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Ascension Wars #2

Occupied Earth

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THE FORERUNNERS LEFT EARTH IN SEARCH OF INTELLIGENT LIFE, AND THEY FOUND IT.
Captain Clayton Cross and his crew encountered the Kyra, an advanced race of avian carnivores. They fled this first encounter, but the Kyra beat them back to Earth by almost a century.

Earth lost the war in just a few weeks. Our cities burned, and billions died. After we surrendered, the Kyra helped us to rebuild, but on their terms, confining us to city centers and building high walls to keep us in.

The Kyra indoctrinate our children and encourage them to ascend through a virus that turns them into Chimeras. These hybrids are sent to fight the Kyra’s enemy, but only half of all ascensions are successful. The failures become Dregs, left to wander the Wastes as mindless predators.

Determined to oppose the Kyra any way he can, Clayton is working with the human resistance, and now they have a plan that will either put an end to the occupation, or to us...

559 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 16, 2020

1394 people are currently reading
215 people want to read

About the author

Jasper T. Scott

102 books513 followers
Jasper Scott is a USA Today bestselling author of more than 20 sci-fi novels. With over a million books sold, Jasper's work has been translated into various languages and published around the world.

Jasper writes fast-paced books with unexpected twists and flawed characters. Join the author's mailing list to get two FREE books: https://files.jaspertscott.com/mailin...

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5 stars
504 (41%)
4 stars
487 (40%)
3 stars
178 (14%)
2 stars
37 (3%)
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5 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
Profile Image for Paul Bacon.
20 reviews
March 30, 2020
I really like Jasper's plot lines on many of his stories but his characters don't grab me enough for me to give them more stars. I am not emotionally invested in the characters because he doesn't develop them enough for my tastes. He does keep the action moving along well though, and for a light read I always enjoy his stories.
Profile Image for Jim.
1,230 reviews50 followers
March 29, 2020
I kind of liked the first book in this series, although as I mentioned it turned out to be a horror story, but really didn’t know where it would lead. Well, now I know! It’s still in the venue of a horror story, but it’s been explained a lot more now.

Captain Clayton Cross has had a career change! Boy, is that an understatement. Last time we read about him, he was the Captain of the UNES starship Forerunner, one of three Earth colony ships sent out to find a new place for humanity to live. Unfortunately, he and his crew came across a hostile planet where a couple of his crew-members were attacked and became infected with a life altering virus. One was a scientist named, Dr. Lori Reed, who subsequently got pregnant and delivered a strange child. That child was thought to have been the cause of horror aboard the Forerunner on it’s long journey back to Earth.

The child known as Keera Reed was something of a monster in looks. And obviously not well received by the Forerunners crew. But, they didn’t have to live with her during the seventy years it took them to return to Earth, because one of the cloaked aliens stole aboard the Forerunner and kidnapped Dr. Reed and her offspring, Keera. That ship was FTL capable while the Forerunner was not. It’s crew made the journey in cryo-sleep; rotating out for two-weeks of duty and then back to sleep. The alien ship got to Earth a lot faster and earlier than the Forerunner.

That’s where the story turns really bad. Captain Clayton Cross is now a garbage truck driver! Yeah, that’s about a dramatic career change as you can get. His new job takes him our of New Houston, a walled city, into the Wastes where he dumps his garbage. Earth has now been conquered by the aliens known as the Kyra. They are a merciless bunch of high-tech aliens in a war with other aliens only known as the Chrona. Humans are being used a breeders for their army. When a couple has a child, it is allowed to grow until its teens and then given a virus that will either turn them into Chimeras or Dregs. Chimeras were physically altered humans that took on many of the characteristics of the Kyra and then were sent to the front lines to fight in the war. Dregs were those humans who didn’t take to the virus that well. They became mindless monsters living off anything and every thing and better off dead. These Dregs lived in the Waste lands, were killed when seen, if possible, and could infect normal humans with their blood.

So, Captain Cross, now just Clayton, drove his dump truck to the Wastelands and dumped his garbage. Yet, it wasn't always just garbage. Sometimes, hidden in his load was vital supplies needed by the Resistance. The Resistance wasn’t that active yet, but it did give some hope to those humans trapped in the walled cities. Truth be known, the Resistance wasn’t very large and wouldn’t be of much help for a long time to come.

Clayton had resisted joining the Resistance because he thought they were too few and didn’t have the right leadership. Besides he had a wife who was now expecting a child and he didn’t want to endanger any of that. That all changed the night he got caught delivering supplies to the Resistance and could never go back to the city.

This is a very exciting book. I like Mr. Scott’s writing. Although this book does cover a longer period of time, he makes it seem natural. Every part of the story has some kind of excitement so that none of it bogs down and becomes dull. I think you’ll like what you read her. I’m not sure how the story develops from here, but I know I’m going to be reading more.
Profile Image for Daniel Kupres.
257 reviews
June 8, 2020
We’re back in New Houston and we discover how the Earth and its human habitats have be turned into near immortal soldier breeding livestock. It doesn’t take long for our hero, Clayton to assimilate to his “new normal” as a garbage man. His wife, Samara is in the medical field and little do they both know but the resistance to the Kyra is the reason that each have pursued the careers they chose instead of becoming like Keera and joining the Fight. The Kyra is the alien race that has taken over Earth, scorched most of it and set up the new world to control the humans and have the, breed to create soldiers for thier war against the Chrona. The Chrona are essentially the Kyra but in digital form.

Clayton and Samara secretly support the resistance separately until they found out Samara is pregnant and the thought of risking their lives and losing their child makes them both rethink their involvement in the resistance. On Claytons last run with the resistance, he finds himself smuggling Keera’s mother to the resistance and almost makes it but of course she was being tracked and was assassinated at the very moment of escape.

Clayton soon finds himself trapped outside the walls of New Houston with no way to contact his wife. He decides against joining the resistance and becomes a loner but does find a dog to keep him company.

The time passes, 10 years to be exact, and Samara and Clayton’s daughter is fully indoctrinated into the Kyra’s system. Clayton, Rosie and his adoptive daughter in the outskirts are still surviving but the Kyra has a new admiral, as Kyra has disappeared. The resistance is still fighting but has turned a corner and is ready to make a real attempt to get rid of the Kyra but will Clayton join in?

In this second story, Jasper continues to develop our beloved characters. It’s just that Clayton was such a fighter and leader that it amazes me that he would turn a corner himself and be ready to lay it all down and conform to this new world without a bat of an eye. We can’t always agree with the direction each charter heads in but Jasper allows his characters to develop themselves, so to speak, but I still don’t have to like such a strong character like Clayton fall into compliance.
Profile Image for Manish Sinha.
61 reviews7 followers
June 27, 2020
Took me 2 months to finish this book as it was not as exciting as I hoped for.

The first book was excellent. It was a great example of how first contacts would be more likely to progress. They met an advanced sentient species in the first book which is technologically way more advanced than humans. Not the way we expected!

Earth is now occupied and there is a small resistance group. This group barely makes progress and the protagonist is part of this resistance. He was the leader of the expedition which inadvertently gave away the location of the earth to this alien race. He feels ashamed a bit and wants to make up for it by supplying the resistance with supplies. Something goes wrong and he disagrees with their methods and is now stateless. Living in the wastes/wild, he gets a dog and an orphan.

The middle part of the book just hangs in there wasting pages over pages on mundane details, most of which barely progress the story arc. In the last 70 pages is where all the action lies. This action is just too fast-paced and each sentence kind of explains 5 minutes of action in real life.

The ending is okay, not what he expected and his skepticism was right. Things go sideways and now the last book in the series will cover it.

Took away the first star as the book is not as great as it can be. Took away the second star since the middle part of the book can just be compressed into 20 pages.
364 reviews8 followers
September 25, 2020
As usual, Mr. Scott’s work is a pleasure to read: well-written, in-depth characters, and vividly described venues to pull the reader into the fast-paced action. This story follows Captain Cross, whose space mission made disastrous first contact with the Kyra. By the time his less-than-light-speed craft arrived back at Earth, the Kyra, traveling at faster-than-light-speed, had easily conquered Earth, killing billions of humans and laying waste to most of the land. They fortified concentrated areas in several cities to imprison the remaining people. They were then genetically modified to halt the aging process and were forced to breed children who were turned either into hybrid soldiers to fight the Kyra’s enemies, or into sub-human creatures to roam the wastes outside the cities.

After many decades of oppression, a group of resistance fighters has formed and made plans to attack the Kyra. The story has many twists, turns and surprises to keep the reader turning pages, guessing what will happen next. Will the resistance force succeed or die trying? This book is hard to put down – I thoroughly enjoyed it and am eager to read the next one in the series.
Profile Image for Jarryd Kalideen.
385 reviews7 followers
March 29, 2020
Enjoyable - SPOILER WARNING

An overall good second instalment. There's wonderful world building which shows the ravages of occupation, what humanity lost and how nature reclaims. There's much character development especially with Clayton Cross, who goes from heroic to annoying and , back to heroic. There's plenty of allegiances and relationships intertwining and the overriding theme of who is the greater of two evils and of how easily humans are controlled through indoctrination persist. I did not like how Dr Rath is described as "misogynist" when, if anything, he tried to be a womanizer but died defending women, he showed no hatred towards them. Whether this was an attempt by the author to gain brownie points with the politically correct crowd and/or feminists, I do not know. That one line did not fit at all with the book.
Profile Image for Curt.
279 reviews11 followers
April 30, 2020
The second book following "First Encounter". As the title would imply, Captain Clayton and his crew discover that the alien race they encountered on their mission, have concurred the human race and are occupying earth. As the second book in a trilogy, I was worried that it would be slower but that was not the case for Occupied Earth. The story continues but from a totally different perspective - no longer in space but on Earth. Character development is better than in the first book and I actually cared about the fate of the characters. Naturally, a plot twist (that was not totally surprising) leads us to the 3rd book. The story is compelling enough to make me want to read the 3rd book. Plenty of action, sci-fi, and horror elements to keep me well entertained.
4 reviews1 follower
April 8, 2020
Good but waiting for the bigger things behind it

Good book and thrilling story. Despite well developed, I am still waiting on the conclusion and if will somehow bring bigger thoughts about life in the universe, like Star trek did or Isaac Asimov stories. It can't only be war and conquest. Science Fiction always gives some thoughts about the bigger questions about life itself. Hopefully in this third book we will have this... And more light in the first planet and the other species the humans met on First Encounter.
456 reviews2 followers
June 13, 2020
Not realizing I had the first of the series, I read this one first. And the author did a great job of making it ok. It stands on it's own as a story. While it did have a legit ending, it does make you want to get the 3rd book to see what happens to Earth.
This is the story of what happened when an alien species took over earth, and spread a virus to turn humans into a human/alien hybrid so they could fight more wars and take over more of the universe.
The characters are believable and the story well written.
I got this book for free from Discover Sci-Fi.
Profile Image for Wanda Jewell.
938 reviews4 followers
February 15, 2022
Occupied Earth -

This book is better than the first one in the series. Caption Cross, his family and friends are desperate to survive the occupation of the earth by the Kyra. This book tells the harrowing journey he and his family take in order to be together and survive the hell on earth that the Kyra have produced. All I can say about this book is: WOW! I LOVED IT! I can't wait to read what happens next. As usual Jasper Scott has written a wonderful book that I would highly recommend. It is GREAT!

I look forward to reading the next books in the series.
205 reviews
Read
March 17, 2020
Great Story, Fathers & Daughters, Two Mothers, Hybrid Indoctrinated Children, Mechanized and Reptilian Sentients (some good, some bad)

Earth is being over run by creatures bound to have families bear children who will be indoctrinated into the alien culture as warriors or slaves. Families become torn apart and the children harvested through mis~education to become slaves in the wastelands or soldiers strengthening the Army of the invaders
Profile Image for Lara Gray.
37 reviews
March 27, 2020
Great sequel to First Encounters!

I lo ed the fact that Mr. Scott wrote a great opening covering the high points in the 1st book, First Encounter, so if it had been awhile since you had read it, you would be able to jump right in to Occupied Earth, not trying to remember what happenned before. This is something that I would like to see more of (hint, hint). This is a great set and I cant wait for future additions to come out and continue this great story!
Profile Image for Ron.
761 reviews2 followers
May 6, 2020
Amazing Sequel Clayton is back on earth but it's controlled by the Kyra and they are using humans who they have infected with a virus to change them into a version of themselves. To use as soldiers in there war but not everyone changes successfully.
So there are rovering gangs of savages called Dregs. Can Clayton save his family and free earth this sequel is full of twists and turns as Clayton tries to survive. Definitely recommended
Profile Image for Ami.
2,402 reviews14 followers
September 18, 2020
Occupied Earth is the second installment in Ascension Wars and it is even better than book one. I really like Clayton, Nova and Rosie! The world is well-described and the horrors in this dystopian tale are rampant! I highly recommend this series but the books definitely need to be read in the order written.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this ebook from the author and this is my honest and freely given opinion.
13 reviews
April 16, 2021
It’s Complicated

The plot became increasingly complicated and hard to follow. The Story line became increasingly repetitive with constant identical battles aml g the various protagonists . One really needed a playbook to follow it all.

One principle is killed then later comes back to life ; Her daughter’s role fluctuated from good guy to bad guy to good guy again .

I read Part 1 and now Part 2. Not sure if I’m up to Part 3 .
Profile Image for Trish R..
1,772 reviews58 followers
October 26, 2021
Love this series! It's such an exciting read. The battle between the few resistance men and women and the Kyra and Chimeras. I can wait to get to the next book. Love, love, love Clayton, Keera, Lori, Nova, Samara and Dora BUT I just hate that coward Richard Morgan. It seems to be taking forever to kill him off.

No romance and the F-bomb was used 8 times.

As for the narration: Ben Jaeger-Thomas does a wonderful job on the narration!
Profile Image for Steve.
5 reviews
May 4, 2020
Enjoyable sequel

When organic bird like creatures aren’t evil enough, add some HAL 9000 into the mix and you get some really terrifying foes. Huge improvement over the 1st book, so much untapped potential with this world, especially when you consider that humans always assume we’re the smartest species around.
Profile Image for Manfred.
553 reviews
August 19, 2020
Captain Clayton Cross is now a garbage driver on earth occupied by the Kyra. Soon he meets the small resistance and struggles to stay with them. He meets new and old allies and they fight the occupation and seem to win. But not everything is what it looks like first. Looking forward to the next book in the series.
Profile Image for Maureen.
624 reviews16 followers
April 4, 2021
It's rare that I like a sequel when I didn't necessarily love the first book, but this is an exception. Much more exciting and I felt like we got to know more about the characters. In this installment, Clay is on the run pretty much from page one. It makes the book a very fast read because one simply MUST know what's happening next.
Profile Image for Rui Mota.
31 reviews
August 18, 2021
After reading some critics I've started this trilogy by this book, discarding the first one.
I like sci fi books, and I am more or less enjoying it. It have some good parts and some boring ones.
I guess the author made a contract for writting x number of pages and he had to fill them.
I would apreciate more if someone had edited some parts.
Profile Image for Chaice.
10 reviews
February 23, 2024
I'm not a huge fan of Sci-fi, space travel books, although there are some that I do like. That being said, this series has been one of the best literary Sci-fi journey that I have read. The ending of each page makes me look forward to the beginning of the next just as the ending of one book makes me anxious for the beginning of the next. A definite must read for even casual Sci-fi fans.
777 reviews3 followers
March 21, 2020
Very Good Story

This is the second book in the Ascension Wars series. The writing is crisp and easy to get into. The reader will feel a part of the resistance crew trying to survive.
63 reviews1 follower
May 17, 2020
Great Continuation of the Series.

The series started tough and got tougher. Mr.Scott's aliens are bad, evil and deceptive creatures on the top rung of civilization's ladder. Great writing style. Looking forward to next book.
Profile Image for jonathan sanford.
191 reviews1 follower
August 27, 2020
A must read

Well this author has done it again. Absolutely brilliant and I can not wait to read more. The story carried on perfectly from the first book and the twists were great!!! 5 out of 5!!!!!!
3 reviews
January 30, 2021
Great to read a story that could actually happen . With our insessant search for other life , whats to say that a more advanced life may see us as a threat , or food source . I look forward to book 3
93 reviews
August 3, 2025
Fitting sequel.

The storyline is well developed from book one. Characters old and new fit in well. I loved the family ties that took hold throughout the book. There is no break for the human survivors on earth.
Another entertaining read, Thank you.
Profile Image for AJRXII .
480 reviews9 followers
March 22, 2020
I really enjoyed this and the first one. Cannot wait for next one. Total fan of this fellas writing and I intend to read all his other stuff. Thanks Jasper 👍
30 reviews
May 28, 2020
Can’t wait for number 3

Kept me turning those pages! I can’t wait to see if the Kyra and Chrona get theirs! I recommend this series.
3 reviews
June 12, 2020
A great tale

This is the second book after an excellent first, and is just as good. Can't recall specifics, but I loved Jasper T Scott's writing!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews

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