Apex

Nexus, Book 3

By: Ramez Naam

Narrated by: Stephanie Cannon

Length: 23 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

The explosive conclusion to Nexus and Crux.

Global unrest spreads through the US, China, and beyond. Secrets and lies set off shockwaves of anger, rippling from mind to mind. Riot police battle neutrally linked protestors. Armies are mobilized. Political orders fall. Nexus-driven revolution is in here.

Against this backdrop a new breed of posthuman children are growing into their powers. And a once-dead scientist, driven mad by her torture, is closing in on her plans to seize planet's electronic systems and reforge everything in her image. A new Apex species is here. The world will never be the same.

Ramez Naam is a professional technologist and was involved in the development of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Outlook. He holds a seat on the advisory board of the Institute for Accelerating Change, is a member of the World Future Society, a senior associate of the Foresight Institute, and a fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

Please note that following customer feed-back, sections of this product have been re-recorded. New audio has been made available as of 23 October 2015.

©2015 Ramez Naam (P)2015 Audible, Ltd.

Narrator choice is disappointing.

What did you like best about Apex? What did you like least?

Story and characters. Horrible narration. One step above my text-to-speech app.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Apex?

I will let you know when I finish READING the book. There is no way I can make it past hour one of Ms. Canon's "performance".

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Stephanie Canon?

Either one of the first two narrators in the series. I have no idea why she was chosen for the finale.

Wrong narrator

Loved the concepts but the narration is killing all the joy I expected to get from this book. Her voice is so wrong for this book.

Worst. Reader. Ever.

How could the performance have been better?

Stephanie, I know you do this for a living, and your characterization of western characters, and even the characters from India varied between very good and spot on - easy to recognize characters by voice, and all of the positives associated with that. However, the reading of the Asian characters - Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and so forth was terrible. TERRIBLE. I was so embarrassed that I caught myself looking around to make sure no one else could hear this racist propagandist novel i was listening to. I've listened to other work you've done, and it's been very good - but steer clear of doing Asian characters.

So this is the new recording?

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No. I was glad for the series to be over, because Nexus was really the best of the series, it was otherwise dragged out, and it felt like listening to the same book each time, but with a different narrator.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

So based on the website, I listened to the newer recording, and I still thought it was garbage. I don't think a female narrator was appropriate for this book, first off. All of her characters pretty much sounded the same, and I couldn't distinguish one person from the next. Why would you have a chick narrate a book where the majority of the characters are guys? She retracted from my experience listening to this book, probably gave me a worse opinion of it, than I otherwise would have had.

Fantastic conclusion to a unique & thrilling trilogy

This was an outstanding series but you don't have to be a science fiction fan to appreciate and respect what Ramez Naam has created with this novel, or its predecessors Nexus and Crux.

While it (& by "it" I mean the trilogy/all three books are included) deals with scientific and computer oriented subjects, the trilogy is also a political thriller with believable dram, humor and emotion...also delves deeply into characters, is full of complex dilemmas with no easy answers, & also explores national and international politics and how the world interacts under crisis, & sometimes how countries create their own. What I appreciate is the focus on characters when dealing with the political, rather than nationalism. It will also introduce some people to different cultures, always a plus.
I have immense respect for what Mr Naam has accomplished...gave the first two books a re-listen before starting Apex, & I'm so glad to have done so, as there is so much detail and information. Glad to have had that refresher before diving into Apex. It's a five star effort, throughout the series.

really good sci-fi read the other two first.

Definitely worth it. the first book starts off slow but it gets better and better. Most of the characters feel human. Good story telling couldn't put it down.

Enjoyable

Lots of people had negative reviews for the narrator. I expected it to be terrible, and it wasn't, so it didn't bother me as much as it did others. The story is exciting, fast paced and feels like a realistic projection of the future. very cool;

Fun story

Didnt like the narration, felt very weak, however it was a very fun story! What an intense last 30 chapters!

great listen

love these science based books. very cool premises. will listen again and more. this is worth the time and money.

Nice apex of the series

The book listens well overall and is an good continuation of the series. I'm impressed by the research done by Ramez and his imagination. Especially I liked the idea of being as close to real science as possible assuming fiction nature of the book. This is what I appreciate in science fiction novels, vs Hollywood style pop products.

On the other hand the book feel longer and less dynamic than previous two, with less action and more psychological-sociological analysis.

The narration by Stephanie is good overall but sometimes too emotional and fake Chinese accent is not always a good fit. Also I found I sometimes got confused by character names which sound similarly, e.g. Kade vs Kate, and had problems identifying characters with Chinese origin names.

Overall thank you very much Ramez and Stephanie for wonderful 18h of a dream and inspiration.