Apex is the final book in the trilogy that began with Nexus.  It begins at pretty much the same instant that the previous book left off.  I thought it wrapped up the trilogy well, although there was one thing near the end that I wish hadn’t happened.  By the end, the author had addressed all of the many little plot threads and character arcs.  He didn’t necessarily tie everything up into a neat little package, which can sometimes feel unrealistic anyway, but he provided a good idea of where things would go next and left me with a sense of hopefulness.

I did have more trouble staying focused while reading this book than I did with the previous one.  The structure is similar, with short chapters that jump around between characters, but not all the plot threads in this book held my interest even though I think they were necessary to the greater story.  I wasn’t bored, really; I just sometimes had to rein my attention back in when we moved away from the characters and storylines that I was more interested in.

The trilogy brought up a lot of interesting ideas about what would happen in a world where you could take a drug (of sorts) and have the ability to share thoughts and feelings.  Throughout the course of this trilogy, we see a variety of ways in which it could be used -- both good and bad.  Considering the implications, and whether the good outweighs the bad or vice versa, was one of the most interesting aspects of the trilogy.  There were a few things I was skeptical about but, in general, I could easily picture real people reacting in the various ways that people reacted throughout the trilogy.

This is the second book in the trilogy that started with Nexus.  I won’t talk about the plot, because doing so would spoil the story from the first book.  I’ll just say that the story picks up about three months after the end of the first book and progresses more or less along the lines you might expect.

I think I enjoyed this as much as, if not slightly more than, the first book.  It felt more consistently fast-paced.  One thing that helped is that, while there’s still quite a bit of moral ambiguity, the characters don’t debate it as much.  The format was also somewhat different with shorter chapters, a larger cast of point-of-view characters, and rapid changes between characters.  I know some people don’t like books that have a lot of characters, but for me it depends on how distinctive those characters are and how interesting their stories are.  In the case of this book, each character’s story was interesting to me.  The characters were also distinctive enough that I never mixed them up, although I can’t say the same for the author.

I was surprised to see several editing issues, because I don’t remember any glaring errors in the first book.  There were large sections that seemed perfectly fine, but then I’d start noticing several errors.  Poor Claire, a minor character, had a particularly rough time.  Not only did her name get misspelled, but she had to stand in for another guy’s wife at one point.  They were in bed at the time, so I’m sure that was awkward.  (No, it definitely wasn’t intended to be that way in the story.)  I enjoyed the story too much to be terribly annoyed about the errors, but they were a little distracting so I hope there are fewer in the third book.

I find myself really on the fence in regard to what I think about where things are going in the story, even in terms of potential consequences that the good guys seem to consider a good thing.  The bad things are really, really bad, but the “good things” are a bit horrifying to me also, or maybe it’s just that they’re portrayed idealistically and I think the reality would be very different.  I’m going to reserve judgment until I finish the trilogy and then I might discuss it more within spoiler tags, depending on what I think by the time I make it to the end.  Either way, I’m pretty absorbed by the story and I look forward to seeing how the author concludes it.

Nexus is the first book in a science fiction trilogy. The term “Nexus” refers to an illegal drug of sorts that contains nanotechnology. After being ingested, Nexus creates a network that allows people with the drug in their system to share thoughts and emotions with each other. College students have secret parties where they all take Nexus and then they glory in the empathy and the oneness of it all. Evil people use it for mind control.

There are two main point-of-view characters. Kade is a brilliant college student who, along with a friend, has significantly enhanced what Nexus can do. He has idealistic visions of sharing it freely with the world so it can be used to improve society. Sam is an agent for a U.S. military organization. She works to prevent the distribution, development, and use of the drug so that it can’t be misused.

It was really an interesting story. It did lag in spots, mostly in the first half, but I didn’t have much trouble staying interested. The main parts that lagged for me were the discussions and arguments about the morality of suppressing or sharing something like Nexus. The arguments were written well enough, and would have been interesting in a smaller dose, but anybody who reads a lot of science fiction has probably seen similar arguments before in various contexts. I felt like they came up a few times too often.

In the second half, things got quite intense, and pretty violent. It's definitely not the most graphic book I've read but, if there are any particular types of content warnings that will make you avoid a book, I think it’s safe to say that those warnings apply here to at least some extent. If you don’t mind a brutal book, this one has an interesting story and is written well. I also liked and empathized with the characters, and the moral dilemmas were real enough that I often wasn’t sure what I wanted to happen or who to root for.

This book doesn’t really end in a cliff hanger; it would stand alone if you don’t mind not having all of your threads wrapped up at the end. There’s clearly much more story to tell, and I plan to move directly on to the second book to find out what happens next.

The 'Nexus Trilogy' is overall very entertaining. I enjoy techno/cyber thrillers more than straight up science fiction. However, by the third book things got away from Mr. Naam and I just wanted the ending. Too many almost endings as the antagonist gets away again.

That said, final resolution was satisfactory and many of the social issues of the 'singularity' were well presented.

Apex finishes the story arc started in Nexus, and continued in Crux.  Kaden Lane and his friends never intended for their work to tear the world apart.  They sought enlightenment and betterment of humankind, and instead global unrest spreads as agents manipulate governments and civilians for their own power and ends.  A final confrontation is coming to a head, the question is, can humanity and post-humans come to peaceful co-existence, and if they can't, can they survive?

This near-future, political science-fiction thriller starts with major world powers manipulated to the cusp of World War.  Revolution is happening, and with it fear of persecution, fear of the different, the unknown, and of becoming obsolete.

An excellent trans-humanist novel, raising questions of humanity and morality, and maybe the next evolution of humankind.

Advanced Reader Copy copy courtesy of Netgalley; differences may exist between uncorrected galley text and the final edition.