Posthuman Page-Turner
Apex (Angry Robot) caps Ramez Naam's rumbustious, idea-packed transhumanist trilogy. The first novel, Nexus, was the 2014 co-winner of the Prometheus Award for libertarian-themed science fiction. The trilogy features a merry band of young technologists led by Kaden Lane who create an ingestible nano-drug called Nexus in 2040. Worried that Nexus, which links minds telepathically, could be abused by governments, Lane and his friends want to make it available to everyone.
As the trilogy develops, all hell breaks loose with agents of the U.S. government's Emerging Risks Directorate seeking to eradicate Nexus and hunting its creators across the globe. Apex opens as a posthuman artificial intelligence driven insane by Chinese government torture is on the verge of provoking a nuclear war between the U.S. and China. One of the book's lessons: Treat posthumans as you would like to be treated. Or else.
This article originally appeared in print under the headline "Posthuman Page-Turner."
