Ascendancy

From the author of The Stars Too Fondly comes a queer cyberpunk space opera following a butch anarchist rebel pilot and a sword-wielding femme fatale raised in a transhumanist death cult, whose clashing ideologies and blazing romance may unite humanity or strike its killing blow — perfect for fans of Tamsyn Muir and Arkady Martine.

One thousand years after the collapse of Earth, on one of Jupiter’s many moons, Neev Alpha-Cilix meets Ida Arkimidias.

Neev, a pilot Apprenticed to the Jovian Ascendancy, has lived her entire life under the all-seeing gaze of the Council of Ascendants. Abandoned at the Europan Academy by their mother, Neev and her siblings learned never to question the Neionet or the chips in their heads. Ida, rescued from orphanhood and raised by the militant New Rhodes Reformation, believes that the Ascendancy’s iron grip on the last children of Earth will only end when humanity abandons its bodily form and embraces omniscience.

When a chance encounter at the Academy sparks a blazing mutual attraction, Neev begins to question everything and Ida’s faith wavers for the first time in her life. But their gravity-upending romance ends when Ida disappears without a trace, leaving Neev alone with her doubt and grief.

A decade later, Ida and the NRR stand on the precipice of a new age. One last bloody mission, and the Ascendancy will fall, making way for an era of true harmony. But when an echo of Ida's past jeopardizes the mission, she flees again—this time toward a crew of Chipless anarchists, and the handsome Apprentice–turned–rebel–pilot whose familiar smile still sets her soul aflame. As lies are revealed, tyrannies fall, and war becomes an inevitability, their love may not be enough to stop them from ending up on opposite sides of the battlefield.

With a punch to the gut and a blade to the heart, Emily Hamilton's Ascendancy marks a paradigm shift in the modern space opera, introducing an epic, riveting, queer cyberpunk trilogy about fanaticism and family; anarchy and authoritarianism; the hollow promise of technology and the power of the erotic; transhumanist death cults; sexy space Robin Hoods; and a love all-consuming enough to unite humanity or strike its killing blow.