Wednesday, April 13, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Void Ascendant by Premee Mohamed

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on April 26, 2022 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

The Void Ascendant is the third book in Premee Mohamed's "Beneath the Rising" trilogy, her Lovecraftian Horror trilogy which started by featuring seemingly bewildered everyman Nick, trying merely to help raise his family in a world prejudiced against him, and his childfriend Johnny Chambers, a white girl supergenius whose technological developments had changed the world.  But the first book soon revealed that Johnny's achievements came with help from Them, lovecraftian beings who wanted to consume our world, and as the series developed, it became clear that the things Johnny was willing to do for her own greatness, and what she would risk, was far far more than Nick (and the reader) could have imagined.  And so Nick found himself along for the ride for the first two books, hoping that the greater horror wasn't the Lovecraftian monsters causing millions of deaths...but Johnny herself, until an incredible ending to book 2. 

It was an ending that was apparently meant to be the end of the series, but apparently Mohamed couldn't leave it there, and so we get this third book, somehow continuing the story.  And while I didn't actually love book 2 - I felt the character moments were often pushed aside by technobabble (magic-babble?) that I couldn't care about - The Void Ascendant is a fascinating examination of characters of various abilities facing unstoppable (Lovecraftian) forces, and what that does to each of them: do they resist? do they collaborate?  And how do they react to the discovery of those who do resist, who might not be trustworthy, and who might merely want power for themselves?  There's a lot of really interesting stuff here, and while the lovecraftian stuff remains not scary at all, the character work is really really interesting and well done.  

NOTE:  MAJOR SPOILERS for Books 1-2 are below - I've been very vague up to this point, but I have to discuss them in particular to fully review this book.  Be forewarned.  
---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
For Seven Years, the Prophet believed he was the last survivor from Earth after it was destroyed by the one he once thought he loved, by the one who was really the instrument of Them all along.  Now he serves as a prophet on a world conquered by Them long ago, ruled by people who bow down to Them and who make him perform bloody ceremonies for the sake of "prophecy".  And he rationalizes it all, as after all, fighting against Them only results in the deaths and destructions of millions and billions, while collaboration only results in the death of a lesser amount, so surely this is the right path after all, right?  

But then a spy finds her way into the archive, an archive no one can possibly get into, and the Prophet is told to interrogate her....and while the spy's body is strange and unfamiliar, the voice is unmistakable - the voice of the destroyer he once thought was gone.  And once more she seeks to resist Them, and promises a way of taking them down to her band of followers, a band that the Prophet once more gets caught up in.  But after all he's seen that has happened as a result of resistance, can he really go along with her once more?  

And even if he might secretly want to resist and risk his life once again, can the Prophet really trust her once again - she who has clearly always been Their real instrument, whose ego and desire for attention and control doomed their world and all those he once cared about?  
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Okay yes, yes the story here is once again following Nick, as you would imagine, and as you might imagine, this is a man who has changed a hell of a lot from where he was in book 1, where he followed Johnny willingly and thought he loved her until he discovered she had made a magical bargain to essentially force him to be her friend.  Then in book 2, after he tried to join a force to stop Johnny from more destruction, he wound up back in her orbit....until she made a last minute audible to her plan, an audible that was meant to preserve her own power, which wound up destroying the Earth and casting Nick out into other worlds and universes, lost with everyone he loved dead.  So naturally, Nick is traumatized, and doesn't think fighting against Them is worth it - because after all, that resulted in the death of the entire Earth. 

And when Johnny seems to reappear in a new form, he also no longer can believe that she has any good intention, or that she won't at some point betray them in favor of Them, after all - she always has.  And so you have a story here of two people once again who keep orbiting around each other and now know more of each other and how they've changed than they ever could have imagined - with Johnny knowing that Nick is too afraid to act even though she needs him to help her and those forces she's convinced with her charisma to join her and Nick knowing that she will prioritize her own control and power over everything else, even if that results in taking more reckless actions that could doom everyone else...and who Nick knows will always be tempted by the promises of Them.  And so even as Nick finds himself relying on her and dragged around, he constantly fears her betrayal, and keeps telling others around him that she will betray them....and tries to save the one friend he's seemed to have made in this new world.  

And of course you have still a Lovecraftian story here, where the two of them, their party, a surprise returning character, and more wind up seeking out even more Elder Gods to take on the Lovecraftian horrors that have haunted the world throughout the series, in hopes of taking on one set of monsters with another.  And it results in lots of magical and lovecraftian prisons and quests, and battles, and well if those things are interesting to you, they'll be interesting to you here (they're not really interesting to me on their own).  But these quests, and the characters and Gods who come out of them, really add to the rest of the characters and how they each see the world, especially as they elevate Johnny's unique nature to new heights, which only threaten things more.  

And so you wind up with an ending that puts all that to a head, and forces the two main characters to make incredible choices, with a collision that is just sooooo sooooo cathartic after everything else that has happened in this trilogy.....and that's not the end, for Mohamed doesn't do simple endings, and instead features just one last act, which satisfyingly wraps up the series in a way that of course still leaves uncertainty about what is right and whether the characters got what they deserved after everything else.  And that's something I really appreciated, and made this one a winner, in a way I very much didn't expect after book 2.  

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