Earth’s greatest protection will become its biggest threat.
When the Confederation gathers a grand armada ostensibly to liberate Earth from the Boxans, the crew of the Athena must stop them before it’s too late.
Some species believe they can avoid war and endure the oppression of the Confederation while others choose to resist. The Athena and her crew struggle to keep the Star Alliance from splintering apart by offering them something unthinkable.
Ascension, is the final book in the Ascension series, an action-packed space opera saga that spans worlds. A journey that began when the brave crew of the Athena left Earth to investigate an alien structure discovered in the furthest reaches of the solar system will now come to an end.
Ken Lozito is the best-selling author of multiple science fiction series, including First Colony, Ascension, & Federation Chronicles. He writes about first contact, colonization, exploration, heroic tales, redemption stories, and old-fashion adventure stories with rich and interesting characters. He’s had over a million books sold and loves the fact he’s been able to reach so many amazing readers with his stories. Readers have lost precious hours of sleep while they read just one more page.
Ken worked in IT Security for almost twenty years before becoming a full-time author. When not writing, he enjoys hiking, reading, playing with the dog, and binge-watching shows.
You can find out more about Ken and upcoming books on his website at http://kenlozito.com
The series ends in a satisfying way that makes me want to see what happens next.
This is the second time I've tried to review this book for some reason it hasn't accepted it on Amazon. It is a great ending of this third person omniscient series. I usually don't like third person omniscient mainly because it's really easy to screw up and continues to pull the reader out of the story with each head hopping moment. The series doesn't really do that too much but was more noticeable in the first couple books than the last half the series. The Sci-Fi adventure is soft sci-fi with out too complicated of a story. While there are main protagonist we do spend an abnormal amount of time away from them in points of views that expands what's happening across the Galaxy. I would have rather spent more time with Central characters but the overarching story was made to feel larger within the small amount of pages because of the style.
I do feel that a couple subplots were not quite tied up and this last book but that I feel is more because of sheer amount of work the author has put out and how potentially minor the subplots were despite showing up in previous books. The ending did leave me wanting more which is great for a series. I do feel that there was a few points that could have paid off better if certain characters were able to meet up again to have an epic face off, however other characters were able to step in and still make a credible fight of it. I do feel there was an antagonist who's end felt almost off screen because it happened during a fight between two other main characters. Literally you hear a noise the character looks over and the other character is dead. But it was a minor side character that hadn't really been prominent in the past couple books.
This author does have certain tails that is common in all his books. He uses the same technical jargon and elements but rehashes them in such a way that feels appropriate for each story. The use of cerebral implants enhanced with nanotechnology, smart body armor and hud systems as well as Halo screens seem to pop up in each of his stories. I think the author has gotten used to the same ingredients but keeps making different types of cake with it. It may get old quick if he continues to do it with new series. I also noticed that he uses similar words in certain situations. When a character is feeling emotional their throat thickens which is odd because it is every time. It isn't that it becomes hard to breathe or they can't speak because their throat has tightened with emotion. Each every time a character experiences sadness their throat thickens. It's always fun to find that one word or situation and author continues to use multiple times in their series.
okay back to the series itself it is a worthwhile read on Kindle unlimited and a great addition to anyone's library.
For me, a 3-star review means "...when you read it to the end, put it down and proceed to forget all about it in the next instant."
Sadly, this book was a whimper of an end for me out of the series. Over the course of this series, I increasingly felt like the books were filling pages with barely average stuff, and I ceased to care. The book simply failed to make me care about the story or characters, and didn't hold excitement.
In this final installment, the crew of the Athena forms an alliance with the Boxans and various added species to try to end the scourge of the Xiingans. Athena the ship/AI continues to get smarter, humans continue to act slightly dumb, and other aliens are do predictable and uninteresting things in this ultimate battle - like move ships around, launch nuclear warhead bombs, get ships blown up, blow ships up, punch thru space using wormholes, and general win or lose.
A solution to the Xiingin influence appears virtually out of nowhere, and works with no false starts. Enemies of the Xiingin can now dispatch important Xiingin with a 1-page-long fight, after having lost similar fights for 5 previous books. The problem of how to disable the Star Shield is discovered with the experiment of an idea or two (without real explanation of solution). Emotional linkages between characters are uninspired, and unemotional.
Yawn.
By about 20% into this installment, I found myself skimming entire pages, and scrolling to the next, hoping I would recognize an interesting passage that I could slow down & enjoy a bit. That happened from time to time, but nowhere near often enough.
Kind of a bummer, too, because I enjoyed some of the prior installments. Three stars is maybe a bit generous, but I don't want to crap on this any more than this review already has.
This series was great from beginning to end and leaves the possibility of more to come - Ken...? Such a great plot, themes of friendship, loyalty across the universe. Good use of alien technology without blowing your mind with techno talk and leaving you feeling you should have some sort of PHd in astrophysics or the like! The characters become friends, even the AI and you follow them throughout their intrepid journey. These books could have been longer with more time spent on the planets instead of skipping time and there would have been no loss only gain!!! This would have made them long though and slowed the pace, I guess... Highly recommend this series and Ken's First Colony series also. He's a an excellent writer that I hope gets on and writes lots more, much faster! (Whip cracking noise) 😁
Problems abound everywhere as we come to the to final book in the series! We find the Athena orbiting the forest moon called Selebus in the Nerva star system, where it had been for the past five months since they'd rescued Boxan refugees from Sethion. When they’d first arrived, Zack thought they’d only have to stay for another month before they could go home, but he’d underestimated the difficulty of undoing what he'd done to save Earth. He'd used Drar technology to realign the shroud that surrounded Earth's star system into a massive shield capable of repelling a fleet of Xiiginn warships, and Xiiginns had lost half their fleet in the battle. But now they are cut off from the solar system with nothing able to get past the shield in either direction! Thanks to the merging of the Drar AI and Knowledge treasure trove of information with the Athena, Athena now is far superior to any system the Boxans have, and has determined that ."Every data model I've run that puts all the ships in the Alliance against the Confederation Armada results in the total annihilation of the Star Alliance fleet,"
Kaylan is now an honorary member of the Mardoxian Sect and the first non-Boxan able to join their ranks, however some members of the Alliance which have respect for Kaylan's abilities and appreciate what the Athena crew has done, still view humans as a primitive species, including some Boxans are concerned," The two Boxan ambassadors are squared off against each other in verbal sparring matches over, making room for and; sharing resources with reintegration the rescued survivors of the homework with the Boxan colony. Back on Earth, Ed Johson, CEO of the Dux Corp, along with his assistant and Protector, Iris Barrett, are busy ferreting out humans terrorist groups which under the Xiiginn influence and causing untold damage to uniting the nations of earth into an effective planetary defense force.
Battles will be fought in space and on the ground in Alliance and on earth and some of the characters we have come to respect and cheer for will again be lost or sacrificed. Will the crew of Athena survive? What will happen to the Athena we have all come to love as much as we do her crew?
I couldn't stop reading! So left the review for the last book in this six book series. Now I am grieving for the loss of my companions as I travelled with them through all their discoveries and adventures. It is a compelling twist on first contact and the series story is intriguing in its validation of the human concepts of alien interaction and the sense of family among the crew of the Athena. I hate it when a brilliant series like this ends....I am at a loss. I want it to go on and on. Then endings are always like falling off a cliff that dumps you in an ocean of grief that you never again will travel the stars with these enigmatic heroes. Well done Mr Lozito. Now off to read some more of your sagas. I hope this story gets picked up for a film of better tv series.
I don't know why I had to finish this entire series. I liked some of the characters, I guess. This guy's aliens are a joke. 99% of the species on our own planet don't have curves and boobs, but aliens from another world do? Really? Mark down another author who "just wants to write about outer space" so short-cuts his aliens through the "Star Trek" how-to manual. And he doesn't even have "but I was doing hard science fiction otherwise" as an excuse for cutting corners with Bad Biology. Hard Sci-Fi this is not.
And yet, I read all six books. There was potential in there, somewhere.
Oh my GOD!! Not being one to take the Lord's name in vain... the ending leaves me with those three words. If you look at my reviews, I typically leave stars only unless I am particularly fond of an author's writing style & substance. This series was truly inspiring and a 'can't put down' read. Then you get to the end of the last book and are so floored with it that while having a GREAT ending, you still want more (or another series; hint hint Mr. Lozito.) I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS SERIES PEOPLE!!! PICK IT UP ASAP!
You said you read all the reviews Ken! Thanks for this series I have thoroughly enjoyed it.
I have read every book of yours I can find on Amazon. I truly enjoy your storytelling. In this series, I appreciated the character development, foreshadowing and how you switched view points to move the story along. In each novel you chose to continue the story after the climax wrapping up the various sub plots and setting the stage for the next one in the series. Thank you for that! I can't wait to discover your next book. Keep at it.
I read all of the books in the series and it’s pretty good. I feel like the series ended well and in a manner that could be continued with a whole different storyline. For me the one weakness of the series is that the aliens are all too human but the story itself overcame it so I’m still a happy camper.
Give it a shot if you don’t want something too heavy but interesting enough to keep you reading.
This whole series has kept me enthralled. From some of the previous reviews I didn’t expect it to be so compelling but I read from one book to the next almost without stopping. Kaylan and Zack are two of my favorite characters in sci fi today. Athena is definitely my favorite computer! If you like science fiction you are going to love this Ken Lozito drama.
Started with Colony and so much enjoyed Lozito’s writing that I went to this series. Even better and very well written. Characters are great. As an MIT grad myself enjoyed the plug! Have read sci fi for almost 70 years from Heinlein and Asimov to the latest young writers. Lozito is in this class. Love the way he brings in the computer and Athena. Keep up the great work!
A great saga encapsulating our 1st encounter with alien species. I found it easy to identify with all the many personalities and walk in their shoes. The bad guys were really bad which created an almost impossible challenge. Humans had to encounter the results of decisions made by the different species and then figure out how to overcome their weaknesses.
Thanks Ken for sharing your great imagination with great story telling. Cheers G**2
A book of two halves. The tale started strongly with burgeoning intrigue and threat, but there came a noticeable point where it began to feel like the author got bored and decided to move on, wrapping up threads at breakneck pace. The final chapter tried to set up the idea of sequels, but it’s hard to notice after receiving a boomerang to the face.
Overall it’s a decent series, but not groundbreaking. If you’re after a distraction it’ll do fine.
Earth is under attack from within by th Xiingiins and from without by the constriction of the Star Shroud. Elsewhere in the universe, Zach and Athena try to figure out a way to combat the Xiingiins mental control over other species and the rest of the crew work with the Boxens and Nerschals to form an Alliance to combat the Confederation. Everything leads to a final confrontation that changes the universe.
One of the best series that I have read in a long time. I hope the author decides to create more on this series. I held up reading more of my unread books just so I could read the next in the series. I was hooked. I think that most sci-fi readers think what would we do if we were openly visited by 2 or more species, and who of them would be looking out for our best interest and who were out to take advantage of us, and how wpuld we ever unite our waring factions to protect our world!
I loved the 6th and final book Ascension, this was a great story and I felt that the direction and the characters stayed true with the story line. I haven't read a bad group of books yet by Ken Lozito, as long as he keeps writing, I will keep reading, if you like really good sci-fi read this series.
I liked the First Colony series by Ken Lozito and frankly approached this series with some suspicion as I had doubts that I would find another great series by the same author. I happy to say that I was mistaken.
This story is really well conceived and written. I recommend both series to any science fiction reader.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This book continues the development of human, alien and the modified AI, Athena. The discussions of strategies of the opposing forces, actions and reactions , make this an excellent read that will capture your attention and leave you wishing for another episode. I have read all 6 books and rate them 5 stars.
One of the best space opera I read in recent times. While there are not too many plot twists and at times certain subjects felt a bit hurried like drars over all its a so,I’d page turner. Now the question is would the author dare write another book on it and explore the humanities next role or leave it here!
I didn’t leave a review for the first five books in this series because I had to read the next one first! And so here we are having read all 6 in the series. I really have no words for how great this series is. The characters are well structured but most of all it gives me hope our future could be like this, problems worked out and a great hope for the future.
The final book in the Ascension series completes the plot lines as well as setting up the possibilities of others. Some could say it was too neat a tie up, but there were some messes left and I still have questions. An excellent and exciting read about humans encountering new races and new technologies.
This series expounds on Humanity’s first contacts with several competing civilizations. For Earth, surviving its coming out wont be easy!
Ken Lozito’s fluid style brought this story to life with uncommon dexterity. The multidimensional depth of his characters - a rather rare occurrence in sci-fi - is quite satisfying.
Loved this book and the complete series, fully recommended. The characters are well defined and the story captures my imagination. I have a hope that Ken will take up the story about how Zack and Kaylan plus Athena adventure continue.
I still like the general premise of this book and enjoyed the first couple, but now, it feels like there was so much useless content in the middle that it made the book slow and boring.
You just knew the xiigen(sp?) had a weakness and Zack, Katlyn and crew would figure it out, with Athena’s the help of course. But at what price? Looking forward to this series continuing.
Well this story had to have some kind of happy ending after several billion loses. Really, the good people live (for the most part) and black hats are still.. .. Good military Sci Fi.
Terrific story line. Excellent characters (both human and alien). Bad, good, and in between personalities cleverly woven into fast action. The only thing I didn't like about this series was that it ended.
Would love to say I couldn't put the books down when ibstarted to read them, but life sometimes interferes with my reading pleasure. I highly recommend this book series to any sci fi fan
I can’t tell you how much I have loved this series! Exciting from start to finish! I will miss Zack the most, as I was able to relate best to him. But all the characters are now part of me. And I appreciate that...
Really appreciate efforts such as was put forth in writing a book like this one is. To make the characters and background come to life for the reader like Mr. Lizito has done here is mind boggling. Thank you Ken for all of your hard work.