Nexus Book Review
Nexus by Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings
From Goodreads: Her ship is gone, her crew is captured and notorious mercenary Androma Racella is no longer the powerful Bloody Baroness, but a fugitive ruthlessly hunted across the Mirabel Galaxy. The bloodthirsty Queen Nor now rules most of the galaxy through a mind-control toxin and she’ll stop at nothing to destroy her most hated adversary.
Andi will risk anything, even her precious freedom, to find a cure. Stranded with her unlikely ally, Dex, on the unforgiving ice planet of Solera, their plan to infiltrate a black-market city proves dangerously irresistible.
Back in Arcardius, Nor’s actions have opened Mirabel to invasion. As Andi’s crew fights to regain their freedom, Andi and Dex discover a threat far greater than anything they’ve faced before.
Only by saving their mortal enemy can the crew of the Marauder make one last desperate strike to save the galaxy—unaware that a shattering, centuries-old secret may demand the most wrenching sacrifice of all.
Thanks to Netgalley for an E-ARC of this book. I did end up buying a FC for signing, which I then read, but I still appreciated being sent the proof.
Hey everyone, and welcome to another bookish review. Today, I’m going to be giving you my thoughts and feelings on Nexus, the second book in the Androma Cycle [which I can never seem to spell because I always want to say Andromeda instead]. This series has received a certain amount of controversy, mostly centred around wondering if one of the authors did more of the work than the other, and if the book got published just because the authors are booktubers with big audiences. I know there was a big thing where big booktubers who knew the authors personally didn’t review the first novel, and some people speculated that it was because they were too close to the authors to review the novel and say it was bad. The book got pretty negative reviews on mid-level and smaller booktube platforms, and then high ones with people who were big fans of Sasha’s channel, but I wanted to try and give it a chance and see what I thought for myself. It’s super difficult to judge the series based on Goodreads reviews, mostly because people are five-starring and one-starring it before they’ve even read them, based on prejudices. Besides, I always like to form my own opinion based on my own reading, rather than what everyone else says.
In the end, I actually really enjoyed Zenith. It wasn’t the best written book ever, but I thought it was pretty good, especially given the fact that, as far as I’m aware, both authors are debuts. It’s not a bad thing, and the lack of experience is less to do with the age of the authors as it does with how many books they’ve previously written and/or published. The book was funny, the pacing was okay, the characters were a little stock [I believe the phrase some people have used is ‘it’s Throne of Glass in space.’] But yeah, it wasn’t a bad read, and I enjoyed it enough to pick up Nexus.
It took me a little while to get around to though. I just wasn’t feeling it. When I did get around to it, I read it quite quickly, but that’s probably because I was visiting family and didn’t have much else to do during down time.
Nexus starts with a strong pacing. There was a big cliff-hanger at the end of book one which kind of hones the first section of the second novel. There’s a lot of set-up here, particularly as there are a number of characters who get their own POV chapters. However, even though it isn’t necessarily action-packed in the first few chapters, there’s a lot of tension and high-stakes and intrigue from the get go. During this section I really did find myself turning pages faster. The set-up for the start of the novel was amazing, and honestly, if Nexus had continued in that vein, I would be giving it an incredibly high review score.
There were some character POVs that I personally could have done without. I wasn’t a big fan of the Lira ones, although they were essential to understanding the plot. Same with Valen. I get why he was important, but also he was kind of meh? I think the authors do some elements of character well- they are all very distinct from one another. However, they’re almost exactly the same characters as I could find in a whole host of other YA books. In particular, there’s definitely some Lunar Chronicles and Illuminae characters who sort of get some minor changes and wind up in the pages of this series. I was there for the female friendship though, that was cool.
I did still love Andi. I know, I know, she is VERY similar to Celaena [I cba to check how to spell that], but I still enjoyed being in her head. She’s one of those wonderful grey-area characters, and I am sorry but I am such a fangirl of books with antihero protagonists. Andi’s given a lot of development, and I like that there’s a clear character arc in Nexus for her. She visibly grows as a person, which I was so there for.
The dialogue is good. I’m not amazing at writing dialogue, so I’m very appreciative when someone gets it right. There’s a lot of jokes and funny little throw-aways, and I think the book does a good job of giving backstory and information essential to the story in the dialogue in a way that sounds pretty natural. It’s probably the biggest strength of the series as a whole.
The world-building is where we run into a few problems. The world doesn’t seem particularly developed, and there was some white-room issues going on from time to time. Much of what we do get is kind of dropped in, without any kind of context or foregrounding. For example, there’s a scene where Andi and Dex battle a kind of monster, and although they seemed at least somewhat aware that it existed, the readers don’t, so it comes very out of the blue. By contrast, Jay Kristoff’s and Amie Kaufman’s Aurora Rising involves a similar fight with a monster, however we get drip-fed little snippets of info about the monster woven into earlier chapters, so when we get to that scene it’s got a lot of suspense and we’re on the edge of our seats because we know how dangerous this monster is. It has a reputation. Not so much with the creature in Nexus. Obviously, this is only one example, but there were things like certain phrases and things like food or special objects which were only again, sort of dropped in without context, meaning I came away a little bit confused, rather than feeling like I understood the world a bit more. Also, I just couldn’t wrap my head around planets being treated like countries. We never got much of a glimpse of scope, so I don’t know if maybe these planets are like really tiny, but logic says no and I just can’t fathom a single leader of a whole planet.
Writing-style wise, there is some clear improvement from Zenith. There are less confusing similes, there’s less repetition. It’s still not perfect, and there’s scope for development, but again I’m willing to appreciate that the authors are just learning the ropes still. I do wonder a bit about the influence of the booktube personas, since I do feel that if a non semi-famous person [at least in the book community] turned in a novel like this to an agent or publisher, they’d probably be given a list of changes to make or would take a while to get it accepted. I’m not saying the series doesn’t deserve to be published, just that maybe it needed a bit more development first. The plot, for example, was another big issue thing for me. I liked the plot of Zenith well enough, but Nexus takes that very old trope of someone who wants to take over the universe using mind control and runs with it. There is some complexity there. Nor isn’t the standard bad guy with a bad guy laugh, but she’s not so different that the plot is refreshing. I did enjoy the plot of Andi trying to get her crew back, but the rest of it was a bit meh for me. I’ve seen it done before, and much better.
Overall, I’m giving Nexus:
I thought there were some technical improvements over Zenith, and I am fully understanding of the lack of publishing experience both authors have, but ultimately the plot sagged a bit for me after the initial set-up excitement. The high-stakes stuff was cool, but it borrowed heavily from some already over-used sci-fi tropes and didn’t really add much to the genre. It was an entertaining read, but it wasn’t amazing for me.
Has anyone else read this book already or plans to? What do you all think of it? Let me know in the comment section down below ❤
