Apex by Ramez NaamMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
Jacket Blurb: Global unrest spreads as mass protests advance throughout the US and China, Nexus-upgraded riot police battle against upgraded protestors, and a once-dead scientist plans to take over the planet's electronic systems. The world has never experienced turmoil of this type, on this scale.They call them the Apex - humanity's replacement. They're smarter, faster, better. And infinitely more dangerous.
Humanity is dying. Long live the Apex.
Read for Aug book group.
This is something I don't say very often:
Did Not Finish
Nope. I couldn't do it. I could not make myself pick up the book and read another page. I ceased to care about the characters. I didn't care how it ended. I was done at page 340, and I wasn't going to go any farther.
It wasn't because of the writing, per se. I enjoy how Naam puts words on a page. His dialog is engaging, his descriptions are good, I felt like I was in that time/place. His knowledge and exploration of what would happen if humans had the ability to link minds was pretty fascinating. My problem was - and I fully admit this was *my* problem - was the story simply bogged down in an excessive amount of details and was taking forever to move forward.
A book group member summed it up as the "Two Towers Syndrome", where the only thing happening is the author is moving the characters around on the page. In this case, for 500 pages.
It didn't matter to me if Ragnan beat Breece with the help of his new friends.
It didn't matter to me if Kade found a way to stop the PLF or whatever they were called.
It didn't matter to me if uplifted Sun Li fought transhuman Sun Li and Ling overcame her Mother to regain control of her body.
It didn't matter to me what happened to President Stockton and his political group.
And, ultimately, I stopped reading. Sorry Mr. Naam. I was really looking forward this book but it just didn't deliver - or, it just delivered too much of a good thing.
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