Seeing a woman as the world-wise, transhuman strong fighter, and the man as the physically weaker brains was a nice change of pace. Even if some of the secondary characters can seem two-dimensional, the primary characters definitely are not. The world building is done smoothly, incorporating both in-plot mentions and newspaper clippings and internal briefings to establish what is going on in the greater world around Kaden and Samantha. That’s part of what makes reading the book so fascinating and slightly frightening. It’s easy to see that the author knows his science and has extrapolated into a possible future with a lot of logic based on current science. Nexus itself is a fascinating drug that combines nanotech and drugs. This is a more interesting ethical dilemma, and the book doesn’t take very long to set up the world and get into it. It lets the book think forward further than the initial transhumanist elements that it’s generally easy to see the advantages of, like fully functional robotic hands, into the grayer areas with things like cloning and mind control and making soldiers who are super-soldiers. Jumping far enough ahead that some transhumanist elements already exist is a smart move.

It’s a book that’s a modern twist on cyberpunk with plenty of action to boot. I thus was able to experience most of it as a surprise. I had honestly kind of forgotten what this book was about, beyond it being scifi, by the time I picked it up to read it. When Samantha and Kaden meet, their worlds and worldviews start colliding. Samantha Cataranes was a victim of a transhumanist mind control cult as a child, now she fights on the side of the FBI putting a stop to any science deemed too dangerous. It makes minds meld together, able to feel others’ suffering, and they think it will lead to world peace. Kaden Lane knows about the potential dangers, but he and his lab partners are still invested in making their brain nanotechnology drug, Nexus, work. China is using the tech in their armies, Thailand is interested in its use to enhance meditation and zen, and the US government banned many of the different treatments and drugs after they were used by cults to make cloned children into killing machines. Science is moving forward to and through transhumanism to posthumanism, and no society seems to quite know how to handle it.

Nexus ramez