The Descent is both a sequel AND prequel to The Forcing, as it plays with two timelines. One that explores what led up to the climate crisis that changed the world forever, and one that takes the story further into the future and the new post-apocalyptic world.
I’d highly recommend reading The Forcing first, as there are a lot of references to characters and relationships from the previous book. Saying that, although I read a lot of books, my memory for minor details is pretty rubbish (one of the reasons I write book reviews is to remember what I’ve read before!) and I found I had to play catchup here, but I still got a lot out of the story.
Word of warning to fans of The Forcing – I enjoyed that book partly because it ended on quite a hopeful note. This book comes down on some of that hope in the very early chapters (so not a spoiler), prompting our main character Kweku and his young family to sail across the ocean looking for community and answers in this changed world.
Kweku’s step-father left behind his log of what happened in the old world (ie what we read about in The Forcing), but there were some significant gaps, and it’s those answers he’s looking for now. But not everyone is welcoming in the new world and they’ll have to be careful and clever to survive.
At the same time, a new voice is telling their story over the radio. A woman, who we only know as Sparkplug, worked for ‘The Boss’ – a billionaire with influence across America, its president, and beyond. He knew about the upcoming climate crisis and then tried to use it to his advantage. With no power of her own, all Sparkplug could do was keep a diary – and tell it now.
It took me a little while longer to get into her story as she was a new character to me, but the sheer audacity of it all grabbed me in the end.
It’s a shocking story simply because you can see it’s all too plausible. Are we doing enough about the climate? No. Do we still have time to change the outcome? Who knows… A depressing thought. A very interesting read.
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