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A review by libellum_aphrodite
Crux by Ramez Naam
3.0
My feelings here are similar to [b:Nexus|13642710|Nexus (Nexus, #1)|Ramez Naam|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347149654s/13642710.jpg|19257521]: great subject matter; writing leaves much to be desired.
[spoilers below]
As far as subject matter, Crux spends more time exploring the [im]morality of back doors into the brain operating system, no matter what noble intentions might be had for it. The reader minds the moral gray area less when it is Kade trying to stop the bad guys (although [b:A Clockwork Orange|227463|A Clockwork Orange|Anthony Burgess|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348339306s/227463.jpg|23596] right from the get-go much? "All of these Kade tied to nausea, to crippling anxiety, to pervasive pain."), but starts to get uncomfortable when he almost kills Holtzmann.....and, of course, get REALLY uncomfortable when Shiva steals the password and takes full control of Sam. Generally throughout this book, Kade approaches the tactics of the very nemesis he is trying to stop, the ERD.
For the writing, I was rather calibrated to the subpar prose at this stage (which did indeed remain subpar), but I found various other lazy tropes to annoy me....
* If nerdy grad-student rave-going Kade survives one more giant fight where 90% of the fully trained and armed participants die... I was happy to suspend disbelief for a while, but these incidents happen extra fast and furious in this book.
* OK, we get it, you know some meditation terms! Throwing around the terms anapana and vipassana around this thriller is jarring and doesn't make you more cerebral by association.
* Does Ling, the incredible post-human child, have any idea how the network that she abuses so frequently works? She and her mother Su-Yong go on and on about wanting to annihilate the humans so they can bask in the wonder of data and computers....that those punk humans built the computers, and all the networking, and supply the whole thing with that endless stream of data. If post-humans can do it better, that's another conversation we can have, but simply smiting all people means there's no more data in which you can bathe.
Side-note: The first two installments of the trilogy are on Kindle Unlimited, but not the last book? Nooooooo!!!!
[spoilers below]
As far as subject matter, Crux spends more time exploring the [im]morality of back doors into the brain operating system, no matter what noble intentions might be had for it. The reader minds the moral gray area less when it is Kade trying to stop the bad guys (although [b:A Clockwork Orange|227463|A Clockwork Orange|Anthony Burgess|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348339306s/227463.jpg|23596] right from the get-go much? "All of these Kade tied to nausea, to crippling anxiety, to pervasive pain."), but starts to get uncomfortable when he almost kills Holtzmann.....and, of course, get REALLY uncomfortable when Shiva steals the password and takes full control of Sam. Generally throughout this book, Kade approaches the tactics of the very nemesis he is trying to stop, the ERD.
For the writing, I was rather calibrated to the subpar prose at this stage (which did indeed remain subpar), but I found various other lazy tropes to annoy me....
* If nerdy grad-student rave-going Kade survives one more giant fight where 90% of the fully trained and armed participants die... I was happy to suspend disbelief for a while, but these incidents happen extra fast and furious in this book.
* OK, we get it, you know some meditation terms! Throwing around the terms anapana and vipassana around this thriller is jarring and doesn't make you more cerebral by association.
* Does Ling, the incredible post-human child, have any idea how the network that she abuses so frequently works? She and her mother Su-Yong go on and on about wanting to annihilate the humans so they can bask in the wonder of data and computers....that those punk humans built the computers, and all the networking, and supply the whole thing with that endless stream of data. If post-humans can do it better, that's another conversation we can have, but simply smiting all people means there's no more data in which you can bathe.
Side-note: The first two installments of the trilogy are on Kindle Unlimited, but not the last book? Nooooooo!!!!