Liam Brown's Reviews > The Ascension Factor

I'll add a little more poison to the well; it seems many of the positive reviews here don't focus on this book so much as the series as a whole. The negative ones generally get to the point.

"The Ascension Factor" was written after Frank Herbert's death. Like "Hunters of Dune" and "Sandworms of Dune", it has a silly note of apology at the beginning from the author, though Bill Ransom's preface ("My greatest fear was that I would lose that sense of presence, of good companionship, when this book ended. With Frank, of all people, I should have known better.") is much better than Brian Herbert's ("We tried to make the books as good as possible."). I find myself wondering how many other people have written similar prefaces to their attempts to ride on the coattails of an author like Herbert, and have churned out similar mediocrity out of either incompetence or laziness.

Laziness is a funny accusation to level at the author of a long and complex novel, but I don't know a better way to put it. Bill Ransom isn't a moron, and he's not an amateur writer. But this book is marginally better than Brian Herbert's shabby conclusion to the "Dune" series. It contains similar mistakes. The first 1/5 of the book comprises the musings of several characters and has scant significant plot. Musings, back-story, and reverie pockmark the rest of the book and disrupt the flow of the plot. Characters sometimes repeat themselves in Brian Herbert fashion, but more often, they contradict themselves.

For example, on one page, Flattery (who, in spite of the ethical and moral integrity of his predecessor clone, is a monster on the level with Hitler, Stalin, or Idi Amin) wonders if he's been to hard on the kelp. For years he's deployed all the forces he can muster against the sentient stands, barely keeping shipping lanes open. Two or three paragraphs later, he wishes he'd whipped the worldwide oceans into shape, which he could have done easily. Why would a brilliant manipulator and manager of information commit such a mental discrepancy? Schizophrenia? No, just sub-par writing. Ransom and his editor should have spotted more of these errors.

Some books read like great symphonies, every note in place, nothing that doesn't belong. "The Ascension Factor" clangs along like a bad pastiche of Mozart and Beethoven, starting with a sullen and laborious prelude and ending with an obnoxious cadenza.