Wistful Ascending
by JCM Berne
DETAILS: Series: Hybrid Helix, #1 Publisher: The Gnost House Publication Date: September 5, 2020 Format: eBook Length: 395 pg. Read Date: November 24-28, 2022
A Word About this Post
If I approached this novel the way I typically would, you wouldn’t read it. I wouldn’t blame you, because I wouldn’t either. It would just be too long to bother with. There’s just too much that I want to talk about here. So I’m going to do this differently, I’ll provide a little setup, give a couple of pros and cons in bullet points (many of these bullet points would be 2-3 paragraphs otherwise), and then a wrap-up thought.
There’s still a good chance that this is going to be too long, but I tried.
What’s Wistful Ascending About?
For some time, Rohan was one of the most feared warriors in the il’Drach Fleet. As a human/il’Drach Hybrid, he had powers and abilities beyond what most are capable of—flight, super strength, speed, stamina, healing, etc. He tires of that way of life and retires to the space-station Wistful, just outside the empire, and gets a fairly menial job. Work, a couple of beers, and sleep—before starting it again the next day. That’s the kind of life he wants.
And it works for a while. Then a previously dormant wormhole opens up and refugees from the other side of the galaxy (or further) show up. Then scientists from the Empire arrive to study that wormhole. Dangers, soldiers, spies, and assassins are suddenly all over Wistful and Rohan is called upon to defend his home, his friends, and himself.
The Cons
This is going to be a short list:
The Title. Yeah, it’s fitting. But it’s not really an eye-catcher, is it?
The Prologue is one of those action-packed intros that stops just before something major happens before giving us “X Hours Earlier,” “Y Days Before,” etc. Twelve Days, in this particular case. I don’t get the appeal of this kind of introduction, and while I can’t say that I’ve never seen it done well, the percentage is pretty low. I don’t understand why writers keep going back to that device, someone must like it.
The Pros
Basically everything else.
However accurate, that’s probably not that helpful. So let me share some highlights.
In the tradition of William Munny, John Rambo, John Wick, Clay Cooper, and countless others, you have a man of war, a man of violence who has made a conscious decision to leave that to pursue a quiet life, a peaceful life—a life of no notoriety. Then circumstances compel them to return (hopefully temporarily) to that life they had forsaken. Who doesn’t like this kind of story?
Before he joined the il’Drach Fleet, Rohan was a super-hero on earth—or tried to be, he apparently didn’t get much attention due to being on the weaker side. Which is just a great idea for an origin. If nothing else, it makes Rohan instantly accessible to the reader—we get his humor, his references, and have heard stories like his before. Also, by “weaker” think Invincible/Mark Grayson compared to Omni-Man/Nolan Grayson. So technically weaker, but not a major downgrade. Also, hold on to that Invincible comparison—we’ll be coming back to it.
So his father was an alien, but his mother was from India and she relocated to Canada when he was very young. That’s a lot of cultures to draw from, it explains his tastes in food—and it keeps Rohan from being a Clark Kent/Mark Grayson/etc. clone.
Not only does Rohan have nifty superpowers (as do some of his opponents)—the way that Berne describes their use is just fantastic—really. If it’s not the best description of super-powers in prose that I’ve read in the decades I’ve been reading them, it’s so close as to be negligible (and I’m too lazy to dig up the couple of contenders that I’m thinking of to do the comparison).
Beyond that—his explanation for the source of the powers in the metaphysical sense? Think of the Force in episodes 4-6, and then do a better job of explaining it.
(there’s a later explanation of how those abilities manifest themselves in the Hybrids that’s pretty clever, too)
There are kaiju. Or kaiju-esque creatures.
Wistful, the space station Rohan lives on and works for, is the kind of multi-species hive of activity and commerce that’s catnip for Space Opera/SF junkies. And the alien races/cultures that are represented there are well-designed and interesting. Really, if Berne gave us an illustrated guide to his aliens, I’d snap it up.
Wistful is a sentient space station (I’m on a roll with these lately), who actually has legal jurisdiction over the solar system she occupies. Can be a party to treaties, etc. How cool is that?
It’s not just space stations, either. Ships of a certain size are sentient, too. They grow and develop. They have wills and desires of their own—for example, there’s a ship that got tired of being a troop transport and changed themselves (with the appropriate approvals, etc., I’m sure) into a science vessel because they wanted to learn and explore. I’d take a novel just about that ship.
The explanation behind the way the ships/stations act and have sentience, etc. in contradistinction to those of other cultures is interesting and fits in with the world that Berne created so well.
I don’t know how I’ve made it this long in this list (which is longer than I anticipated and makes me all the more certain I shouldn’t have tried a traditional post) without mentioning the humor. Think Jim Butcher. Think Invincible. Think Peter Parker at his best. Think MCU’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Think Nicholas Eames. You get that humor throughout the novel and it’s shown through all the characters in some way (at least those not trying to kill someone at the moment), but it’s particularly expressed in Rohan’s point of view and the way he talks to himself.
But more particularly Rohan’s banter with just about everyone—it’s almost at the level of the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League
Most of the characters—from Wistful’s security chief to the staff at Rohan’s favorite place to get breakfast are so well-developed and distinctive, with such interesting points of view and characteristics that you almost want every scene to be twice as long just to spend time with them.
This is related to the depiction of super-abilities. But these fight scenes are dynamite. One of the problems a lot of writers have with Superman, for example, is when someone like him lets loose and say punches a guy—bad things happen. I remember an old DC role-playing game when I was a kid—no one wanted to be Supes because it was too easy to kill someone. Now, people like Robert Kirkman embraced that, and the pages of Invincible (I told you to hang on to that) are dripping with blood, gore, bits of bone, and the debris of buildings/mountains everywhere. We get the same kind of power on display here with the same kind of consequences (also, several displays of Rohan not letting that happen).
Related to those fights. Seriously. Don’t make Rohan angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry (he sure doesn’t—see the first bullet point in this list)
One more Invincible note—doesn’t that cover kind of look like Chris McGrath did a take on a Ryan Ottley cover? I don’t know who the cover artist was, but I loved it.
Lastly, aside from the Prologue issue (which is my personal taste, but it’s my blog so I get to call it an issue), the way Berne plotted this thing, constructed the story, doled out information, and everything else along those lines was so well done, so impressive that you have to believe that he’s been at this a long time.
Okay, I lied. I have one more point:
Talking bears in space. Well, an alien species that happens to look like sentient, talking bears, who have the strength of large bears, and enjoy catching/eating fish. So….close enough. I’ll say it again: talking bears in space.
So, it’s pretty clear already, but what did I think about Wistful Ascending?
I want to say more—believe it or not. I don’t think I’ve captured how excited I was reading this and am now while trying to talk about it.
I was talking to a friend about Wistful Ascending the other day, or maybe I was just trying to—like with this post, I struggled. I said, “It’s like he’s doing “Scenes from a Hat” from Who’s Line is it Anyway?, but instead of transitioning from one idea to the next, it’s like Berne takes each idea as it’s pulled out and adds it to the story. He says ‘Yes, And’ to everything.—’Sentient Space Station? Okay. Golden-Age Super-Hero Sidekicks who’ve become old scientists? Fine. Kaiju? Sure thing!'” I’d honestly love to know what he thought wouldn’t work in this novel.
And the maddening thing, the thing I can’t wrap my brain around is that it somehow all works. Because that was my friend’s first reaction—”oh, that’s just way too much for one book, the guy needs to edit.” I had to say no, it somehow all comes together just fine, “I don’t understand how, but it’s working great. I’m loving it. I want to become his new best friend.”
And readers, I was at the 52% point when we had that chat. I still didn’t know everything he could do with the book. I wasn’t kidding when I listed two things as cons to this book. I couldn’t think of anything else that I didn’t like.
I’m not saying this is the best thing I’ve read this year (but it might be). I’m definitely not suggesting everyone’s going to relish it the way I did. But, boy howdy, this hit all the right spots for me. I couldn’t get enough of this. And yeah, I want to be JCM Berne’s new friend.
Nevertheless, it’s getting 4.5 stars from me because of the Prologue, because I round up for Goodreads and Amazon, and because I like to give an author room to get more stars as a series progresses and they get better at their craft. And if that half a star dissuades anyone from reading the book, they weren’t paying attention to anything I said above.
This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
My thanks to Escapist Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the novel) they provided. The opinions expressed by me are honest and my own.
