August 2017

Crux by Ramez Naam

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The novel “Crux” by Ramez Naam was published for the first time in 2013. It’s the second book of the Nexus trilogy and follows “Nexus”.

Six months have passed since Kaden “Kade” Lane publicly released Nexus 5, the latest version of that nanotechnology that allows a direct connection between different minds, and the world’s situation has become explosive between repression and terrorist attacks. Kade and Feng are fleeing, hunted by bounty hunters and governments, but at the same time must try to face events that are likely to lead to a war between humans and posthumans.

Rangan Shankari and Ilya Alexander are prisoners of the US government and are being tortured to be forced to reveal the secrets of Nexus. Samantha “Sam” Cataranes abandoned the ERD and is taking care of a group of childre born with Nexus in their brains but how can she avoid getting involved in the crisis? Kade possesses the secret of Nexus backdoors, will he be wiser than all humanity?

Nyanzapithecus Alesi's skull (Photo courtesy Fred Spoor)

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An article published in the journal “Nature” describes the discovery in Kenya of a skull belonging to an infant of a species of ape called Nyanzapithecus Alesi. About 13 million years ago, the specimen died at an estimated age of only 16 months but it’s not possible to determine its gender. The skull is the earliest found so far belonging to an ancestor of hominids and apes.

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The novella “To Bring the Light” by David Drake was published for the first time in 1996.

Flavia Herosilla is a well educated woman who lives in the imperial Rome when she is hit by a storm and almost struck by lightning. Stunned, she struggles to recover full consciousness and when she does it she realizes that she’s no longer in the same place. Somehow she traveled back in time to the period when Rome was about to be founded.

John Varley in 1992

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John Herbert Varley was born on August 9, 1947 in Austin, Texas, USA. In the mid-1970s, John Varley started publishing science fiction stories and among them there were the first of the Eight Worlds series, a future history of the solar system marked by the invasion of Earth by an alien species. These invaders intend to protect the Earth’s cetaceans from the effects of human activities and for this reason destroy the infrastructures built on Earth. Most humans flee to colonize the rest of the solar system and only a few tribes remain on Earth living as primitives.

In the late 1970s, John Varley also began the Gaea trilogy, composed of “Titan” (1979), “Wizard” (1980) and “Demon” (1984). The story is focused on a gigantic wheel-shaped artificial habitat populated by strange living species created by an alien intelligence. In this series, the author used various elements of the fantasy genre but all have a scientific explanation.

Often John Varley has been compared to Robert A. Heinlein for the themes of many of his stories such as personal freedom and sexuality. The resemblances are particularly visible in novels such as “The Steel Beach” and the Thunder and Lightning series, inspired by Heinlein’s juveniles.

Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp (Italian edition)

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The novel “Lest Darkness Fall” by L. Sprague de Camp was published for the first time in 1941.

Martin Padway is an American archeologist visiting Rome. One day in 1938 he’s visiting the Pantheon when a strong storm starts and is almost hit by a lightning strike. Stunned, he slowly becomes aware that the people around him are strangely dressed and speak in an almost incomprehensible manner in a language other than Italian.

Recovered from dizziness, Martin Padway tries to figure out what happened and, asking for the date in the Latin spoken by the people he meets, finds out he’s in Rome in 535 A.D. during the reign of King Thiudahad. He has no way of returning to his time so he has to try to survive by exploiting his modern knowledge with the awareness that Italy is about to be invaded by Emperor Justinian’s army.