Customer Reviews

Ascendant Sun (Saga of the Skolian Empire)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have to tell you I am hooked on Catherine Asaro's Saga of the Skolian Empire and all her glorious larger than life characters. It is a fantastic story of high-tech (I don't know how she does it, but I am fascinated!), intergalactic characters that fill you with wonder, and terrific romance that makes for an unbeatable combination that reels you into the story.

ASCENDANT SUN is the fifth book in the series about Kelric, the youngest son of Roca and Eldrinson, who belongs to the Ruby Dynasty. Kelric's story is told in the novels THE LAST HAWK and ASCENDANT SUN. You are going to love this golden man who is large, strong, extremely intelligent and a magnificent male. He generates more action and adventure in this story as he has escaped from the planet of Coba where he was imprisoned by some powerful women (THE LAST HAWK) who went to war over him in a role reversal of the Helen of Troy story.

After eighteen years he escapes and returns to Skolian space to discover everything has changed, and the Allied Forces of Earth, due to the upheaval of the Radiance War control the Empire. He only has the clothes on his back, his intelligence and ingenuity to get him through the danger he's in. I was awed by his ability to turn this around to serve his purpose of escaping and doing everything he could to preserve himself and his integrity. I loved all the scientific dialogue between Kelric and,Bolt, a computer inside of Kelric, and the interaction between the two when dealing with life threatening situations.

Kelric is auctioned as a slave "provider" to the cruel Aristos that are after him for his beauty, intelligence and superior abilities. He is a much-coveted prize. Kelric is a man who doesn't like everything he has to do but he has to be flexible and overcome great obstacles to accomplish his goal of saving his people and reclaiming his title. The man is truly amazing. His kindness and caring for people shines throughout the book like a beacon of peace and strength. He is a warrior and a peacemaker, which makes for a terrific negotiator and ruler.

Wait until you meet all the extraordinary people that make you want to know the entire story. I especially liked Jeejon, a woman who felt compassion for Kelric and went out of her way to help him when she was his last hope of reaching safety. By dong so she is given a gift she never dreamed could happen to her in a trillion years.

The end of this book sets up the premise for the next stellar read. This is one humdinger of a saga you don't want to miss. If you haven't read it, order it and the other books on Amazon.com. You won't be disappointed.

Ms. Asaro does an excellent job of giving you all the scientific facts blended with high adventure that keeps you on the edge of a cliff. It sometimes makes you think of free falling with all the exhilarating excitement that it entails as you travel through the galaxy. To me these books are classics.

Male-female relations are thoroughly explored in Asaro's Skolian Empire series. In this universe, humans are separated into three major political configurations-the Skolians, ruled by the Ruby Dynasty (a family of empaths who run the "psiberweb," a network of pure thought that permits fast interstellar travel, among other things), the Trader Concord, ruled by the cruel (and anti-empathic) Aristos, and the Allied Worlds of Earth, a.k.a. "us." The first two are descendants of humans removed from Earth c. 4,000 B.C. by an alien race and transplanted to the planet Raylicon. In those times, women were dominant and treated men as their slaves. That legacy lingers on (particularly in some backwaters, such as the planet Coba), alough in the Skolian and Trader empires the two sexes enjoy a rough equality. In fact, the hero of her latest hardcover, Ascendant Sun, often finds himself being treated as a sex object, a role reversal which Asaro handles quite nicely, avoiding cliched images of leather-clad dominatrices. Her men and women are both fully realized humans. When Asaro learned that I had just read Ascendant Sun, she laughed. "It's controversial, because of the sex scenes. Everyone focuses on that. But I was trying to say something with that book." The source of a lot of the confusion is the cover, which depicts the hero as a Fabio-like hunk. And in fact he is a hunk, but hardly a brainless one. Kelric, heir to the Skolian Empire, is an introspective empath who returns to Skolia from a long sojourn on matriarchal Coba, where he married several times and became the catalyst for a war to possess him (a tale chronicled in her first Kelric adventure The Last Hawk) only to be captured and enslaved by the sadistic Aristos, rulers of the Eubian Concord. As an outsider in a strange and repellant culture, he assumes the role of an anthropologist, collecting data through participant-observation, learning that the people he has known as enemies are more complex and more human than he had believed. As a moral being in a culture which does not share his morality, he makes the most honorable choices he can. The book depicts his struggle, not only to save humanity from its worst angels (embodied in the Trader Aristos) but to find his identity in situations in which his heredity and upbringing is sorely tested by circumstance. Asaro also explores the relationships between humans and their machines, particularly the increasingly permeable boundary which separates them. Throughout Ascendant Sun, Kelric must deal with all manner of machines, from the nanobots which maintain and heal his body to the giant starships which ply space. His dependence on machines mirrors our own. At the time of this writing, my own computer is down and has been for over two weeks, cutting me off from my e-mail contacts and keeping me from printing or accessing the Internet. I am reduced to using WordPerfect 5.1 on my laptop, without even a mouse for company. I can feel Kelric's frustration as at one point he stumbles and breaks his palmtop computer terminal, severing his link to a vital cybernetic helper. Whereas Kelric's people, the Skolians, have mastered the art of "biomech" in order to expand human capabilities, the Aristos have redefined the humans they enslave as living machines. To the Aristos (or most of them, anyway), only Aristos are human-the others are creatures to be subdued and put to the task of serving Aristos. Yet Kelric learns that the Aristos, while deriving pleasure from the pain of their psion slaves-"providers"-are capable of love toward them. He also learns that the differences between his people and the Aristos go deeper than he had imagined, into their very way of thinking, and manifest in unexpected ways. Asaro's treatment of the body reflects a sensitivity which probably relates to her ballet training. Throughout the book are little sensory details we experience everyday-the numbness of prolonged pressure on a thigh, the discomfort of certain kinds of clothing, the pleasurable sensation of other kinds. Great care is paid to the movements and posture of the characters as they move through their world, bringing us along for the ride. The sexual encounters feel natural as well, never forced, cute, or exploitative. Perhaps because Asaro herself is a bridge builder between apparently opposing realms-male/female, science/art, intellect/emotion-she has constructed a vision in which two sides of humanity, Skolian and Aristo, are able to come together, both at the peace table and even physically. Kelric's adventures are instrumental in making this happen. To go further would be to give too much away, especially for those unfamiliar with Asaro's other books. The natural solution, of course, is to read all of them first! I will admit that, as a newcomer to Asaro's work, I was a little disoriented when I first entered the world of Ascendant Sun. It is, after all, the sequel to The Last Hawk, and the fifth novel in the Skolian Empire saga. However, compelling characterization, driving narrative, and deft description soon remedied that. I found myself actually caring about the fate of the people in this book, wanting Kelric to win through and escape the clutches of the Aristos. Her writing is full of poetry, whether specifically identified as such or not. Others have noticed this, too. "People say I'm a poet because there's poetry in my books. I'm very flattered when people say that." As an editor, I have become somewhat jaded by wading through floods of submissions, but this one moved me. That is a rare thing these days.

After spending nearly two decades as a prisoner on Coba, Kelric finally escapes. However, during his incarceration many changes occurred in his family's Empire. The Radiance War has left Kelric's kin either dead or imprisoned by the Allied forces of Earth, who now rule the Skoalian Empire. The powerful telepathic communication link between Skoalian, Eubian, and Aristo has collapsed.

Into that void, Kelric, now the heir to the Skoalian Empire flees by accepting a job on a merchant vessel, but he is captured by the Aristo, who also hold his brother prisoner. The Aristo plan to use the siblings to open the Lock to the time-space continuum portal that will make them the most powerful beings in the universe. Kelric is the only hope to stop this dastardly plan of universal domination.

ASCENDANT SUN, the fifth novel in Catherine Asaro's fabulous Skoalian Empire saga, is an exciting and enthralling work of science fiction. The primary story line is crisp and never slows down for a nanosecond. Kelric is a wonderful hero whose previous struggles (see THE LAST HAWK) seem soft compared to his current troubles. Though newcomers will be lost with the complexities of the tale, they, like series fans, will become gripped by the lightning speed of the action and the radiant vastness of the plot, sending new readers searching for the previous novels. Ms. Asaro continues to rise in ascendancy to the apogee of the science fiction universe with this triumphant novel.

Harriet Klausner

I was really disappointed when I got to the end of this book. Actually, I was disappointed when I got to page 300 and realized I was almost to the end and I had not read the story I expected to read. Too much romance, actually R-rated sex. I began to lose respect for our hero as he seemed to enjoy his capitivity too much. There were some insights that moved the Skolian saga forward, but that really could have been accomplished in a hundred pages.

I wanted more. The ending seemed rushed. I would have rather read another 50 pages and learned more about the Kelric's return to his family, their freedom from the Allieds, and the initial results of the peace talks. I want to know what happened to Dehya. I want to know if Kelric and his father shared their information about Soz and her family. I am not sure this book answered any of these questions. Therefore, I was disappointed. Too many gaps and not enough answers.

I agree with another reviewer that Ascendant Sun was much more a romance in space than a space sage with romance. To Ms. Ansaro, I say please make up your mind. I like a space saga that makes me think in new and different ways, that makes me hopeful for a future where people respond to new challenges, and that combines technology and people in a future that is alive. Yet I await the next Skolian saga. I am curious about the future of their universe, and the return of Soz and Jaibriol.

My favorite remains The Radiant Seas which is a complex story that tells more about the universe of the Skolians and the Eubians and their ruling families. It is a great read with a powerful, to be envied, romance at its core (but almost no sex). If you read this book, you will understand the potential of Ms. Asaro as a writer, and why Ascendant Sun is a letdown.

Perhaps I am getting old. When I was a kid I read science fiction from every era and could not get enough. I remember looking forwards to the unfolding careers of David Brin and Orson Scott Card along with whomever else might come along. The last thing that I would have predicted would be this swamping of the medium by romance writers.

Maybe I have just not been looking in the right places but authors like Asaro, McCarthy, and Bujold have been raking in the awards over the last decade. Whenever I pick one of these books up I am flabbergasted by how formulaicly romance oriented they are. It's not that I am highly anti female writer here either because one of the shining lights of sci-fi today in my opinion is the author Connie Willis who wrote 'Doomsday Book.'

At this point of time it would not be far fetched to say that the medium of Sci Fi looks pretty bleak. Fantasy is going strong, but even the once bright authors Nivin, Brin, and Card are hacks in comparison to their earlier selves. How could the medium move so far away from the brilliant templates of Phillip K Dick and Robert Heinlein?

So all of that aside, I will say that Ascendant Sun is not so dense that it is unable to get the reader to turn even a page. I found myself pushing along to see what would happen next. The subjection of males here is Freudian to the extreem. Asaro plays the neat trick of taking every concievable female stereo type and placing them ontop of an otherwise Herculian male figure. Is that what woman's lib is about? How sad.

Pass this book by. Try Willis. 'To Say nothing of the Dog' is one of the best sci-fi books written in the last 20 years. Try that one instead. It's a slow and unasuming book, but I assure you that if you were to give it a chance instead of 'Ascendant Sun' you won't regret it.

I loved Catherine Asaro's two books Diplomatic Immunity and Radiant Seas. Coincidentally, both focussed on Soz, one of the many characters in Asaro's Skolian Empire series. All the other books I've read in her series, including this one, fall flat. I think it has something to do with Asaro's inability to effectively manipulate with gender stereotypes (though she loves to do this). Additionally, her over-use of soft-porn, "fabio-like" lovemaking scenes leaves me turned off.

I can't stand the Kelric character. There is something so unrealistic and wimpy about him. I think I would like him better if the cover art wasn't so damn cheesy. My god. I could bearly pick up the book, but thought I'd give it a try, hoping it was as good as Diplomatic Immunity and Radiant Seas. It wasn't.

Kelric is a damaged jaggernaut (a kind of cyborg) who finds himself stranded on a planet under the control of hositles. Kelric gets a job, but hatches a plan to escape off world. He eventually is captured by the bad guys and sold as a pleasure slave. Can Kelric escape captivity? Or is he doomed to be an aristo provider?

I really enjoy Asaro's writing style, but I admit I found Kelric a unusal. He is the male version of Helen of Troy. The face that launched a thousand ships... But his physical description doesn't seem that hot. For one thing, he is partially metallic. For another...He's rather...old 50+ married many times with kids. (And if you check out the cover art, the guy looks like an old woman). Even though his youth and beauty is retained due to enhancements this is a 50 year old cyber soldier who acts quite helpless most of the time.

He is captured, asaulted, raped, and subject to repeat druggings and orgies orchestrated by his masters. Even after the drugs are out of his system he seems quite mellow about the whole deal and even reflects at a point that he understands why his the bad guys enjoyed it so much.

I gave up a few chapters after Kelric is captured. I don't mind a bit of torture, but the repeated scenes of non-consensual s3xual orgies, especially potrayed as erotic made me uncomfortable.

_Ascendant Sun_, another in Catherine Asaro's "Skolian Empire" series, features Kelric (who was freed from his captivity on the female-dominated Coba at the end of _The Last Hawk_) and now finds himself heir apparent to the Skolian Empire. The trouble is, everybody thinks he's dead, and his "jagernaut" biological enhancements are failing. But of course, he seeks to regain power, although turns out to be yet another of Asaro's reluctant heroes (they always do what they have to do but they're seldom happy about having to do it) as he tries to pick up the pieces left by the destruction of the radiance war (told in _The Radiant Seas_).

Asaro writes like an outfielder who makes catching fly balls seem easy. About three-fourths of the way through the novel, Kelric seems to have completed one part of his quest when, at the end of a chapter he apparently stares into the face of his enemy (how _did_ he get there??!!). A sentence later, at the beginning of the next chapter, he thinks otherwise, and then discovers the truth--which turns out to be the key to the whole novel. Asaro does all this in half a page. Half a page!

The whole novel is filled with the same kind of faultless, seemingly effortless technique--you'll find in it good science, good sex, good adventure, and sassy AI's, to say nothing of good old plot, character, and action.

Like all the books in the series _Sun_ has an electric charge to it. This is what science fiction should be and seldom is any more. Grab it.

This book is a direct sequal to the "last Hawk" by this author, and it is highly reccomended that you read that title first, before attempting this book. Otherwise, you'll probably be totally lost to references such as "quis","coba" and "Ixpar".

In this book the Hero, Kelric is in bad shape when he finally escapes the planet Coba. He's also 18 years out of date and totally bewildered when he gets back into Skolian space only to find that the empire, to which he is heir, is effectively gone.

This is a full on space opera - with one event straight after the next, which (almost) suitably leaves Kelric exhusted. Unfotunatley, not exhaused enough. At times I felt like I was reading Kelric's-sexual-conquest-of-known-Eubian-space. He was like James Bond, a girl in every port, not to mention every space ship.

Still, despite this, it's an enjoyable novel that also feeds into "radiant seas" and is obviously a set up for (hopefully) a third book with maybe Kelric as the main character to "finish" his story.

If you've read the rest of the Skolian books you'll need to read this one, but don't expect a lot of your questions to be answered. The story focuses solely on Kelric after he leaves Coba, and we see very little of the rest of the family. Kelric does learn some interesting bits of information about the Aristos though that make the book worth reading.

But if you're expecting romance like Ms. Asaro has had in her other books, you'll be disappointed. This book is a boy's fantasy, full of compelled sex with and by slaves, fully described. There is one romance that comes close to redeeming all this, but it's a small part of the book.

Buy it if you've bought all the others, but if you haven't, read the others first.