I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest review.
I’ve reviewed Nicholas Conley here before (Knight in Paper Armor) and enjoyed his work, but Ending Forever is whole different fish. Not only did I lose significant sleep for this book, I’m still thinking about it and chewing on the questions it poses days after finishing. I regret letting it sit in my to-be-read pile for so long, because it’s a brilliant piece of science fiction for my tastes.
Axel Rivers, ex-soldier, widower, and father to a dead son, is at the end of his choices. He’s broke, alone, and suicidal, so he signs up for the Kindred Eternal Solutions experiments as a death guinea pig. Kindred scientists kill and resurrects test subjects to collect data on the afterlife, and if you don’t come back, that’s the price of progress for billionaires who want immortality, right? Every trip to the other side brings Axel in contact with a terrifying specter, The Stranger, and other entities who control all life on Earth.
This book was downright fascinating. The premise is believable (who couldn’t see certain pompous egotistical billionaires in real life funding exactly the same sort of experiments?) and not unprecedented. After all, immortality has been sought by many cultures across the ages, from ancient Chinese elixirs to the philosopher’s stone to the Fountain of Youth. But it’s Conley’s afterlife world-building that makes this book so good: every time Axel goes back (dies) he discovers areas and conditions of the afterlife that set a person thinking about who might be running things behind the veil and what happens when you die.
Axel’s journey through multiple deaths ultimately moves him from bleak despair back into truly living his life. Conley’s writing is crisp and the plot moves fast, so you feel a little of Axel’s desperation, particularly in the beginning. The main characters all have established backstories that are revealed as time moves on, and climactic revelations (I know, I know, I couldn’t resist) and final conflict leading to the end is so satisfying.
I know the description sounds dour, but Ending Forever truly isn’t a morbid book. I found it full of hope and wonder, with enough science to keep it within the realm of possibility. Ending Forever is an excellent, fast-paced science fiction story, and I definitely recommend it.
No Pithy Phrase 