Nexus centers on Kade Lane, a young, white, American male inventor. Ny story dating from the late nineteenth century onward and featuring a young US male inventor hero who ingeniously extricates himself from tight spots and who, by so doing, saves himself from defeat and corruption, and his friends and nation from foreign oppressors. The form dates back to at least 1891, and possibly back to 1868. This is a term coined by John Clute for the SF Encyclopedia, modeled after the Robinsinade form that takes after Robinson Crusoe. With that background, let’s turn to the Edisonade. The potential for abuse is huge and obvious. And they write code that allows the body to be controlled remotely, either by algorithm or by another person dosed with Nexus. They synthesize Nexus themselves, then improve on the design to allow the drug to persist in the body permanently. No one, at least, until a team of grad students in California. It is a nanotechnology that appeared out of nowhere and that no one has been able to reverse engineer. Nexus is a short-term drug that allows for some level of mind-to-mind communication over short distances. China is also interested in the technology, having created a clone army of super-soldiers. Inevitably they have made their own post-human super soldiers to fight this fight for them. of Homeland Security, the Emerging Risks Directorate (ERD), that is dedicated to preventing the spread of these drugs and any other technology that might make humans into post-humans. One in particular, called Nexus, has been surging in popularity. It is 2040, and mind control drugs are slowly becoming more prevalent and scary. Finally, upon reflection, I was able to pinpoint a reading that summed up Nexus's flaws and strengths: as a modern-day Edisonade.īefore I examine the Edisonade structure in detail, let me lay out the premise of the novel.

On both of these levels, the novel was very frustrating. As I read it, I realized that I was rather reading a near-future spy thriller novel, one occasionally slowed down by intense philosophical speculations about post-human technology. The first sentence of the author bio is: 'Ramez Naam is a professional technologist,' so I was looking forward to a view of the bleeding edge of post-human technology grounded in today's tech developments. When I first approached the debut novel Nexus, I thought that I'd be reading a near-future hard SF novel about post-humanity.

Nexus trilogy by ramez naam