V. K. McAllister

'Inevitable Ascension,' is a Sci-Fi Dystopian / Steam punk novel, by husband and wife duo Andrew & Sasha McAllister. Together, they work to bring a unique experience for readers everywhere.
The story follows young Violina and Lux; best friends and Hunters, who reside in the land of Eden.

The running theme is of the true nature of man, focusing on his corruption and demise in general. The best friends have just pulled off a museum heist, when they meet an eccentric lady with violet eyes, Vexia. Shortly after their brief encounter, the two girls pass through a rift in time, where they find themselves in Eden's past.

On their mind-boggling time travel adventure, the pair embark on a new mission, to prevent the second sun from exploding and destroying Eden forever. This book made for a thrilling read. Violina and Lux were complex characters, each with their own unique quirks. Violina has a constant craving for peach mango juice, whereas Lux is constantly lending pet names to weaponry and vehicles, as well as coming up with the most ludicrous puns. Both women are fearless, intelligent, and possess the ability to think on their feet, as well as outside of the box.

The tale was elegantly written, with a well executed plot that kept a firm hold on my attention. The witty and often sarcastic brand of humour of the main characters makes this a fun book to read. I loved the political elements of this sci-fi novel and would gladly recommend it to others.

My rating: 5/5 stars.… (meer)

I’ve left a gap between reading Inevitable Ascension and posting a review because there’s one thing I didn’t think was ideal but then again I enjoyed reading this adventure and didn’t want to say that small thing and then have everyone believing that it compromised the rest of the story. When you focus on something flinching but minor, it can give the impression of filling the picture. Suspending disbelief is the best way around things like that, so here’s the parental advisory: fiction is fiction.

The good stuff is the energy and movement this book radiates. There are two girls who dash about in multiple stages of one civilisation’s history, interacting with great events – or causing them – trying to repair the damage and then discovering that their efforts may have been the reason for it happening in the first place. Cause and effect is regularly found to be facing the wrong way around in this epic and the only explanation for running into the effect of your actions first is that the cause really has happened before and the time cycle has repeated itself at least once already. Oroboros entities unite! At the mouth and tail, usually.

The thing that jarred, apart from the Rambo body count, was that the two women suffer highly traumatic injuries and recover far too quickly, both physically and psychologically. Ask A&E. If anyone normal breaks a bone or has a crash, they probably need about six weeks to recover physically and then a couple of months to risk putting strain on that part of their body again. They hesitate, get anxiety and start comfort eating. You can lose your friends by boring and depressing them with it, then go around with angst and an invisible badge that says “Ask me”. Blood loss at the time of an injury also makes you dizzy and then you stay still and curl up so activity doesn’t make it any worse. If you bang someone on the nose, they feel too sick to fight any more – ask a shark. However, when one of these girls gets an arrow stuck through her thigh or another crashes their vehicle down a ravine and has a replacement long bone operation, or when both have their necks cut and all their blood replaced (one without anaesthetic), up they hop and off they go to bounce through another high-energy mission. It’s cartoon-like. One explanation for this is that I’m comparing them to the human corporeal experience but perhaps if they are not the same species as us, just similar looking, other standards will apply which can explain their durability. The other members of their species though just seem to fall down and stay there.

I’ve upset the writer now and given you a jaundiced view of a pretty good story, so have to apologise for the suffering I have caused, every day, everywhere I go as acid seeps up through my footsteps. That’s why I can’t wear Crocs. If I did something else with my time, carpentry and carving for example, I’d be naturally inclined to make stumbling blocks.

The mayhem sprayed up the walls by the main two characters though is far more spectacular and enjoyable. From acrobatic intrusions into buildings to escaping pitfalls, trading in exotic endangered animals and operating enormous warlike scorpion machines from another timeline, these characters really have no interest in the dreary sameness of days. Would you put your life on the line? If so, for what? The characters in this book act first and don’t even think about it. Some people are just naturally athletic, others make efficient decisions and rare ones control the crowd – all characteristics that Violina, the most dominant woman in this, has with so much to spare she can throw the rest in your eyes and be pedalling off half way down the road on your bicycle before you know what’s happened. Cow. Although it wouldn’t be a bicycle, probably just another mechanical death-bot poison bazooka clawed thing that would never fit in the garage. Tunbridge Wells would go into lockdown.

I like the Two Golden Rules:
1. Don't tell people everything you know.

Ignore me and read it. I read this, liked it (honestly), criticised the recovery times, yes, but warmed to scenes where they invade mile high glass towers with zeppelins or plonk into the snows of the Stone Age, replicate themselves in a time loop and run into the same people they were just talking to ten thousand years previously. “Hey! I know you. Where’s my bicycle?” It’s all fantasy but it’s good fantasy and fantasy readers will lap this up because the scenes are packed with imagination, the intersecting cheese holes of time are violated thoroughly and if self-obsessed and unforgiving fluorescent-purple-veined witch women weren’t busy doing this sort of thing, they’d probably be out book reviewing.… (meer)

If you're like me, and love nonstop action sci-fi adventure, then you will love this book. From the very beginning this it hooks you and doesn't let go. In moments I was no longer reading the pages word by word, but instead transported into the world of Violina and Lux as though I had stepped through a rift in time and space.

While embarking on this adventure I couldn't.....

You can find the rest of this review (along with many more) on the CommonBookSense blog!

href="http://commonbooksense.blogspot.com/2016/03/BookReviewInevitableAscension.html" rel="nofollow" target="_top">http://commonbooksense.blogspot.com/2016/03/BookReviewInevitableAscension.html… (meer)