Review: “Insurrection” by Arshad Ahsanuddin

Title: Insurrection

Series: The Interscission Project Book #3

Author: Arshad Ahsanuddin

Genre: Science Fiction

Publisher: Amazon Digital Services LLC

Pages: 304

Blurb

One man will destroy the past to save the present.

The price is too high.

But it may already be too late to stop him.

Life settles into a routine for the inhabitants of Chiron Colony, humanity’s first interstellar settlement, after the threat of the time traveler Gifford has apparently been eliminated. But the Hourglass and its leader, Admiral O’Dare, are not content to rest on their laurels, convinced that time travel remains a palpable threat to human civilization. When Annette Sutton uncover a possible secret plot to eliminate the principal members of the Interscission Project decades in the past, when they had only just met, the colonists’ idyllic peace is shattered.

Can Martin and his people head off disaster as the Admiral moves to destroy the potential for time travel, once and for all? Or is there a deeper agenda in play? As loyalty and duty become pawns in the race to prevent the erasure of all that they have accomplished, Martin will have to decide once and for all how far he will go to save everything and everyone he loves.

Review

SOMETIMES I’M uncertain what to say in reviews for a book that isn’t the first or last book in a series, but if you’ve already read the first two books and you’re wondering if you should read this one, you should. Plain and simple. This is a real treat. Unfortunately it’s not a standalone, so if you haven’t read the others yet, you should start there. Fortunately, if you haven’t read the first book, Zenith, then you are about to have your mind blown. Holy cow. Go read it right now.

This is everything every Star Trek lover everywhere wants in a series–and it’s gay (whoo hoo!). It also isn’t just an all boy’s club (whoo hoo!). There are some intensely cool women, people with disabilities, and our protagonist is bisexual–and does talk about it openly. As a pansexual, this sort of inclusion in fiction, especially speculative fiction, is supremely important to me. I want to believe in a future where people are more focused on the person they love and not just what’s inside their pants. I understand that for some biology is biology (believe me, I hear it all the time), but in my ideal future world being open-minded is the majority, not the exception. So thank you, Ahsanuddin for that.

The third book puts us on Chiron Colony, in another iteration right after the last temporal attacks on the crew of the Azimuth. Azimuth was a whirlwind of time shifts, double crossings, and gun fights. In comparison this book was a bit more methodical–we mostly only have to keep track of one timeline–and more focused on personal relationships than the other two books. The other two books were perfect as they were, don’t get me wrong, but it was nice to slow down and sort of take stock, and it was (in my humble opinion) necessary to address the woes of Martin’s poor heart.

Martin is an incredible and resilient protagonist, but he’s had a rough go of it. Admittedly he doesn’t remember everything terrible that’s happened to him, because most of those things happened to parallel versions of Martin, but it’s been pretty bleak. He’s immensely successful and has found happiness where he could, but it was nice to finally see him settle down and become the person I think we all wanted him to be–not scarred by his past or tortured by lost love. Whereas in the last book I felt scattered trying to follow all the other characters, we really have some quality time with Martin and it was a good thing. He truly found his center (also–*cough*–it was pretty sexy).

That being said, I know there’s another (maybe the last?) The Interscission Project book in the works, so we’ll see what heartache Ahsanuddin has in store for us. Engage.

Get info about The Interscission Project here: http://pactarcanum.com/wip-interscission/

Ben Brock is a reviewer for The Novel Approach and Queer Sci Fi. He enjoys running, whisk(e)y, the mythical gluten-free donut, and fills his life with bent bunk. He especially loves to discuss LGBTQ+ literature. His website is http://www.babrockbooks.com. You can find him on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/BABrockBooks.