Scan barcode
trike's review against another edition
2.0
This one is okay, rounded up to 2 stars. It's your basic cyberpunk thriller going over well-trod ground. The action sequences are nice, but the writing shifts from the staccato thriller writing to clunky comic book exposition where characters talk AT each other rather than TO each other.
I suppose if someone wasn't familiar with the history of cyberpunk, this might seem fresh and interesting, and Naam's real-life job as a technologist at Microsoft gives him some tech cred in this sphere, but there's a lot of been-there done-that to the idea.
The basic idea is that the drug Nexus is comprised of nanotech you swallow which connects your brain to the minds of other people running the tech. Nexus allows people to communicate with a version of telepathy and telempathy (feeling what others feel), share memories and control devices mentally.
It had promise early on, but once rhe story gets going the OS never crashes, which seems to be the most fantastical aspect of the story. I've never had a computer that DIDN'T crash. The iPad I'm typing this on crashes every so often, particularly Safari when I'm asking it to play a video or something in a second browser tab. I can only imagine that the Nexus OS would crash under high stress moments like the ones we see in the more intense action scenes.
I also didn't buy that it worked the same way on everyone. We don't even see colors or hear sounds the same way from one person to the next, and video games or movies which are fine for one person can cause everything from headaches to seizures in someone else, so I can't imagine how any sort of tech like Nexus would work so well across so many different people. I would think that the notion of mind-to-mind sharing would be inconsistent at best simply because the way we experience the world can be so very different from person to person.
That would be fodder for an interesting angle to examine: the attempt to connect people via shared experiences would necessarily exclude those who weren't able, for one reason or another, to fully utilize the Nexus tech. Naam's doesn't really take a look at this idea. It's mostly just talk about how people would use it mostly for good rather than evil, despite the fact our introduction to the main character has him uncontrollably performing a sex act that would be considered assault (at the least, rape at the most) if he had been able to get his pants off. Playing it for laughs didn't humanize him so much as utterly undercut the notion that people would use it for good. Go look at the comments section of any given YouTube video and imagine those people inside your head.
The single best version of this type of tech is the short story "Dogfight" by William Gibson and Michael Swanwick, which was published back in 1985 and can be found in [b:Burning Chrome|22323|Burning Chrome (Sprawl, #0)|William Gibson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1349075772s/22323.jpg|2457086]. (You can find the text online. Trigger warning for rape.) But it shows how unintended consequences can arise from technology, and it lands a helluva powerful blow in just a few pages.
Google has run into this time and again, even endangering people's lives, and that's just by relatively innocuous things like sharing contact lists via Gmail. I'd think something like this would be even more dangerous because of those unintended and unforeseen consequences.
I don't think I'll be reading the sequels.
I suppose if someone wasn't familiar with the history of cyberpunk, this might seem fresh and interesting, and Naam's real-life job as a technologist at Microsoft gives him some tech cred in this sphere, but there's a lot of been-there done-that to the idea.
The basic idea is that the drug Nexus is comprised of nanotech you swallow which connects your brain to the minds of other people running the tech. Nexus allows people to communicate with a version of telepathy and telempathy (feeling what others feel), share memories and control devices mentally.
It had promise early on, but once rhe story gets going the OS never crashes, which seems to be the most fantastical aspect of the story. I've never had a computer that DIDN'T crash. The iPad I'm typing this on crashes every so often, particularly Safari when I'm asking it to play a video or something in a second browser tab. I can only imagine that the Nexus OS would crash under high stress moments like the ones we see in the more intense action scenes.
I also didn't buy that it worked the same way on everyone. We don't even see colors or hear sounds the same way from one person to the next, and video games or movies which are fine for one person can cause everything from headaches to seizures in someone else, so I can't imagine how any sort of tech like Nexus would work so well across so many different people. I would think that the notion of mind-to-mind sharing would be inconsistent at best simply because the way we experience the world can be so very different from person to person.
That would be fodder for an interesting angle to examine: the attempt to connect people via shared experiences would necessarily exclude those who weren't able, for one reason or another, to fully utilize the Nexus tech. Naam's doesn't really take a look at this idea. It's mostly just talk about how people would use it mostly for good rather than evil, despite the fact our introduction to the main character has him uncontrollably performing a sex act that would be considered assault (at the least, rape at the most) if he had been able to get his pants off. Playing it for laughs didn't humanize him so much as utterly undercut the notion that people would use it for good. Go look at the comments section of any given YouTube video and imagine those people inside your head.
The single best version of this type of tech is the short story "Dogfight" by William Gibson and Michael Swanwick, which was published back in 1985 and can be found in [b:Burning Chrome|22323|Burning Chrome (Sprawl, #0)|William Gibson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1349075772s/22323.jpg|2457086]. (You can find the text online. Trigger warning for rape.) But it shows how unintended consequences can arise from technology, and it lands a helluva powerful blow in just a few pages.
Google has run into this time and again, even endangering people's lives, and that's just by relatively innocuous things like sharing contact lists via Gmail. I'd think something like this would be even more dangerous because of those unintended and unforeseen consequences.
I don't think I'll be reading the sequels.
tegaaa's review against another edition
5.0
Great, Great, Great book, recommended by my friend Ben Day, I was really into the story, looking forward to reading the sequels. Good fun, and deeply intellectual, what is the future of the human race, how will we evolve and how will we deal with evolution, trans-human, meta-human. Very interesting.
Good Job Mr. Naam.
Good Job Mr. Naam.
nickyp's review against another edition
4.0
Very fun, and big thoughts, too — who should get access to enhancement, what makes us human, could we engineer our evolution into a new species. Glad to see more neuroscientists in action -- and some of them are good guys!
I usually like more character development and subtler dialogue, but was willing to let that slide since the science and the tick-tock thriller part were so good. Didn't need the epilogue.
The text has a lot of italics, alternate font, and spacing between points of view that did not transfer well on my Kindle copy, so better if you can get it as a library (physical) book.
I usually like more character development and subtler dialogue, but was willing to let that slide since the science and the tick-tock thriller part were so good. Didn't need the epilogue.
The text has a lot of italics, alternate font, and spacing between points of view that did not transfer well on my Kindle copy, so better if you can get it as a library (physical) book.
martyfried's review against another edition
4.0
This has a little of everything - action fighting, philosophy, human interaction, a little sex here and there, but so far, it's not really excelling at any of them, to me. It seems like it's trying to push certain ways of thinking about what it is to be human, and whether we should embrace the ability to become super humans or cloned humans.
So far, it's still hard to tell who are the good guys and bad guys. One group is the US government fighting against drugs that give people more power. They come off as realists in the beginning, but toward the end, they begin to look like tyrants.
On the other side are scientists and idealists who think only good will come from their efforts. They seem a bit naive to me, so far. All in all, it's got the flavor of the Star Wars movies, except that the force is a sort of drug, called Nexus.
I think the second part will tell whether this is an exceptional or so-so book.
So far, it's still hard to tell who are the good guys and bad guys. One group is the US government fighting against drugs that give people more power. They come off as realists in the beginning, but toward the end, they begin to look like tyrants.
On the other side are scientists and idealists who think only good will come from their efforts. They seem a bit naive to me, so far. All in all, it's got the flavor of the Star Wars movies, except that the force is a sort of drug, called Nexus.
I think the second part will tell whether this is an exceptional or so-so book.
tbartelloni's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
kejadlen's review against another edition
3.0
A fun read, but a little too straightforward and implausible for me. Otherwise, I enjoyed the action and general moments of awesome/cool tech in the book though.
diesmali's review against another edition
4.0
A seriously cool near future sci fi with drugs/technology creating trans-/posthumans. Some deep questions re the future of humans and what makes us human. Protagonists and antagonists are divided in X-Men style. Those fighting for human supremacy, those fighting for superhuman supremacy, and those fighting for peace. Not a bad plot.
ruhlen's review against another edition
4.0
Pretty engaging near future cyber fiction. It took me a little while to get into it, but it had me hooked once I did. Also, the ending is pretty satisfying and the action is intense without bogging the story down. Solid book and Luke Daniels did an amazing job as always narrating the audiobook.
heyt's review against another edition
4.0
I think that this is my first encounter with trans/post human content that I wasn't constantly in a state of omg what is happening right now. I found that the technology was explained in a manageable way that made sense and yet wasn't too far gone from what we can relate to today. Throughout the book I found the characters and their struggles with technology and the double side of its creation were somewhat realistic and translate well to similar issues we face in the real world. I had a good time reading this and look forward to seeing more from these characters and this world.