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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
Another page-turning instalment in the Nexus trilogy. Naam does a great job of wrapping up books so you don't feel cheated while also ending with plenty of forward momentum for the next one.
Crux basically picks up where Nexus let off.
Nexus is a force in the world, with more than a million people using it, growing every day. One particularly interesting use is giving Nexus to children with autism to allow them to communicate directly mind to mind. Another is the children that were born to parents using Nexus. Interesting in both cases.
On the negative side, there have already been cases of people using Nexus for more nefarious purposes. Rape. Blackmail. Assassination. Like any new technology, there is the potential for much to go wrong. Something this big? Of course it does.
But where it really starts getting terrifying is when you consider the parallels with what Snowden revealed a few years ago and the current election cycle. The United States government (among others) in the world of Nexus has made such transhuman technology a crime. They are detaining those same children born with Nexus. One of the main storylines of Crux is just how deep such a hidden agenda might go. It's well written.
One note from a structural standpoint is that there is quite a lot of action in this book. It gets to the point where the action itself starts to drag. It could really use a few more breathers. It's certainly not a dealbreaker, but I think Nexus did it better.
All together, an excellent book. I look forward to the conclusion.
Final note: Feng is my favorite. He's hilarious.
Nexus is a force in the world, with more than a million people using it, growing every day. One particularly interesting use is giving Nexus to children with autism to allow them to communicate directly mind to mind. Another is the children that were born to parents using Nexus. Interesting in both cases.
On the negative side, there have already been cases of people using Nexus for more nefarious purposes. Rape. Blackmail. Assassination. Like any new technology, there is the potential for much to go wrong. Something this big? Of course it does.
But where it really starts getting terrifying is when you consider the parallels with what Snowden revealed a few years ago and the current election cycle. The United States government (among others) in the world of Nexus has made such transhuman technology a crime. They are detaining those same children born with Nexus. One of the main storylines of Crux is just how deep such a hidden agenda might go. It's well written.
One note from a structural standpoint is that there is quite a lot of action in this book. It gets to the point where the action itself starts to drag. It could really use a few more breathers. It's certainly not a dealbreaker, but I think Nexus did it better.
All together, an excellent book. I look forward to the conclusion.
Final note: Feng is my favorite. He's hilarious.
I'm not cross-posting my reviews to Goodreads any longer, but my post on this book is HERE.
Kept up with the fascinating and fast-paced tone established by the first book. I was slightly annoyed by a few too-lucky-coincidences and main characters having rather obvious plot armor, but those were minor issues. Just reading some of the final scenes left me feeling winded and exhausted, they were that captivating and intense.
Holy crap - it has been a long time since I have been this absorbed in a book. 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. Every single view point character has understandable and deep motivations - even the ones I hated, I understood.
So this is a very compelling near future science fiction thriller!
Read my full review: http://wp.me/p40HVI-JL
So this is a very compelling near future science fiction thriller!
Read my full review: http://wp.me/p40HVI-JL
adventurous
fast-paced
I'm still really enjoying this series. The action is very fast paced, and there are lots of points of view that Naam switches between, sometimes practically every other sentence. The writing isn't as elegant as I'd like, but the plot, characters, and tension more than make up for it.
The strangest part of the book for me was the POV of the autistic kids. I could never figure out if it was genuinely how some autistic people think, or if it was just an assumptive caricature.
I liked Kade more in this book, even if he is still a little snot-nosed. I was surprised that even though he knew what Shiva had done to Sam, what he himself had done to Sam, he still tried to stop Sam from shooting Shiva. There's pacifism, and then there's just being obtuse.
The strangest part of the book for me was the POV of the autistic kids. I could never figure out if it was genuinely how some autistic people think, or if it was just an assumptive caricature.