The Ascension Factor

The Pandora Sequence, Book 3

By: Frank Herbert, Bill Ransom

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Set 25 years after The Lazarus Effect, this final book in the Destination: Void collaboration between Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom concludes the story of the planet Pandora.

Pandora's humans have been recovering land from its raging seas at an accelerated pace since The Lazarus Effect. The great kelp of the seas, sentient but electronically manipulated by humans, buffers Pandora's wild currents to restore land and facilitate the booming sea trade. New settlements rise overnight, but children starve in their shadows. An orbiting assembly station is near completion of Project Voidship, which is the hope of many for finding a better world.

Pandora is under the fist of an ambitious clone from hibernation called the Director, who rules with a sadistic security force led by the assassin Spider Nevi. Small resistance groups have had little effect on his absolute power. The Director controls the transportation of foodstuffs; uprisings are punished with starvation.

The resistance fighters' main hope is Crista Galli, a woman believed by some to be the child of God. Crista pools her talents with Dwarf MacIntosh, Beatriz Tatoosh, and Rico LaPush to transcend the barriers between the different species and overthrow the Director and the sinister cabal with which he rules.

©1988, 2012 Herbert Properties, LLC, and Bill Ransom (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Great series! Excellent narration!

The theme and characters are well developed throughout the series. Scott Brick's narration was excellent as always! I was disappointed that some of my favorite characters died throughout the series, but this is to be expected during times of civil unrest and when a series spans multiple generations. Thankfully the authors did not dwell on this.
The quotes at the beginning of each chapter were somewhat insightful. This series highlights the human need to worship, which can take on many forms, devotion to a supreme being, in this book "Ship," self worship, the worship of power or of others in power.
It features the truth of Ecclesiastes (Ecc.) 8:9 "All of this I have seen, and I applied my heart to every work that has been done under the sun, during the time that man has dominated man to his harm." Throughout history man dominating man to their injury is clearly evident.
This series touches on life after death, religious zealotry, agnosticism and more. If these topics interest you, you would probably enjoy reading the book "Mankind's Search For God" (free pdf jw.org). It examines the history of religion, the origin of specific religions and mythologies, life after death and many other related topics.
This series also highlights our desire to live forever. Ecc. 3:11a "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has even put eternity in their heart...". There are so many printed works that show that humans do not want to die, we have the desire to live on forever.
Definitely a series worth reading/listening to!

Randomly terrible

I don’t know where to begin. My opinion, don’t waste your time. Seems the author is all over the place. Hard to believe this was published

Not a good close to the series.

Destination Void is by far the best one of the series. The Ascension Factor was an okay story, but not nearly as good as it predecessors. I wish the authors had taken it in another direction.

Disappointing finale

Worst of the series. Destination Void was brilliant, but it was all downhill from there.

Rehashed

Too much repetition of concepts and themes from the original books. Almost a retelling. Not enough new.