the extinction of the human race:
I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: “Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?”
Yikes! To be comfortable with the extinction of the human race. That’s some ice cold stuff right there.
Well… I feel the same. Not because I hate human beings, though. Rather, I feel the way I do because I love humanity. I’m not deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race – but I AM deeply opposed to the disappearance of humanity. Which is not a distinction without a difference. Let me explain:
Last year, in my studies of Artificial Intelligence, I discovered a large proportion of AI experts share the sentiments of the late Stephen Hawking when he said in a 2014 interview, “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
The end of the human race! Oh dear! …But, said that little devil on my shoulder, would that really be so bad? I mean, don’t we all understand where Einstein’s ‘intelligent and well-disposed man’ is coming from?
Look at what we’ve done to our home, Mother Earth. Look at what we do to our neighbors, the other animals on Earth. We kill over TEN BILLION chickens per year! Hell, look at what we do to our own fellow human beings. Our history is replete with exploitation, genocide, and hatred.
So would the end of the human race really be so bad? When I pondered the extinction of the human race as a real possible event, I wondered on which side I should stand. Which is the side that represents goodness? If I add up all the good of human beings and all the evil, which side weighs more? If I want to minimize suffering, should I contribute (in my own very tiny way) to the survival of the human species, or to its extinction?
Ultimately, I decided it was impossible to weigh humanity’s good against its evil. I am not God. I lack the knowledge to make even a remotely confident assessment. Instead what I do know is that, for all the evils human beings perpetrate, there is plenty of good in us too. Imagination, creativity, kindness, love – millions and billions of human beings both throughout history and alive today have cultivated these traits.
I decided, therefore, I want the positive traits of humanity to continue into the future. And I want the negative traits to die off.
But y’know what? I’m not sure the extinction of the human race would impede this desire. Quite in fact, I suspect the opposite is true. Homo sapiens may well be an obstacle. Whether you want to chalk it up to Original Sin or evolution or what have you, human beings can’t help but be bad much of the time. Humanity’s progress hasn’t occurred in the DNA of human beings – modern human beings aren’t appreciably different from cavemen, after all – but in civilization and the body of knowledge that underlies it.
Civilization’s power over the fate of humanity has its limits, though.
For example, humanity knows climate change represents a serious existential threat to itself. We know we’re on a time limit too before positive reinforcement cycles render us powerless to stop & reverse the tide. But are we frantically altering our habits and regulations of energy production and consumption? Are we doing all we can to protect the earth and maintain its habitability for our children and grandchildren? Nah. Large-scale human structures (governments, corporations, etc) are too slow and ponderous while individual human beings care primarily about their own comfort. Which is not a criticism. You should no more expect human beings (on average / in bulk) to suddenly stop prioritizing their own comfortable survival than you should expect your smart phone to cook you dinner. That’s just not how either is designed.
Of course, the human design has worked for thousands, millions of years. But in this new era of nuclear weapons, of increasing technological potency, of a densely crowded Earth? There’s too many of us, and we are simultaneously too powerful, yet still too stupid. Our design, I don’t think, is going to cut it, not if we want humanity to survive.
What we need is a better human. What we need is the post-human.
And so I have described what the Nexus trilogy is, essentially, about.
Nexus
Set some 20 years into the future, Nexus explores the arrival of post-humanity (sometimes called transhumanity) and its political repercussions. Specifically, the trilogy is named after the mind-altering nano-drug Nexus that gives human beings (A) unprecedented access to their own cognition and (B) unprecedented access to the minds of OTHER HUMAN BEINGS. All the good and ill that might come from that (mind control, purer expressions of love, communal knowledge sharing, etc) is explored. As is the inevitable division and pushback against anything that threatens the status quo. So you can expect the added spice of government conspiracy, dystopia, and political thriller. We see this from rotating PoVs that include the designers of Nexus 4 like Kaden Lane and Rangan Shankari, government super-soldiers like Samantha Cataranes and Watson Cole, and a whole slew of American, Indian, and Chinese government officials, revolutionaries, and even an Artificial Super Intelligence.
That much for the series’ topics and themes. They’re clearly right up my alley. I could talk about control strategies for Artificial Super Intelligences all day. And yet here I am, sitting on a 2 star rating. What’s the deal?!
I’ll just come right out with it. The artistry of the Nexus series is shit. These are not well-written books. Regardless of the plot, the characters, and the themes, the writing itself is inelegant. It’s ugly.
To be fair to the series, this took me time to fully appreciate. I had my first HUH? moment near the end of the first book, but it wasn’t until about halfway through the last book that I fully understood my problems with the writing. But once that understanding was developed, the series become almost unbearable to read. The last 300 pages were a true slog.
To back up this claim, I have four pieces of evidence, given in the order with which I noticed them:
Exhibit A: The Characterization of Sam Cataranes
I was enjoying book one, Nexus, quite nicely until about page 350-400, at which point
Now I’m not against characters changing. That would be silly. But it’s simply not an accurate depiction of human beings to show such a reversal in so short a period of time. We’re incredibly good at justifying our actions. We build up whole world views in this process. Dismantling those world views takes a lot of time and a lot of energy – even aided by advanced technology. This transformation here struck me as totally inauthentic, more a matter of plot convenience than of genuine humanity.
Exhibit B: The Sudden Drop in Average Page Length / Chapter
So, yeah, what the hell is up with the super short chapters? I first noticed this in Crux, after encountering a dense point where several 2-3 page chapters were back-to-back. It’s annoying. Just as I’d get accustomed to the setting, to the new character dynamics at play, NOPE, time to move on. It was like trying to fall asleep in an airplane, only for a bump of turbulence to wake you up just as your eyes started to close.
I hated it.
Chapters need some length and heft, some space to bloom. Instead it’s just PLOT POINT, PLOT POINT, PLOT POINT. Where’s the exploration?
Curious, I calculated the average page length per chapter of the three books (which were all from the same print-run). Average for Nexus: 9.9. Average in Crux & Apex: 6.66 and 6.44, respectively. That’s massive. A 35% reduction. What happened?
I began to suspect Ramez Naam had lost his interest and engagement in the story and writing process. He didn’t really want to put himself into the world and characters he created, not to the degree he had when writing book one, anyway. But he felt compelled to finish what he’d started, so again, PLOT POINT, PLOT POINT, PLOT POINT. The skeleton of a story, without the meat on the bones.
Exhibit C: The One Sentence Paragraphs
Oh God, the one sentence paragraphs.
As if the short chapters weren’t enough.
They’re everywhere.
Here’s an indicative example:
Yuguo grabbed for the controller they’d built, the controller for the electronic weapons, the ones that disabled tanks.
“WE HAVE TO RUN!” Lu Song shouted into his ear, over the deafening roar of explosions, of engines up above.
More gunfire, on the ground now.
He heard the crack and whoosh of Molotovs breaking, fireballs erupting.
He heard screams.
“NO!” Yuguo yelled, hunting through the menus, there must be something, something for helicopters.
“TANKS!” Zhi Li yelled, crouching down next to him.
Yuguo looked up. More tanks, pushing in from the end of the square. Dozens of tanks. He saw their turrets turning, heard massive booms.
He hit the button for the tanks.
The world exploded all around him.
Pain like he’d never known ripped through his body.
It’s like reading a children’s book, only with more explosions and unprecedented pain. Or, better yet, here’s an analogy in movie form. These books are edited like this: Bourne Ultimatum scene instead of like this Children of Men scene
The excessive one sentence paragraphs are only a fraction of what’s wrong with the above writing sample. Why is ‘the controller’ and ‘something’ repeated twice back-to-back? Why’d the author add ‘on the ground now’ after gunfire? Was gunfire previously in the air? Why does the author keep using sense words? In the writing profession, we call phrases like ‘He saw’ or ‘He heard’ distance words because they create a distance between the reader and the PoV by reminding them of the artificiality of the narrative. You don’t need such words. You can just directly describe. So instead of writing something like, ‘More gunfire, on the ground now. He heard the crack and whoosh of Molotovs breaking, fireballs erupting. He heard screams’ the author would have been better off writing something like, ‘More gunfire, on the ground now, followed by the crack and whoosh of Molotovs breaking and fireballs erupting, and the screams of burning soldiers.’ etc, etc.
Exhibit D: The Stream-of-Consciousness Escalatory Structure
This one’s amusing to me because it is a stylistic mistake that I used to make all the time until a critique partner kindly pointed it out to me.
Here’s a few examples from Apex:
“Around the whole world he feels that solidarity, a million minds crying out in righteous anger. Ten million. Who even knew how many?”
OR “Men and women are crying out for justice. Crying out together. Crying out in unison.”
OR here’s a good one: “A peace, a stability, formed of a base so broad, a base of not one brain, not one life, not one perspective, but thousands, complementing one another, embracing one another, encircling and intertwining with one another.”
I used to write this type of structure all the time, but I eventually realized it’s a form of micro stream-of-consciousness. Writing is challenging, intimidating, exhausting. Every word is a choice among a hundred synonyms, every sentence one of a million permutations, every page a universe carefully captured from among the infinite multiverse. So we naturally write out these different words and sentences in order to test them out and see which one fits best. After all, that’s how good conversation often works, as we struggle to pin down exactly what we want to say. But writing is not speaking. A good writer is supposed to edit the mess down to the single best choice – not leave the entire stream of drafting in there.
That isn’t to say such a structure doesn’t have its place. There’s nothing wrong with repetition or parallel lists. But they need to be used sparingly. They are not used sparingly in the Nexus series. This structure happens again and again and again, often back-to-back-to-back. More egregiously, its use cuts across PoV, so that nearly every character’s voice begins to sound identical.
The End
All of that is far from comprehensive of the issues I ended up having with the series. I especially started to become super annoyed by the pop-culturey way Buddhism was depicted (peace! meditation! monks!). The depiction of human beings was pretty simplistic in general, but I don’t want to get into that, as I don’t want to end on a negative note.
Truth is, I understand few readers have as much editing experience as I do and are therefore less likely to be annoyed by, or even notice, the writing issues I’ve mentioned above.
And, actually, this harsh critique notwithstanding, I imagine Ramez Naam and I would get along pretty well. Even if I don’t admire HOW he wrote these books, I admire what he was attempting to do with them.
So, let us return to Einstein’s essay. Shortly after referencing the ‘gentleman’ who apparently cares little for the extinction of the human race, Einstein goes on to write about every human being’s dual nature as both a solitary and a social being and concludes:
I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.
If nothing else, the Nexus series confronts this problem directly and offers a solution: hive mind – or at least a closing of that gap between our individual minds. Maybe human beings as we know them don’t have to go extinct. Maybe we just need better tools to join our minds together, so we can better share our knowledge and overcome our hatred-incubating tribalism. With such tools, maybe we have a chance to beat Fermi’s Paradox. Maybe, Ramez Naam suggests, we’ll not just make it to the future, but actually thrive there, in a Golden Age of Humanity that will put all the past Golden Ages to shame.
I can’t help but hope he’s right.
January 1, 2019
I was super excited to find the next book of this series on my kindle.. it sucks that I had to buy it though. Okay, so other than my excitement for this book.. well.. I was a bit bored this time around. I mean, I still love certain characters and I guess the science-y part of it all.. and yet, I still found myself getting bored.
Now Apex is the third book of this series and it falls right after the second book. I feel like there was a bit too much to follow this time around. Plus, I did feel myself getting bored every now and then. The first half of this book, I feel like nothing really happened. Which made so freaking sad and disappointed because that's when I'm usually so sucked into a book. I did, however, end up with a favorite character this time around: Kade. I don't what it is.. but I just love him.
Overall, this series was pretty interesting to dive into. I don't know if I have a favorite out of it (yet) but I am happy to have dived into it.
Now Apex is the third book of this series and it falls right after the second book. I feel like there was a bit too much to follow this time around. Plus, I did feel myself getting bored every now and then. The first half of this book, I feel like nothing really happened. Which made so freaking sad and disappointed because that's when I'm usually so sucked into a book. I did, however, end up with a favorite character this time around: Kade. I don't what it is.. but I just love him.
Overall, this series was pretty interesting to dive into. I don't know if I have a favorite out of it (yet) but I am happy to have dived into it.
August 28, 2015
I read these as a series and am reviewing them as such (although I would like to say that this is a series I enjoyed less and less as I went along, ergo the dropping in stars as we progress).
There are some really great concepts here. Especially in the first book the way that drugs, nanotech and augmentations combine to create near-post-humans and post-humans is beautifully explored. The repercussions of this on society and the way in which people let fear of the unknown dictate their actions equally so. The touches of buddhism and meditation and how it relates to these altered states is interesting and enlightening. And there's some great action.
As it progresses though nothing new is really introduced. The buddhist references become repetitive and annoying, the action becomes frenetic and difficult to follow and the narrative generally fragments.
I'd recommend just reading the first book tbh.
There are some really great concepts here. Especially in the first book the way that drugs, nanotech and augmentations combine to create near-post-humans and post-humans is beautifully explored. The repercussions of this on society and the way in which people let fear of the unknown dictate their actions equally so. The touches of buddhism and meditation and how it relates to these altered states is interesting and enlightening. And there's some great action.
As it progresses though nothing new is really introduced. The buddhist references become repetitive and annoying, the action becomes frenetic and difficult to follow and the narrative generally fragments.
I'd recommend just reading the first book tbh.
November 3, 2021
The Apex of the Nexus trilogy was unfortunately too revolutionary, too politic, too spirituel, too ferocious, too glorious, too self-sacrificing, too trigger-happy and too long. I still enjoyed the conclusion, but it felt forced. Politics do not seem to be the author’s strength, though there certainly was some truth in his visions. As before, I disliked the spiritualism of connectivity – does no one want to keep some secrets? Also, some character got renamed from Ava (second book) to Kate (third book) – at least that was the one I noticed, how many more? Finally, the ending – not really satisfying. Given the grey areas within this trilogy, I would have preferred a more ambiguous and open one. Despite my concerns, I quite enjoyed the series and am glad that I read it.
March 3, 2020
Book 3 of the NEXUS Trilogy, APEX is another techno-thriller in the vein of James Bond meets Matrix meets Jason Bourne. Although too weighty at 600 pages, the story remains Bruce Lee fast and Sarah Conners tough.
June 8, 2017
Apex is the final book in the trilogy that began with Nexus. It begins at pretty much the same instant that the previous book left off. I thought it wrapped up the trilogy well, although there was one thing near the end that I wish hadn’t happened. By the end, the author had addressed all of the many little plot threads and character arcs. He didn’t necessarily tie everything up into a neat little package, which can sometimes feel unrealistic anyway, but he provided a good idea of where things would go next and left me with a sense of hopefulness.
I did have more trouble staying focused while reading this book than I did with the previous one. The structure is similar, with short chapters that jump around between characters, but not all the plot threads in this book held my interest even though I think they were necessary to the greater story. I wasn’t bored, really; I just sometimes had to rein my attention back in when we moved away from the characters and storylines that I was more interested in.
The trilogy brought up a lot of interesting ideas about what would happen in a world where you could take a drug (of sorts) and have the ability to share thoughts and feelings. Throughout the course of this trilogy, we see a variety of ways in which it could be used -- both good and bad. Considering the implications, and whether the good outweighs the bad or vice versa, was one of the most interesting aspects of the trilogy. There were a few things I was skeptical about but, in general, I could easily picture real people reacting in the various ways that people reacted throughout the trilogy.
I did have more trouble staying focused while reading this book than I did with the previous one. The structure is similar, with short chapters that jump around between characters, but not all the plot threads in this book held my interest even though I think they were necessary to the greater story. I wasn’t bored, really; I just sometimes had to rein my attention back in when we moved away from the characters and storylines that I was more interested in.
The trilogy brought up a lot of interesting ideas about what would happen in a world where you could take a drug (of sorts) and have the ability to share thoughts and feelings. Throughout the course of this trilogy, we see a variety of ways in which it could be used -- both good and bad. Considering the implications, and whether the good outweighs the bad or vice versa, was one of the most interesting aspects of the trilogy. There were a few things I was skeptical about but, in general, I could easily picture real people reacting in the various ways that people reacted throughout the trilogy.
April 25, 2017
Naam does a spectacular job of tension filled, epic endings. The pacing in this book, compared to Crux was much better. I was engaged the whole way.
I liked the issues Naam brought up although some of the situations were getting a bit far fetched. Although I think he belabored the Budhism aspect, I loved that part and was lost in the feelings of peace he so skillfully wrote about.
My first 5 star book in a while, loved the issues, loved the characters, loved the action and tension and
I would say that although I really did like this book, I think I am done with this world. If he were to write another, I think I would skip it. The three novels explored what I wanted it to and left an ending that was satisfying.
I liked the issues Naam brought up although some of the situations were getting a bit far fetched. Although I think he belabored the Budhism aspect, I loved that part and was lost in the feelings of peace he so skillfully wrote about.
My first 5 star book in a while, loved the issues, loved the characters, loved the action and tension and
I would say that although I really did like this book, I think I am done with this world. If he were to write another, I think I would skip it. The three novels explored what I wanted it to and left an ending that was satisfying.
August 21, 2017
With Apex Ramez Naam brings his debut series to a satisfying conclusion, though in a less enthralling and more hodgepodge fashion. More satisfying in the handling of the thematic idea of AI (4.5 stars), and less so for the writing (3 stars). Overall it's more 3.5 stars than 4 stars. I felt his writing is weaker in Book 3. I still don't like his style of repeating bits of dialogue when switching from scene to scene. Mr Naam still needs to hone his craft for finer literary prose and Book 3 probably should be proof-read again for typos.
Apex finally gets into the geopolitics of superpowers with USA, China and India, which I think was a bit too slow coming. This could have been introduced in Book 2. Naam deals with the geopolitics reasonably well, with plausible enough scenarios and MO assigned to each superpower.
The characters continue to evolve in Book 3 and adapt to new events and crises. The Condi Rice-inspired character, national security advisor to POTUS, is a worthy new addition, and the real-life and avatar version of Zhi Li, the megastar face of the Chinese AI, is also interesting, even if a bit cartoonish. Naam did a good job of creating the feel of future Shanghai. My favorite character, Feng, the Chinese clone, continues to be a delight, while Sam has gone understandably more glum and self-absorbed given her PTSD. Kade becomes a butterfly, in a good way. The treatment of the supporting cast is good, particularly the Chinese. The minor Indian characters are thin by comparison. The book is not very long but Mr. Naam managed to pack a lot of action, sub-plots and layers in it, from techno terrorism, AI gone haywire, paranoid geopolitics, smart people stumbling over themselves and each other trying to save the world, and sometimes sappy human stories. Fortunately I can do sappy.
I continue to appreciate Naam keeping with the moral dilemma with AI and SI, presenting both positive and negative scenarios and not trying to push the reader one way or another. I am not smart enough to judge the science of Nexus but I imagine it's not too farfetched beyond the 2040 future. The part that feels a bit strange and requires me to suspend disbelief is the Buddhism part, where Thai monks behave oddly. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate mediation and even try to practice it a bit. I believe there is something to the power of the mind, though we still know very little about it. For this reason perhaps, I can't help feeling the mind-power angle in Book 3 sounds almost woo woo.
All in all, this is a highly enjoyable series that helps expand my understanding of AI and its implications. It informs with good entertainment and the reader is left with some important questions to ponder over. I call that a success.
My review of Book 1: Nexus, and review of Book 2: Crux.
Apex finally gets into the geopolitics of superpowers with USA, China and India, which I think was a bit too slow coming. This could have been introduced in Book 2. Naam deals with the geopolitics reasonably well, with plausible enough scenarios and MO assigned to each superpower.
The characters continue to evolve in Book 3 and adapt to new events and crises. The Condi Rice-inspired character, national security advisor to POTUS, is a worthy new addition, and the real-life and avatar version of Zhi Li, the megastar face of the Chinese AI, is also interesting, even if a bit cartoonish. Naam did a good job of creating the feel of future Shanghai. My favorite character, Feng, the Chinese clone, continues to be a delight, while Sam has gone understandably more glum and self-absorbed given her PTSD. Kade becomes a butterfly, in a good way. The treatment of the supporting cast is good, particularly the Chinese. The minor Indian characters are thin by comparison. The book is not very long but Mr. Naam managed to pack a lot of action, sub-plots and layers in it, from techno terrorism, AI gone haywire, paranoid geopolitics, smart people stumbling over themselves and each other trying to save the world, and sometimes sappy human stories. Fortunately I can do sappy.
I continue to appreciate Naam keeping with the moral dilemma with AI and SI, presenting both positive and negative scenarios and not trying to push the reader one way or another. I am not smart enough to judge the science of Nexus but I imagine it's not too farfetched beyond the 2040 future. The part that feels a bit strange and requires me to suspend disbelief is the Buddhism part, where Thai monks behave oddly. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate mediation and even try to practice it a bit. I believe there is something to the power of the mind, though we still know very little about it. For this reason perhaps, I can't help feeling the mind-power angle in Book 3 sounds almost woo woo.
All in all, this is a highly enjoyable series that helps expand my understanding of AI and its implications. It informs with good entertainment and the reader is left with some important questions to ponder over. I call that a success.
My review of Book 1: Nexus, and review of Book 2: Crux.
December 22, 2015
I feel almost guilty saying this because I was practically shouting from the rooftops on the previous two that sci-fi lovers everywhere should read this series, but I didn't care for this one nearly as much. My major problem was that the first half of the book was just so bloody boring. Naam spent an incredible amount of time showing us how great Nexus was, how far reaching the mind could be with it, but after two books full of that, I didn't need a third. For most of the first half, I could only think to myself "I agree - Nexus (the drug) is awesome, but for the love of God get on with the story".
If you've read the first two then obviously you have to read this one to get some closure. Just don't expect to be as blown away by the ending as you were when you finished the first book.
If you've read the first two then obviously you have to read this one to get some closure. Just don't expect to be as blown away by the ending as you were when you finished the first book.
July 4, 2015
3.5 stars, rounded up because I think the trilogy was really good. I love the idea of Nexus, and I liked throughout the trilogy how the author explored many of the ramifications. However, I had a hard time getting into this book - there were a LOT of new points of view, and lots of switching between them. I didn't hate any of them, but I didn't feel compelled to read another short chapter about another person I didn't really know. It took me about a month to read the first 60% - I'd pick it up and read a chapter, think, "Hmm....that was interesting," then switch to something else. The last 40% took me about 2 days to read, and might have been faster but I had other commitments. Anyway, really a good trilogy, and I'm glad I read it!
Read
June 3, 2020In this thrilling conclusion to the Nexus trilogy, Naam creates a world that is coming apart at the seams. No one is in control, and no one knows who their real enemies are. While Nexus and Crux were complex, international technothrillers, in Apex the conspiracies run deeper, the global repercussions are wider, and the cast of characters has expanded to include Chinese actors, Indian spies, and an all-female DC hacker collective. Of course, Naam continues to do what he does best - things blow up, innocent people suffer and die, and awe-inspiring technology re-imagines what it could mean to be human.
December 25, 2022
This long book starts right where the second book left off, answers most of the questions from the series and explores new ground also. The scale is global, with a number of characters to match - like other reviewers, I got lost at times in this cast. A worthy ending to a solid series.
I read the first book right around the time the second came out - I think I had heard it was a duology? Anyhow, the second book did not come to a solid end, and by the time the third was available, I found myself unable to remember much about the story. Not a good sign.
For late 2022, I reread the first book and the second, and I think the reason was that global scope and the sheer number of characters and points of view. Book two also showed the stored personality of Su-Yong Shu, somewhat insane through lack of contact with a human brain. I think Naam is looking at this as the start of an AI, and explores that along with the rights of augmented humans. A lot to cover, and more than 600 pages to cover it. Overall rating of this book, 4 of 5 stars.
The math is simple for the series - three books rated 4 of 5 stars equals a series rating 4 of 5 stars. This is accurate - I really liked some of the characters, most of the situations and villains. The second book and definitely the third lost the thread of Nexus OS, with patches for vulnerabilities. I thought the series as a whole did a good job exploring the potential vulnerabilities with this situation - even if the MESH solution was mostly hand waving in the third book.
I look forward to reading more from local Seattleite Ramez Naam.
I read the first book right around the time the second came out - I think I had heard it was a duology? Anyhow, the second book did not come to a solid end, and by the time the third was available, I found myself unable to remember much about the story. Not a good sign.
For late 2022, I reread the first book and the second, and I think the reason was that global scope and the sheer number of characters and points of view. Book two also showed the stored personality of Su-Yong Shu, somewhat insane through lack of contact with a human brain. I think Naam is looking at this as the start of an AI, and explores that along with the rights of augmented humans. A lot to cover, and more than 600 pages to cover it. Overall rating of this book, 4 of 5 stars.
The math is simple for the series - three books rated 4 of 5 stars equals a series rating 4 of 5 stars. This is accurate - I really liked some of the characters, most of the situations and villains. The second book and definitely the third lost the thread of Nexus OS, with patches for vulnerabilities. I thought the series as a whole did a good job exploring the potential vulnerabilities with this situation - even if the MESH solution was mostly hand waving in the third book.
I look forward to reading more from local Seattleite Ramez Naam.
December 21, 2015
[Note: I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.]
I was instantly captivated by Ramez Naam's sci-fi debut, Nexus, and have loved reading how his characters and this near-future Earth have responded to the burgeoning transhuman movement. With Apex, Naam picks up the story threads left at the end of book two, Crux, and delivers a highly satisfying conclusion to his series.
Apex is a large book, in both page count and scope. The advanced brain enhancement technology of the NexusOS has been causing a political stir for quite sometime, and it all comes to a head here. There are political coups, conspiracies, terrorism, riots, the rise of AI, and the threat of nuclear warfare.
This is a dense novel, with multiple subplots revolving around the birth of the PLF, a pro-transhumanist terror group, technological heists between China and India stemming from the viral load of the once-human Su-Yong, and disputes over the US presidential election, and so many other moving pieces intersecting these various subplots that the book feels much longer than it really is.
And that, really, is my only gripe. While Amazon lists the page count of this book at 608 pages, it feels twice as long and makes for a bit of a ponderous read. There is just so much happening, and so many characters involved, that it's hard not to feel the weight and pressure of the story. I recall the prior two books being rather briskly paced and energetic, whereas this one is more of a massive pot-boiler. While it took me some time to get through, it was certainly well worth it. There's also the issue of information delivery, with segments of the story being told in large chunks and then abandoned for a long while to focus on other issues, before circling back to pick up the threads on something else.
All that said, I did find Apex to being a strong finish to the story with the characters meeting their natural conclusions and, in some cases, a few surprises along the way. I do wish more would have been done to make Sam less one dimensional here, as she's been a strong character previously with a very interesting background and journey throughout. It's a bit of a shame to have her reduced here to a simple worrywart, mother figure with little else to do. I was happy to see Ranjan Shankari with a more integral role this time around, though, and Kade's steps toward becoming a leader was very well done.
Naam is due tremendous applause for keeping all the gears turning in this massive tome. As I said, there is an awful lot happening here, with a lot of spinning plates to keep an eye, but the author does a fabulous job of tying up the various thread and delivering an energetic and compulsively readable finale to not only Apex, but to the series as a whole.
If you've been following the Nexus series thus far, then grabbing a copy of Apex is a no-brainer and it brings the series to a close with a rollicking finish replete with serious tension and action. If you haven't been, then I highly recommend you start at the beginning, where you'll likely find yourself becoming a fan in no time.
I was instantly captivated by Ramez Naam's sci-fi debut, Nexus, and have loved reading how his characters and this near-future Earth have responded to the burgeoning transhuman movement. With Apex, Naam picks up the story threads left at the end of book two, Crux, and delivers a highly satisfying conclusion to his series.
Apex is a large book, in both page count and scope. The advanced brain enhancement technology of the NexusOS has been causing a political stir for quite sometime, and it all comes to a head here. There are political coups, conspiracies, terrorism, riots, the rise of AI, and the threat of nuclear warfare.
This is a dense novel, with multiple subplots revolving around the birth of the PLF, a pro-transhumanist terror group, technological heists between China and India stemming from the viral load of the once-human Su-Yong, and disputes over the US presidential election, and so many other moving pieces intersecting these various subplots that the book feels much longer than it really is.
And that, really, is my only gripe. While Amazon lists the page count of this book at 608 pages, it feels twice as long and makes for a bit of a ponderous read. There is just so much happening, and so many characters involved, that it's hard not to feel the weight and pressure of the story. I recall the prior two books being rather briskly paced and energetic, whereas this one is more of a massive pot-boiler. While it took me some time to get through, it was certainly well worth it. There's also the issue of information delivery, with segments of the story being told in large chunks and then abandoned for a long while to focus on other issues, before circling back to pick up the threads on something else.
All that said, I did find Apex to being a strong finish to the story with the characters meeting their natural conclusions and, in some cases, a few surprises along the way. I do wish more would have been done to make Sam less one dimensional here, as she's been a strong character previously with a very interesting background and journey throughout. It's a bit of a shame to have her reduced here to a simple worrywart, mother figure with little else to do. I was happy to see Ranjan Shankari with a more integral role this time around, though, and Kade's steps toward becoming a leader was very well done.
Naam is due tremendous applause for keeping all the gears turning in this massive tome. As I said, there is an awful lot happening here, with a lot of spinning plates to keep an eye, but the author does a fabulous job of tying up the various thread and delivering an energetic and compulsively readable finale to not only Apex, but to the series as a whole.
If you've been following the Nexus series thus far, then grabbing a copy of Apex is a no-brainer and it brings the series to a close with a rollicking finish replete with serious tension and action. If you haven't been, then I highly recommend you start at the beginning, where you'll likely find yourself becoming a fan in no time.
August 31, 2016
Read for Aug book group.
This is something I don't say very often:
Did Not Finish
Nope. I couldn't do it. I could not make myself pick up the book and read another page. I ceased to care about the characters. I didn't care how it ended. I was done at page 340, and I wasn't going to go any farther.
It wasn't because of the writing, per se. I enjoy how Naam puts words on a page. His dialog is engaging, his descriptions are good, I felt like I was in that time/place. His knowledge and exploration of what would happen if humans had the ability to link minds was pretty fascinating. My problem was - and I fully admit this was *my* problem - was the story simply bogged down in an excessive amount of details and was taking forever to move forward.
A book group member summed it up as the "Two Towers Syndrome", where the only thing happening is the author is moving the characters around on the page. In this case, for 500 pages.
It didn't matter to me if Ragnan beat Breece with the help of his new friends.
It didn't matter to me if Kade found a way to stop the PLF or whatever they were called.
It didn't matter to me if uplifted Sun Li fought transhuman Sun Li and Ling overcame her Mother to regain control of her body.
It didn't matter to me what happened to President Stockton and his political group.
And, ultimately, I stopped reading. Sorry Mr. Naam. I was really looking forward this book but it just didn't deliver - or, it just delivered too much of a good thing.
This is something I don't say very often:
Did Not Finish
Nope. I couldn't do it. I could not make myself pick up the book and read another page. I ceased to care about the characters. I didn't care how it ended. I was done at page 340, and I wasn't going to go any farther.
It wasn't because of the writing, per se. I enjoy how Naam puts words on a page. His dialog is engaging, his descriptions are good, I felt like I was in that time/place. His knowledge and exploration of what would happen if humans had the ability to link minds was pretty fascinating. My problem was - and I fully admit this was *my* problem - was the story simply bogged down in an excessive amount of details and was taking forever to move forward.
A book group member summed it up as the "Two Towers Syndrome", where the only thing happening is the author is moving the characters around on the page. In this case, for 500 pages.
It didn't matter to me if Ragnan beat Breece with the help of his new friends.
It didn't matter to me if Kade found a way to stop the PLF or whatever they were called.
It didn't matter to me if uplifted Sun Li fought transhuman Sun Li and Ling overcame her Mother to regain control of her body.
It didn't matter to me what happened to President Stockton and his political group.
And, ultimately, I stopped reading. Sorry Mr. Naam. I was really looking forward this book but it just didn't deliver - or, it just delivered too much of a good thing.
July 31, 2017
Wow. And that's with a slow and confused start. Though perhaps if I had just read the other two books it would have felt smoother. There are a lot of well done details here. A lot of character actions that just felt right. And there's a lot of technology and society stuff going on as well, perhaps too much. But the strongest part of the book is the feeling of optimism in the chaos and fear. Not a book for the masses perhaps, but worth reading and discussing.
Read
October 20, 2016Didn't actually finish this.
March 30, 2022
A satisfying ending to a great science fiction saga. Thoroughly enjoyable, readable and somewhat realistic (in its politics) as well!
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