I just finished reading the second book in Ramez Naam’s series Nexus, and it has been months since I have read anything that captivated me in the same way.
The first book was really excellent, but I got distracted by other books, so I didn’t read the second one right away. Somehow it has been two years since I read the first one but I don’t think it will take me two years to get to the last book.
Title: Crux
Author: Ramez Naam
Series: Nexus, book 2
Genre: Science fiction, near future science fiction, cyberpunk, thriller
The pacing is intense – it is cut like an action thriller with short sub-chapters cutting between different parts of the action. Changing the pacing from slow to fast and back again. The book quite liturgically got my pulse up and the first night I read it, I had to set an alarm or I would not have gotten any sleep.. The consequences of the story are very real and brutal – not quite G.R.R. Martin level but really who wants that – but the view point characters are not safe from harm.
The characterization in the book is great. Every single view point character has understandable and deep motivations – even the ones I hated, I understood.
The science is really interesting and very grounded in current science in the way of the best near future science fiction book. I am still fascination by the nexus drug and the implications. The emotional beats in the book are to a large extend driven by the moral implications of the drug. All of which are treated with the complexity that they warrent.
So this is a very compelling near future science fiction thriller!
Read my review of the first book here
The Stats
Published: 2013 by Angry Robot
Read: October 18 to 31, 2016
Format: ebook
The author: male, POC, computer scientist, USA
The protagonist: Kade, male, straight, scientist, able-bodied. Among many others