Forced Ascent

I was enjoying Demon Accord up until book 6 – I really don’t like stupid and Book 6 rubbed the readers nose in stupid. I was afraid that such poor writing (which just amplified Conroe’s weaknesses as a writer) would make it difficult for me to continue the series. I’d guess that’s part of why book 7 was not as enjoyable as the first 5. What follows are spoilers, so be warned. The book starts out with yet another government official threatening Toni (Chris’s 7 year old goddaughter). I mean seriously. And his response was…zilch, zero, nada, gonadless, ineffectual, insipid, neutered, and just plain negligent. (Supposedly “controlling himself”.) Now, that is not just stupid, but criminally stupid. Conroe admits in his comments, he, Conroe, is anti-authority, but portraying nearly everyone in authority in the federal government as brutal psychopathic thugs gets old after 5 books. (granted, it is a continuing theme in this series, but after the stink-fest which was book 6, I guess I’ve had enough). Not responding to verbal threats is just stupid, and not something I’d expect anyone with even an average IQ would tolerate after Toni’s kidnapping and nearly continuously being under threat from the Feds. The way he gets Chris to Hell is also lame and really difficult to believe – it’s inconsistent with the way he generally portrays Gordon. And finally, the worst thing about ths was after the Feds once again screw him and his over, Chris LIES about it!!! (claiming that he and the Administration are on “good terms”) Totally contradicting his “blunt truth” style. This was, imho, a serious misstep by the author. He should pay more attention to his main character but I think he just can’t integrate his cartoonish anti-authority hang-ups and his narration. The disconnect is jarring- I wonder if he is even aware of what he did? The book was almost enjoyable. These missteps were few and far between, so I’d expect most people who read 1-5, skip 6, and read 7 might not be as put off as I am. (Any adult who enjoyed book 6 will probably enjoy this)

Following the events of Fallen Stars, Chris Gordon must face the US Government. Apparently, they take offense to a being capable of ripping asteroids from the sky. We’ve seen Chris stare down the government before, but at the time, he had Okwari at his back. Now, the stakes are higher than ever, and Chris is forced to work around some of the keenest minds Washington can muster, most of whom want him dead or captured. Meanwhile, the Hadron Collider has been gradually weakening the barrier between worlds, and Samhain is fast approaching.

This is what you’ve come to expect from Conroe. Chris and co are facing down larger and larger threats, with very few allies to aid them. The characters continue to evolve, the world of the Demon Accords grows more and more fleshed out with each book, and the plot is more than enough to carry us through. Another excellent entry.

I fell in love with this series when I read the first two books, then it kind of went down the hill from there. Chris became invincible, almost god like, but each book at the end created a scenario where he had to fight to survive or win, so I went and bought next one.
Book before Forced Ascent, Executable, introduced new characters, and only had Chris and Tania at the end, which was great because by then I was getting tired of them and same things happening under different names.
I got excited and thought Mr. Conroe went back to first two books, away from formula, but unfortunately Forced Ascent went right back to all the mediocre, boring and same writing.
There is action and few good scenes, so I am giving it three stars. Not worth the price, writing is very mediocre, this is a book to kill time with, so getting it for 1.99 would have been more appropriate to the quality of it.

Seriously….I’m done. In all honesty this series lost me the minute they had Chris lose all his memories. Why was that necessary? It’s like losing all the progress he made up to that point. After that, he questions himself in regards to what he’s really doing. Is this something I’ve done before? a person I met in my lost past? Sucks! I kept reading and even bought this book with the slight hope he might get his memories back…no dice. To top it all off, you have him get his ass handed to him by the government? why???? I’m done. The reason I loved this series was because of the cool relationship between Chris and Tanya and the fact that Chris is OP (i loved that). I hate the author with all my soul for what he did to this series. He sold himself to keep making books. Keep making money. He should just have made 4 ~ 5 books in the series and be done with it and start a new series with another character (maybe the same universe).

I give the series 4 stars, but this book failed me in many ways.

The politicians are all idiots. Instead of embracing a very big hero that has a lot of pull with the media, they crap all over him. They attempt to kidnap his god daughter MULTIPLE times and there isn’t media frenzy crapping all over the president and his advisers? They tell the media he is a terrorist and then change their views? They tell the media he is AWOL during the Halloween activity and then change their story as “we were helping them recover”… the list is pretty long and it drove me crazy. I mean the political mud slinging in real life has had FAR less ammunition. I bought the 8th book, but I haven’t read it yet… but if the president is re-elected, if the adviser doesn’t have to take up waitress for all the BS she fed him as advise, if many many powerful ELECTED officials don’t start acting SMART, then I think the 8th book will be my last. In addition, if Chris and his group don’t take this opportunity to destroy these political mental midgets in the media, then I am going to have to categorize this series into “ridiculous land” and move on to something else.

Seriously, this book left me angry. I don’t buy or read books to get pissed off…

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