Kweku Ashworth is a child of the cataclysm, born on a sailboat to parents
fleeing the devastation in search for a refuge in the Southern Ocean. Growing
up in a world forever changed, his only connection to the events that set the
world on its course to disaster were the stories his step-father, now long-dead,
recorded in his manuscript, The Forcing.
But there are huge gaps in the story that his mother, still alive but old and frail,
steadfastly refuses to speak of, even thirty years later. When he discovers
evidence that his mother has tried to cover up the truth, he knows that it is time
to find out for himself.
Determined to learn what really happened during his mother’s escape from the
concentration camp to which she and Kweku’s father were banished, and their
subsequent journey halfway around the world, Kweku and his young family set
out on a perilous voyage across a devastated planet. What they find will
challenge not only their faith in humanity, but their ability to stay alive.
Canadian Paul E Hardisty has spent 25 years working all over the world as an
engineer, hydrologist and environmental scientist. He has roughnecked on oil rigs in
Texas, explored for gold in the Arctic, mapped geology in Eastern Turkey (where he was befriended by PKK rebels), and rehabilitated water wells in the wilds of Africa.
He was in Ethiopia in 1991 as the Mengistu regime fell, and was bumped from one of the last flights out of Addis Ababa by bureaucrats and their families fleeing the rebels. In 1993 he survived a bomb blast in a café in Sana’a.
Paul is a university professor and CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). The first four novels in his Claymore Straker series, The Abrupt Physics of Dying, The Evolution of Fear, Reconciliation for the Dead and Absolution all received great critical acclaim and The Abrupt Physics of Dying was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and Telegraph Thriller of the Year. The Forcing (2023) was a SciFi Now Book of the Month, with The Descent out in 2024.
Paul is a sailor, a private pilot, keen outdoorsman, and lives in Western Australia.
My thoughts: The Forcing was a heck of a book and I thought a tough act to follow, but The Descent is incredible. Chronicling not only a sequel featuring Teacher’s step-son, but also exploring how a cabal of wealthy and powerful men helped destroy the world, this is timely, powerful and moving writing.
After the safety of their home is violated, his mother, brother and sister-in-law murdered and their toddler daughter kidnapped; Kewku, his wife and son board Providence, the boat that brought his family to Australia, and head out in search of answers.
Retracing elements of his family’s journey to safety, Kweku hopes to find members of his biological father’s family still alive and rescue his stolen niece. Fuelled by the mysterious Sparkplug’s dispatches from the past, and Teacher’s own account of the terrible climate catastrophe and war, Kweku creates his own narrative of this second voyage of hope.
Sparkplug was the assistant and sometime mistress of Derek Argent, one of the rich, morally corrupt men who orchestrated the events that have so divided the remnants of humanity. Kweku, Juliette and Leo will risk their lives, their family and their souls on this voyage into the unknown. There are dangers they could never have imagined lurking on the edges of what remains, desperate people and manipulative leaders, many of whom seem to offer much.
Kweku is reading an old copy of The Odyssey, and being a mythology nerd who studied that book, I can see the echoes of some of Odysseus’ misadventures in Kweku’s. As well as those of Teacher and his family in The Forcing. I could probably write whole essays on the similarities and comparisons in these three books, but here is not the place.
There isn’t a lot of hope for humanity here, stripped down to our basest instincts, it’s all murder and sex and violence and greed. Which is a little depressing. But when they return to Australia and the Aboriginal community there, amongst descendants of one of the oldest communities in the world, is hope for a better future. And there’s something incredibly powerful in that. This is a book that deserves to be on the bestseller lists and in readers’ minds for a long time.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 