Thursday, November 3, 2016

Review: Inevitable Ascension by V.K. McAllister


29563845The innocent never waver from doing what’s right, even if it means drowning the world in fire. 

Violina had been burned and betrayed by mankind ever since she sprang into existence. They named her a heretic and condemned her to a pit to live and die in agony. Though she sat stranded, starved and bloodied, she would not submit. Violina, the girl who had been mocked and hunted for rejecting the warped ideals of artificial authority, would lay down her own law. 



Inevitable Ascension — The rapid-fire action/adventure novel packed with a host of twists that will make your mind explode! But not literally, otherwise that would be really gross.

My Take:
In Inevitable Ascension, plot twists and non-stop action make for an amazingly fast and enjoyable read. The main characters, Violina and Lux, begin as 'hunters', mainly poaching for live animals for a post-apocalyptic advanced society in a sprawling mega-city called Eden. 

Their last job, however, didn't go as planned, as they were stiffed their fee to retrieve cloned 'Reichoden', a fluffy form of dinosaur long extinct, with soft down and razor sharp teeth. Cloning is illegal, and the Enforcers or Wardens are coming to shut down the scientific lab that is experimenting with the new acquisitions, so Violina and Lux decide to steal the cuddly monstrocities back, leaving the lab to explain to the authorities how they 'lost' the dangerous specimens.

As is often the case, things don't go as planned, and the two girls are propelled back in time, where an inadvertent act of kindness sets things in motion to destroy their future world and possibly end their own existence. Every attempt they make to correct the past seems to end up making things worse, and the resultant far future seems to end in a toxic world that ends Mankind.

Violina uses her amazing tech and resourcefulness combined with an incredible inability to die to try to save the people of each time era, while they try to end her by any means possible. Their depravity and ingratitude leaves her wondering if the human race is even worth saving?


Content:
Drug Content:
PG - There is some drinking in the book, and a few heavily inebriated minor characters. 

Violence:
R+ - This book seems bent on ending the human race. Lots and lots of people die, in explosions, war, poisons, and flamethrower immolation. A practice called 'Separation' by a group of fanatics in the far future involves ripping a person apart, separating bones, flesh and blood. This results in a tower of bones, a fountain of blood, and a flesh pit. I won't say this book isn't graphic. 

Language:
PG - there is not any cussing that I recall in the book. The D word might be dropped a time or two.

Adult Content:
G - I really don't remember any at all, not even innuendo.

Christian content:
Well... This book is rife with parallels to scriptural stories, just a bit 'off'. The main 'god' in the book is the Second Sun, a glowing hot orb that is a satellite of the planet. It eventually leaves the planet with a message, pulled partly from Revelation, that leaves no hope for humanity and they are left to perish in a toxic atmosphere on a relatively desert planet. People from the biblical account show up, like Adam, Eve, Cain, Enoch, Noah, the A.R.C. The total depravity of Man is pretty well explored, but rather than having a Savior it's pretty well condemned. People can attain immortality, at a high cost. There is a strong culture of death as liberation, and there is some discussion about life after death.

Final analysis:
Inevitable Ascension was written by a husband and wife team, writing in secret apart from each other and combining their stories when done. One would think this would result in a train wreck, but the book didn't have one of those. Instead, it's a cohesive, entertaining (if graphic) post-post-post-apocalyptic thriller that is immersive and thought-provoking. The epochs covered during Violina's and Lux's adventure reminded me a lot of Chrono Trigger, and I considered that the story would do well as a video game. Just hopefully with less blood and gore. Well-written, fast-paced, adventure-packed, I couldn't put it down. Five Stars!

About The Author(s):
V.K. McAllisterWe're a husband/wife duo with a unique approach to writing. We work simultaneously and in secret before combining what we come up with, resulting in dramatic and unexpected twists! Crazy? Yes, yes it is.

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