I’m about halfway through ‘Nexus,’ and so far this book has really blown me away. I had pretty low expectations for something I just picked up off a shelf without looking into at all before hand, but Ramez Naam has seems to have picked up on this perfect thriller pacing that I wish I could capture myself, making this book hard to put down from the moment I started reading. His style is very quick and straightforward, and though I think it can be a little bland at times, that’s a facet of the book that is completely negated by the story being just too damn cool. Nexus is marketed as a drug, but is really a set of nanomachines that allow the brain to output data via radio waves once installed. Nexus users are able to send information to and from one another, achieving a sort of weak telepathy. It’s easily one of the coolest sci-fi concepts I’ve read, and what got me interested in the book in the first place. Naam has thought this out incredibly well, and actually has a nonfiction book where goes over the real technologies that he based ‘Nexus’ on.

https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Human-Biological-Enhancement/dp/0557582334

But back to the fiction side of things. Nexus technology has been illegal for a long time, but neuroscientist Kaden Lane is obsessed with it. To improve the drug, he’s been working to extended its capabilities (and therefore his own) by layering software on top of the basic machines, letting him run programs in his own brain as if it were a computer. The monitor is his visual cortex, the speakers are his vocal cords, and the data storage his own hippocampus. The software can send data to his motor neurons as well, letting him preprogram certain actions; speech, body language, and the ability to make a nerd flirt like a pro, as he shows off in the introduction. He can even send these impulses to other Nexus users, and in so doing create a kind of hivemind, a set of brains working in tandem to support the software running on top. He sees a future where people can know each other as no people have ever known each other before. He wants to give people new ways to improve themselves, extend their minds, repair their bodies, and become more whole. The applications seem limitless.

The powers at be however, see limitless potential for harm in those limitless applications. Coercion technology, memory implantation, and worst of all, the threat of non-human intelligence making the rest of us obsolete. Technologic cults have been popping up all over the place, foreign powers are using nexus and other drugs to create super soldiers and political plants, espionage has entered a new era of false memories and mind control. Technological threats to national security are spiraling out of control. To combat them, the United States has formed the ERD, the Emerging Risks Department, which has been empowered to completely ignore human rights in the case of ‘technological threats to humanity.’ Kade’s research is one of those threats. Samantha Cataranes is deployed by the ERD to investigate Kade, and quickly realizes his research has put his version of nexus on a whole other level. This threat can’t be left unattended.

I don’t want to ruin the rest of it, but hopefully that gives a pretty good idea of the first several chapters. I can’t wait to see where this book ends up. Initially I was just going to read the first one, but now I think I need to read the rest of the trilogy, though I’m going to finish my current reading list first. I want to read this book and then the Crichton novel back to back for comparison’s sake because I think they’ll have a lot in common. The structure of the scenes, the pacing, and the perspective changes all feel very similar to what I remember from Jurassic Park. I would love to be able to nail down this style. It’s just so readable.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley