Nexus

Rating 5 of 5

Nexus is a great pulp science fiction novel.

The writing is mediocre Ramez Naam will not win a Hugo award for this novel. That being said its just a really cool book.

The premise of the book is that you can take a drug (Nexus) that gives you an empathic connection to other humans. Basically it allows you to “network” with them. The main characters in the book learn that the Drug can be programmed and create a software program called NexusOS that lets them run software on their own wet ware.

It may sound a little ridiculous but in truth I think the book is fairly well researched. The idea that this all could work is a not that far fetched. Its a great concept and the authors discussions about what affects this could have on society are pretty novel.

The drawback (or plus) of the book is that its a bit of mild pornography. Of course a lot of the characters experiences with the drug involve sex. While this could be a turn off to some readers I do think that’s what people will do with the tech if they have it. People are using AI right now to create engaging virtual porno AI girl friends. Clearly that’s some of the first things people would do with this tech too.

One aspect of the book that I enjoyed too is that the book layed out a future tension between Humans, Trans-humans (genetically or cybernetically enhanced humans) and post humans (intelligences which are not humans). The idea that these groups would be competing makes for entertaining intrigue.

What’s interesting about Nexus is that there doesn’t seem to be much interest in AI. The book scripts AI as fairly limited. The one post human presented in the book is basically a human. I think a story like Void Star or Hyperion with their opaque but complex AI’s are move likely to occur in practice. I think it would have been a little more interesting if the post human in the story had not had very human motives, but something else.

One part that might have been good to cut back on would be some of the super hero powers granted to the combat characters. That stuff was just too unbelievable.

All in all Nexus is a really fun book. I’m not sure if I’ll read the other two books in the trilogy but they all reviewed well so I think I might.