Science fiction fans see so much poor original SciFi emerging from Hollywood that the standard rallying cry has become “Hey! Look to the pages of written science fiction!”

Sometimes Hollywood listens.

The screen rights for Ramez Naam’s science fiction nanotech thriller, Nexus, have been acquired by Paramount Pictures.

Nexus is a near-future thriller about an experimental nano-drug than can link human minds together. Such a powerful technology can be used for good and evil, as the young scientists protagonist learns when he becomes embroiled in international espionage.

For more insight into the ideas behind Nexus, check out Ramez’s guest post on The Science of Nexus and
Brenda Cooper’s interview with the author.

[via Deadline via io9]

REVIEW SUMMARY: Ramez Naam presents an interesting world and characters 30 years hence strongly grounded in the real life research and speculation he was hitherto best known for.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: In the mid 21st century, a powerful combination of nanotech, software and drugs threatens to catapult its creator into forbidden realms of transhumanism.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Interesting premise and extrapolation of technology and social developments of same.
CONS: Some of the thriller elements feel a bit over-the-top. Some first novel clunkiness in narrative.
BOTTOM LINE: An interesting and intriguing fiction debut from a non fiction pioneer in bio-technological issues.
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I’m glad to be back guest-posting at SF signal.  This time, I’m interviewing Ramez Naam about his new novel, Nexus, out from Angry Robot Books on December 18th.  Full disclosure: I’ve already read this book twice even though most of you haven’t been able to get it yet. I met Ramez at a Seattle-area gathering of futurists the day that Wings of Creation came out, so maybe it was destiny that we would both stay loosely connected in the fabulous Seattle ecosystem of authors, futurists, and many of us who are both.

So here is my conversation with Ramez:

BRENDA COOPER: I’m very pleased to see Nexus becoming a real book.  Ever since I read an early manuscript draft, I’ve been excited about the possibility that more people would be able to read this. So for starters, congratulations.

RAMEZ NAAM: Thank you!

BC: For any fans or followers of SF Signal, this really is a must-read book.  Most trans-humanist fiction is phenomenally interesting for techno geeks like me, but Nexus is a uniquely human and character driven thriller as well as a brilliant rendering of a believable future.  It should interest fans of Michael Crichton, Greg Bear, David Brin, or Charlie Stross alike.

I’d like to start with a question about the genesis of one of the main characters.  Kade is a near-perfect archetype of the starry-eyed and idealistic young men and women who work in tech and science.  What models did you use when you created him?

RN: *Laughs*  Well, I have to confess to one of the great sins of writing, in that there’s at least a little bit of me in Kade, or maybe me as I was when I was younger.  He’s a lot smarter than I am, but probably more naïve and more awkward.  But I really wanted to have a protagonist who, aside from being extremely bright, was really just an everyman.  He’s never been shot at before. He had a normal childhood.  He’s thrown into situations way beyond his depths, and he has to figure out both how to cope with the stress of people trying to kill him, and how to figure out what the morally right thing to do is when he’s caught between a rock and a hard place.

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Ramez Naam is a professional technologist, and was involved in the development of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Outlook. He was the CEO of Apex Nanotechnologies, a company involved in developing nanotechnology research software before returning to Microsoft. 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 is a fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He is the recipient of the 2005 HG Wells Award for Contributions to Transhumanism, awarded by the World Transhumanist Association. Nexus, his first novel, is available in trade paperback the US and Canada on December 18th and in ebook format worldwide on the same day. It will be published in paperback in the UK on January 3rd.

Nexus is a work of fiction. But to the best of my abilities, the science described in the science fiction is fully accurate. While the idea of a technology like the Nexus drug that allows people to communicate mind-to-mind may seem far-fetched, precursors of that technology are here today.
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