Tera: Ascendance

by Jon Murdoch

Overview

Millennia ago, we lost Earth. Forgotten to time, and remembered only through tales of the three Masters. Leading a new breed into the future. Their followers and kin learn well from their history, enveloping themselves into their Masters’ words and the lives they once lived. The very origin of their world, once country. Now, on the planet Tera, its citizens have one of the most advanced civilizations, touting energy manipulation and advanced warfare. If only they were to be left to their own desires, perhaps they could evade the inevitability of war. Terarians stand as a lone bastion, a sole force against unfathomable opposition. How could one rebel planet hope to survive against hundreds of alien allies, and their god? Overwhelming power, and a touch of magic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665549226
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	01/13/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	470
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Jon Murdoch was always good at making stuff up, building stories from nothing on a whim. A few characters started from simple inspiration, from various media during his school days, growing into a small world. Years later, while on post overseas, he decided to spread that imagination to paper, cementing his desire to write. Ten years of building from that first attempt and that single world bloomed into a vast universe.

Editorial Reviews

2022-06-02
Murdoch’s high-tech military SF novel, set in the year 9062, tells a tale of “capital planet Tera,” which was colonized long ago by humans.

As the story opens, a classroom lecturer remembers old Earth and its destruction by people who spread “destruction and disease, leaving their original home dilapidated.” Tera, however, is technologically advanced, and its leadership claims to be “politically uncorrupt.” They won’t hesitate to defend Tera from any attack or takeover, using genetically enhanced beings known as Spectres and armored Talon soldiers. Three of the Spectres, known as Master Pride, Master Wrath, and Master Envy, protect the planet. Envy, a brilliant inventor, created Tera’s arsenal of futuristic weapons as well as the process by which Masters Pride and Wrath effectively become cyborgs, retaining some human parts, traits, and characteristics. Pride is a thoughtful, quiet, but stern leader; Wrath is the reactive, fiery trainer of young human warriors. At 13, each human can either “learn all the knowledge their predecessors had known or become true warriors”; like the Masters, those with knowledge invent and teach while warriors protect. Over the course of the novel, Murdoch adeptly creates a complex world and societal structure as well as inventive weaponry; indeed, the Spectres themselves are complex weapons. Much of the work is taken up with the Masters’ teaching lessons to young Teranians, including stories of old Earth; later, the Teranians launch an attack on their enemies, the imperial Artory. The book also effectively shows how, as in any society, greed and power can corrupt. Murdoch’s Tera is a world where Spectres and their troops, or Talons, have vividly described offensive tech that stretches the imagination, including “thought-process controls” and “cloaking capabilities” with which Tera’s ships can “wipe out the entire enemy without ever being seen.” Murdoch, through alternating chapters of lectures about old Earth and present-day Tera, will engage readers with his extensive worldbuilding.

An introduction to a future world that will capture readers with its intergalactic intrigue.

Kirkus Reviews