Nexus: Ascension

by Robert Boyczuk

After returning from a 30-year trade mission, the crew of the Ea wake from cryonic suspension to find that their home world, Bh'Haret, is dead. "Screamer" satellites have been strung around their planet, warning of a plague. A scan of the surface of Bh'Haret reveals no trace of human life - only crumbling cities. Their fuel and other supplies nearly exhausted, the crew has little choice but to make planet fall on Bh'Haret, infected with a virulent and deadly disease. In a desperate scramble to save themselves, the crew members of the Ea must each, in his or her own way, come to terms with the death of their world - and try to rekindle a belief in the possibility of life.

Genres: Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Fiction

382 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Robert Boyczuk (that's me!) lives in Toronto. In former lives I was a technical writer for IBM and then a Professor at Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology, where I taught programming, IT security and the occasional English course. I've attended far too many workshops and courses in creative writing, including the Humber School for Writers, Second City workshops in script writing, and the Clarion West Workshop. Over the years, I've published six books and several short stories in various print and online magazines and anthologies. Often, I'm irritable for no apparent reason.

"Robert Boyczuk is a supremely talented short-story writer."
–Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing

"Boyczuk's memorable debut offers 19 horror stories that accentuate the emotional-and often horrid - upheavals men and women suffer from while searching for love....Boyczuk's stories are uniformly excellent...."
-Publisher's Weekly

"[Boyczuk] has a real knack for creepy... (His) stories all have a twist—a turn of the screw—that breathes new life into some of the old forms and results in fiction as clever as it is entertaining.”
-Alex Good, Quill and Quire

“Certain to outrage snowboarders and pro-lifers of all stripes. Infantovores, however, will find a powerful and articulate advocate in Robert Boyczuk.”
—Peter Watts, author of the Rifters Trilogy and Blindsight.

"Well-punctuated with dramatic set pieces and thrills that are often sharp and bloody, the whole thing culminates in a spectacularly messy, and thoroughly satisfying, finale....this is an ambitious novel that delivers on all its promises."
—Alex Good, GoodReports.net

"The stuff of an epic nihilistic hangover."
-Publisher's Weekly

“The Book of David is an odyssey through realms of science fiction, fantasy, and sheer mind-bending madness. Robert Boyczuk has crafted an epic. Creation mythology and dystopian fiction might not ever be the same after this collision.”

Laird Barron, author of Occultation and The Imago Sequence

Reviews

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please note: This book read and reviewed Oct. 2011; updating the review to add disclosure.

Disclosure: I received a free egalley edition of this book from ChiZine via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My Synopsis: Returning from a 30-year long-haul mission, the crew of the Ea come out of stasis to discover their world – Bh’Harat – dead, and screamer satellites strung around it to warn any potential visitors away – saying “hazard plague hazard plague hazard plague” over and over. Left with no choices, however, the crew descends to the surface to try to ascertain what has happened, and to see if they can come up with a way to survive. Can they find a cure for the plague? Is there any hope for Bh’Harat?

My Thoughts: This was quite a story – somewhere between hard sci-fi and space opera, but eminently readable by anyone. The plot moved ahead briskly, with plots and counter-plots and counter-counter-plots running amok – at the end, there is no way to tell who is the villain of the piece. I thought that things were left open for a potential sequel (Edit: the author says there will be a sequel! Yay!) – or maybe we’re left to determine ourselves how things would proceed from here. Edit: I should also point out that this is one of only three books to ever give me nightmares.

Recommended for: Fans of science fiction will love this story – do yourselves a favor and check it out.

[H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bleak. Bleak, bleak, bleak. This book is like being repeatedly hit in the face with a giant hammer which has "bleak" stamped all over it. But although you may want to kill yourself once you've read it, it also happens to be a gripping dark sci-fi debut novel.

From the blurb I assumed this book would be straight-forward horror, but it really isn't. It's rather a hybrid of different styles. I would consider it 20% post-apocalyptic sci-fi, 20% survival novel, 20% revenge story, 20% psychological horror, and 20% political space opera.

It's set in a galaxy controlled by a vast empire, called Nexus. The secret of Nexus's success is that they have special humans called Speakers who can communicate psychically and instantaneously over hundreds of light years. These Speakers allow Nexus to monitor and control events on planets spread across the galaxy. Nexus also controls the distribution of technology to its many worlds, allowing only a tiny trickle of new technology over many centuries (this is called the Ascension project). As a result, a lot of worlds rebel against Nexus by stealing advanced technology and reverse-engineering it.

The main characters, from whose viewpoints we experience the plot, are two crewmembers of a long-haul cargo ship: Sav and Liis. They return to their home planet after 30 years in space (most of it spent in stasis) to find everyone on the surface, hundreds of millions of people, are dead. There are just a handful of other survivors: some are passengers of their ship, others show up later in the story.

The story begins as they explore and try to find out what happened, then morphs into a desperate race for survival once they discover the forces behind the destruction of their home. Just about halfway through the book, Sav and Liis split up, each dragged along on missions to other parts of the galaxy. Their viewpoints then alternate until the book reaches its conclusion. A lot of the struggle they experience is with their fellow survivors, let alone the external, much more powerful forces they seek retribution from. Nearly everybody in this book has their own secret agendas, and plans get very complicated near the end.

The book has a lot of action and scenery to offer, which it moves through rather episodically, shifting styles with each new setting. There's the lonely, creepy exploration on the dead planet in the story's beginning; then later on, spaceship-set battles and political intrigue; a survival trek across the surface of an ice-world; and a chase through a secret facility filled with incomprehensible, almost alien, architecture and machinery. There's a lot of very evocative imagery. Oh, and the climactic scene is utterly gross.

I had a few problems with the book, mainly the unwieldiness of some of the descriptions, and also some strange illogical decisions made by the characters. But overall I really liked this book (I think, though, I need a light-hearted antidote to the bleakness of this one). I recommend it to fans of dark sci-fi, especially if you enjoy the tone of books by Alastair Reynolds or Peter Watts.

[Karl]

This is copy 12 of 41 signed number copies.

[Alfred · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of relatively grim hard science fiction set in a universe where humanity inhabits hundreds or thousands of solar systems. Most of these systems and the most advanced belong to a confederation called Nexus that seeks to expand its influence by inviting planets that are not yet its members to join it. Nexus has a big carrot to offer: technology that is way more advanced than in any non-member worlds. Nexus is so advanced technologically because it holds a trump card nobody else has, faster-than-light communication. This makes it possible to for Nexus to develop new technologies efficiently and maintain its presence thousands of lightyears from its seat of power.

Nexus with all its technological wonders forms mostly the novel's background. A lot of the book is set on a planet with a name too hard for me to remember (Bhaaret, but with an apostrophe and an additional h somewhere). Most of the characters are native of the planet and crew members of returning longhaul ships - vessels that spend decades in interstellar space in order to trade with other solar systems. When the first characters arrive to their native solar system from a trading mission, they discover to their shock that the entire human population of their home world is dead. People at space stations and colonies seem to have fallen to the same plague as well, which is a strong hint towards a deliberately engineered disease.

What follows from then on is pretty interesting exploration of a post-apocalyptic world, detective's work on the matter of the plague's origin and drama between characters. Overall the book is really interesting piece of science fiction with somewhat two-dimensional characters being its greatest weakness. It is definitely recommendable to friends of hard science fiction, especially if darker undertones strike one's fancy. If one has read and liked Alastair Reynolds, Nexus: Ascension should be enjoyable as well.

[Emily Park · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://em-and-emm.blogspot.com/2011/1...

This review is of a digital copy provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley.

Nexus: Ascension begins with a crew on the long-haul spaceship Ea waking up from cryonic suspension as they approach their home planet Bh'Haret after thirty years away. They find that the planet is surrounded by warning satellites, which broadcast the warning "hazard plague hazard plague hazard plague..." over and over again; scans of the planet make it clear that there is no human life. Because their supplies are dwindling and the nearest planet is too far away, the crew of Ea has no choice but to land on Bh'Haret and risk exposure to the plague. Upon landing on the planet, they gradually discover that the origins of the plague are mysterious at best. The crew of Ea have to work together with the crew from another recently-arrived long-haul ship to solve the mystery of the plague and to discover its possible connections to Nexus, a powerful interplanetary government that was previously at odds with the planet Bh'Haret.


This is a book that's packed with plot and interesting science-fiction ideas, but is lacking in characterization. Most of the characters are given no backstory, and many have no clear personalities beyond a few flat character attributes. Liis, one of main characters, goes from a capable, loner woman to a doe-eyed, lovestruck puppy following the object of her affections everywhere, in the span of only a few pages. Sav, the closest thing to a protagonist in the story, has no clear personality beyond generally having good intentions but resenting most of the other people on his crew. Hebuiza, the crew's Facilitator (kind of like the Mentats from Dune), seems to have no redeeming characteristics and only exists to mock the other characters and make his own shady plans. Josua, the final member of the crew of Ea, is so wildly inconsistent in his interactions with the others that it becomes difficult to sympathize with his problem. The other characters from the second long-haul ship that arrives are also flat. The two men on the second ship seem to only exist to increase the size of the cast of characters. The woman has almost no lines in the entire story... her purpose is mostly to look nervous, I think. And the second ship's Facilitator apparently has no traits other than being just plain crazy.

On a more positive note, even though the characters are flat and uninteresting, the plot itself is pretty engrossing. The first half of the book is set on Bh'Haret as the characters investigate the source of the plague and a possible cure. Although the story moves pretty slowly here, the author does a good job of building tension and keeping the reader engaged enough to want to keep reading. The slow build-up of the first half is preparing the reader for the much faster-paced second half of the book, which follows the characters' actions after they leave Bh'Haret. In the second half of the book, the characters do finally begin to show signs of having personalities, though characterization is still eclipsed by the plot. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the twists that the story took; the twists were unexpected enough to be interesting, but not so strange that they were implausible and unlikely. I think the author definitely gave himself enough room to write additional books in the Nexus universe, and the end of the book was interesting enough to make me want to know what happened to a couple of characters (after they finally started developing into real people).

In terms of details, this book had a lot of things I like to see in science fiction, though nothing truly ground-breaking. I could definitely see the influences of other science-fiction works in the book, but in a good way. There were certainly some details that were reminiscent of the Dune books, and cryo-suspension is a pretty common thing in works involving inter-stellar space travel. I also liked that the author allowed appropriate amounts of time to pass with the light-speed travel (unlike some sci-fi works that seem to think that light-speed travel gets you anywhere in the universe in five seconds flat). The idea of the multi-planet alliance that made up Nexus was also interesting, and I'd like to see the idea explored a little more. My biggest detail-oriented complaint is that it seems unlikely that so many planets have humans, or are human-enough to feel threatened by a plague that kills humans. I suppose it's possible that all inhabited planets were started by space-traveling humans; Boyczuk does say a few times that Nexus "seeded" some planets, but doesn't really explain what that could mean beyond the government's distribution of technology.

I am wavering between a 3- and a 4-star rating for this book. On the one hand, the lack of characterization was a really big problem for me. In science-fiction, I like to feel connected to the characters enough that I don't get lost in the pile of themes and concepts that tend to exist in sci-fi books. On the other hand, the plot was good enough to make me want to read a little more (provided the characterization continues to improve). Since I would be willing to read another novel by this author, I'll settle for a rating of 4/5 stars.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this book would make a great movie for two reasons. One, the plot and its requisite twists are perfect summer blockbuster fodder - tightly wound enough to keep the audience engaged, not so labyrinthine as to put anyone off. Two, they'd have to cut out all of the torturously long narrative passages wherein nothing happens. At some point one of the characters - who Boyczuk treated as ancillary for the first half of the book and then to whom he later gave specific narrative focus leading me to ask myself, "Why should I care about her now?" - regains consciousness in some dark space. Boyczuk is obviously fully engaged in his story and can vividly imagine every step that she would take to analyze her surroundings, roll over a bit, lift one arm in a certain direction, wiggle her toes, slide a bit, feel for a wall, and so on and so forth - and he proves this engagement by writing it all down for us. It was about five pages' worth on my Kindle, most of which I skipped after casually glancing at the top and bottom of every page just to say, "Yep, she's still working her way out of this tube or whatever."

Hollywood version: she wakes up, panics for a second, kicks out a side panel, and slides out. There. Fifteen seconds, tops.

And man, don't get me wrong. I'll read a long book with some dense narration but only when it's necessary. I feel like Boyczuk thought, "Well I can see all of this so clearly in my mind's eye so I'd best write every last bit of it down" without any regard for whether or not it was useful or entertaining. He also failed to give any of the characters anything resembling dimension. For the longest time I couldn't tell who the protagonists were meant to be and once it was made apparent I couldn't bring myself to care. The only really interesting character (the more-or-less antagonist Hebuiza, in case you're wondering) was given no space in which to fulfill his destiny of entertaining me for hundreds of pages. There were even characters (like the doom-prophet mystic) whose presence could be removed from the book and not change a single thing, a damning sign that is unfortunately not clear until then end when the reader looks around and says, "Well why were they even in the story?" Those who were "essential" were still ineffective. I tried to apply, "What does the protagonist want" to a few of them and got back the same answer every time - "Uh ... I don't know?" I recognize that it's crucial to obfuscate some of the main plot points, to hold them back so that we're just as surprised as the characters when the shit hits the fan, but there's a difference between that and trying to get me to care about a guy who, when told, "You get in the ship and fly thataway" just says, "Well I don't know if I like it but okay."

"We're going to perform experiments on these cryo-stasis'd people, and those experiments will kill them. You help." to which he says, "Well I don't like that at all but I won't stop you."

"Hey, you've got the plague." "Apparently I do."

Ugh. No motivation, no action, page after page of empty narration.

But like I said, it'd make a great movie! Smash it all together, heat it up, cook it down, and no one cares if no back stories are explained because there's no time for that! The hundred-page slog across the frozen ice planet gets ten minutes of screen time, tops, and retains some semblance of excitement. The plot would have a great turn every fifteen minutes or so. To be clear, I'm not being flip or derisive - I really do mean that. I'll gladly go watch the Nexus movie.

read this book again, though? Never.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Facilitator’s eyes flickered and he stared off into the middle distance, accessing data. “The plague begins with a light fever. After a brief remission, a more debilitating fever occurs some forty-eight hours later, as the virus spreads to the liver and spleen, enlarging them and accelerating the filtering and phagocytic activities into a hyperactive state. Red blood cells are destroyed indiscriminately. Jaundice appears. Then the victim experiences intense abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhoea and vomiting. Within twenty hours, lesions form on the skin, and abscesses develop inside the lungs, kidney, heart and brain. Lassitude, confusion and prostration result. Within forty hours, irreversible cerebral and renal damage, then multi-organ failure. Death follows quickly from toxic shock, hypovolemia—or any one of dozens of other complications.”

Silence.

“No survivors,” Hebuiza added flatly, his eyes focused on Josua again. “The morbidity and mortality rates appear to be one hundred percent.”


***


Exhausted and nearly out of fuel at the end of a thirty-year trade mission, the crew of the Ea arrive home to find their world, Bh’Haret, is a corpse. “Screamer” satellites orbit the planet, warning any ships that pass of a plague that has ravaged the planet, leaving no survivors. What follows is a detailed, exciting sci-fi thriller that succeeds in as many ways as it stumbles.

Nexus: Ascension is a difficult beast to fully appreciate. As Boyczuk’s first full-length novel following an admirable collection of short stories, Horror Story and Other Horror Stories, Nexus: Ascension is a well-written, well-plotted book that, while ambitious in scope, fails to provide any true, three-dimensional characters. The result of that is that, beyond the enticing premise, the first half of the book is a bit of an uphill battle. We’re given a cold opening to the characters, but never given the necessary tools to understand how they’ve gotten to be who they are—and why one character in particular, Liis, seems to trip right away into an almost delusional believer/lover mindset with no indications in her character toward such propensity.

Detail is the prevailing theme of this book, and Boyczuk delivers on that end. For all the character beats that feel neglected or absent, the universe, the world of Bh’Haret and the mystery surrounding the plague and the possible involvement of Nexus and the mythical two brothers at the heart of it all are exciting and written with a genuine sense of momentum that carry the second half of the book towards a satisfying conclusion.

Though I enjoyed my time with Nexus: Ascension, I can’t decide if it’s a universe I feel I could visit again. While the detail and history/myths were engaging and thought provoking, the lack of a heart—a character or characters I felt I could really attach myself to—hurt the book’s overall impression. Late in the game we’re introduced to a woman named Lien, a “Speaker”. Her story more than any feels as if it has hooks for another entry into this world, but to what end I can’t be certain. I’d be curious to see where Boyczuk takes this universe, but not with as much excitement as I’d hoped I would have.

[Bracken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I love science fiction film making, I don't really like to read hard sci fi because I just don't appreciate the tropes and conventions of the genre as it's written. To me (and there are definite exceptions) it feels often like too much description, not enough characterization. This book, on the other hand, had me riveted. The characters have decent motivation and a rational response to the challenges of their situation. The setting is like a Ridley Scott space-thriller combined with the dark tone of French existential horror. Bob Boyczuk found my sci fi sweet spot and tickled it for almost four hundred pages. And then, just when I was really liking the story, someone goes and throws fetus brains and I realized I LOVE THIS FRIGGIN' BOOK!

[Maxe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is slow. How slow? Robert Boyczuk took his sweet ass time moving his characters from place to places. Some oughta hate this book just for this but I personally finds it delightful. I love the atmospheric post-apocalyptic exploration segment because there is setting, an abandoned underground cryo facility. I despise the dragged out strut through ice planet that took like one fourth of the book and is nothing much more than Liis [female protagonist] brooding about her broken arm.

Sav angst. Josua trippin.

I love this book. It's very inspiring lore and setting wise. Not much for character development.

[Remigijus Jodelis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite good hard sci-fi if you're willing to overlook some weak points. I was looking for something similar in style to Alastair Reynolds' books (meaning noir/gothic atmosphere and sociopathic characters) and this fits the bill quite nicely. After reading the slow-going first half I was going to give it 3 stars, but the second half was an improvement with lots of action and plot twists. I look forward to a sequel in this universe.

[Adele · Rating 4 out of 5]

DNF'd 60%. Then skipped to end (sorry 😞!)Very well written and engaging but bleak. One incident in the novel made me stop. Great writer, won't expect any cozy mysteries from him though. Will read more from the author.

[John G · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, the concept was interesting. It had a nice cover too. I got a discounted copy from the publisher this summer and hoped it was as good as Major Karnage which I also got then. Alas, it wasn't. I was okay with the slow pace and dour characters until the very end when the vague and confusing descriptions of the internals of the Speaker's Dome became too much to forgive. I don't like to dismiss a book because it is repulsive, sad or depressing and those are not the reasons I rated it so low. I need to be excited by the plot or engaged with the characters or amused by the dialogue or wowed by the originality or thrilled with the sets or in love with the beauty of the language or entranced by the ideas. For me, none of that happened.

Note: there are spoilers in this paragraph. Some things I might do to tune this up would be to put in a back story about the original twins at the start of the book then it would be a nice twist when YiIda is revealed at the end to be a founder of Nexus. Also, as others have noted, Liis seems to serve no purpose so I would get rid of her or make her the Captain of the Viracosa. Also I don't see the function of Ruen; kill him off in some way that sheds light on the plot or one of the characters. I think the Josua / Sav conflict could be made more interesting and the driving force for the plot line. Finally, I would spend more time exploring Nexus culture and less time waiting for the other trade ships to arrive.

I did like the count down chapter names in most of the book. That was a good trick to compensate for a lack of action and build some anticipation. I also liked some of the clever techie writing centred around the Viracosa in the exclusion zone.

[Michael Drakich · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some positives, some things not so. Some spoilers in this review. I picked up this book at my local Chapters bookstore so had no pre-conceived notions on what to expect as I had read no ratings or reviews. There were a number of things that I, as a science fiction fan, enjoy in the genre - technical details, impressive use of the English language with words most people would have to run for a dictionary to understand, and unique alien settings - all things I love in scifi. The trouble was, for three quarters of the novel, these things were wrapped inside a boring story where the two main characters spend weeks and months on end being dullards with only self-pity occupying their existence. In the final quarter, when the story picked up pace, things would occur without any premonition and a character would toss in how that was supposed to happen. At the end, I did not have any resolution for the two main characters, only hints at possibilities. I can accept that as an ending commonly found in scifi, but in this case I was disappointed in the authors decision to run that course.

[Sarah Maddaford · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book started off with a lot of space travel jargon and several scenes included more jargon that served only to interrupt the plot. In some spots, it felt like the author was actively attempting to confuse the reader (which go figure he succeeded), but readers don't tend to like being confused. In others, it seemed like he was trying to get across this great, transcendent idea and just not conveying it well either way I wasn't terribly impressed. The characters all felt pretty flat and lifeless to me. The few times I felt invested in them it was because I wanted to hit them or scream at them that they were idiots.

This was definitely intended for adults, but I don't remember anything concretely offensive to teenage sensibilities, just a whole bunch of things that they wouldn't understand or connect with any better than an average adult did.

[Matt Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dark, almost hopeless SF tale that is epic in scope but intimate in its telling, like Stephen King's The Stand. Deep-space longhaulers awake from cryosleep to find a plague has wiped out their planet, and they must find both the means and the will to go on. They find both in a desire to seek retribution from the nearly all-powerful Nexus, who they believe has caused the plague. What follows is one of the most grueling and desperate SF tales I have ever read. Survival, will to live, hope, faith in other people -- all are questioned and explored... with no easy answer. When you finish this novel, you will either either demand author Robert Boyczuk pen a sequel or lose all hope that there is any good in this world.

[Lee Gingras · Rating 1 out of 5]

My satisfaction with this book started off high, leveled off until halfway through the book, and then steadily sank. The initial idea is really interesting - space dystopia with a hint of technocracy plus a mystery plague - but there's way too much "and then they did THIS and then they did THAT" and villain intrigue for me. I forced myself through the "and they they journeyed through the harsh icy landscape" scene, which was WAY too long. The writing is painfully choppy in places. The very beginning and end do tie together eventually, but it's a weak connection and kind of a disappointment. I'm kind of surprised I finished it, but I guess I was just determined.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

UGH where do I even begin?? this book might just be one of the most annoying and unsatisfying things I've ever read. This book has so many things wrong with it I'll just number them off:

1) two-dimensional characters (especially with the promise of Liis, who is immediately subverted to a love-object with no personality)
2) disconnect in storylines (500 years??)
3) so unimaginative (Bh'Haret has cement and cars? hmmmmm)
4) boring-ass plot
5) WE GET IT, SHE HAS A BROKEN ARM
6) boring-ass love triangle
7) weak themes/motifs (the whole religious thing was very very slack)

overall it's just terrible. don't ever read it.

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short take: I liked the story; I liked the Nexus universe Boyczuk created and would like to see more stories set in it (especially after the death of the twins whose mutation makes possible the Speakers).

I'd have enjoyed it more if the two protagonists - Sav and Liis - were more interesting characters. It's only toward the end that Sav does more than simply react (and usually badly) to events; and Liis never really becomes an active character.

[Adam Davis · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't find anyone in this book who I liked or was even interested in. The motivations of the characters were mind-blowingly ignorant. The premise for the book was solid (crew emerging from deep space to find that their home planet has been wiped out by an epic plague), but it went nowhere after the promising start. I kept feeling that it was just about to get good - but it never did.

[Scott Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

I fairly devoured this! It was very engaging and the pace was perfect. The author's voice is clear and concise but still artful. I really hope there's a Nexus sequel on the way because I'd love to read one!

[Tone · Rating 5 out of 5]

A doomed mission with a crew that doesn't like or trust each other.
Sounds like some jobs I've had.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if you came back to your home planet after a long-haul run across the galaxy and everyone was dead from a plague?

[Robin Grahm · Rating 1 out of 5]

it's bad :-(

[Brian Gaston · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good old science fiction novel. You don't see many of these anymore.