Description:

The stunning sequel to NEXUS

Six months have passed since the release of Nexus 5. The world is a different, more dangerous place.

In the United States, the terrorists - or freedom fighters - of the Post-Human Liberation Front use Nexus to turn men and women into human time bombs aimed at the President and his allies. In Washington DC, a government scientist, secretly addicted to Nexus, uncovers more than he wants to know about the forces behind the assassinations, and finds himself in a maze with no way out.

In Thailand, Samantha Cataranes has found peace and contentment with a group of children born with Nexus in their brains. But when forces threaten to tear her new family apart, Sam will stop at absolutely nothing to protect the ones she holds dear.

In Vietnam, Kade and Feng are on the run from bounty hunters seeking the price on Kade's head, from the CIA, and from forces that want to use the back door Kade has built into Nexus 5. Kade knows he must stop the terrorists misusing Nexus before they ignite a global war between human and posthuman. But to do so, he'll need to stay alive and ahead of his pursuers.

And in Shanghai, a posthuman child named Ling Shu will go to dangerous and explosive lengths to free her uploaded mother from the grip of Chinese authorities.

The first blows in the war between human and posthuman have been struck. The world will never be the same.

File Under: Science Fiction [ Upgraded | Closer Than You Think | Upload | Civil War ]

**

From Booklist

Naam’s follow-up to his sterling debut, Nexus (2013), continues the story of Kaden Lane, creator of a revolutionary mind-linking software called Nexus. Set about six months after the first novel, this one is at least as action-packed, but with its political commentary and dystopian elements ratcheted to higher levels. The author briskly catches us up with the characters introduced in Nexus; Kade is on the run, trying to find his friends Ilya and Rangan, who are being held captive by the American government; Su-Yong, the Chinese expert on transhumanism, exists now as a “software being,” her mind uploaded to a computer after the death of her body; and the agents of the ERD (Emergent Risks Directorate) are desperate to find the source of Nexus and to eliminate the software once and for all. Meanwhile, the Post-Human Liberation Front is using Nexus to turn ordinary people into assassins, threatening to throw the world’s governments into chaos. The book would have benefited from a “previously on . . . ”-style prologue to remind readers of the story and world introduced in Nexus; those unfamiliar with that book will be utterly lost here (especially when it comes to the software itself). Those who’ve read the first book, though, should have no trouble picking up where they left off. A strong, exciting, and intellectually stimulating sequel. --David Pitt

Review

Praise for Book 1: NEXUS:

"The only serious successor to Michael Crichton."  

- Scott Harrison, author of Archangel

"Good.Scary Good." 

- Wired

"One of the Best Books of 2013"

• NPR

****"Provocative. A double-edged vision of thepost-human." 

- The Wall Street Journal

"Starred Review. Naam turns ina stellar performance in his debut SF novel. What matters here is theremarkable scope and narrative power of the story." 

- Booklist

"Agripping piece of near future speculation... all the grit and pace of theBourne films." 

- Alastair Reynolds, authorof Revelation Space

"Alightning bolt of a novel, with a sense of awe missing from a lot of currentfiction." 

-Ars Technica

"A rich cast of characters...the actionscenes are crisp, the glimpses of future tech and culture aremesmerizing." 

- Publishers Weekly 

"Read it before everyone's talking aboutit." 

- John Barnes

Praise for Book 2: CRUX*:
"A blisteringly paced technothriller that dives deeper and even better into the chunky questions raised by Nexus*. This is a fabulous book, and it ends in a way that promises at least one more. Count me in." 

- Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother

"Nexus and Crux are a devastating look into the political consequences of transhumanism; a sharp, chilling look at our likely future." 

- Charles Stross 

"Smart, thoughtful, and hard to drop, this richly nuanced sequel outshines its predecessor." 

- Publishers Weekly

"A heady cocktail of ideas and page-turning prose. It left my brain buzzing for days afterwards." 

- Hannu Rajaniemi, author of The Quantum Thief 

"Highly recommended for preparation of the future revolution." 

- Harper Reed, Former CTO, Obama for America