Ascent from Darkness

by Steven E. Wilson

Book Overview

An international thriller of espionage, war, and love, interwoven with profound, world-changing events. Reluctant CIA operative Stone Waverly travels a shadowy trail from Odessa to Cologne to Amsterdam to Damascus, as agents with terror links evade an international dragnet. Everyone is suspect and nothing is as it seems, in a land where Islamic extremists determined to plunge civilization into darkness battle with Special Forces, Kurds, and Arabs...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0982970781
• ISBN13: 9780982970782
• Release Date: October 2018
• Publisher: H-G Books
• Length: 656 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Outstanding storytelling!

I finally got around to reading Ascent from Darkness and I loved it. Like Winter in Kandahar, it's intriguing plot centers around an ethnic group, here the Kurds in northern Iraq, and provides a lot of perspective about the current situation in Iraq, especially the relations between the different groups. The novel is multi-layered and I found the characters credible and engaging. I highly recommend it.

Another Great Read from Dr. Wilson

After reading Winter in Kandahar, I couldn't wait to order Ascent from Darkness, though I don't typically order until they come out in paperback. This book brought home the enormous difficulties of the Iraqi war, coupled with several wonderfully intriquing romances throughout the book. I love the way Dr. Wilson weaves his tale with such rich descriptions of his characters; I finished the book in record time, feeling as though I had known each of "his" people myself. Both Ascent from Darkness and Winter in Kandahar are well worthy of screenwriting.

Phenomenal "Faction" at its Best!

This is a truly great novel immersed in the current day Middle East that is highly entertaining but also informative. The book was honored this summer (2007) at both the New York Book Festival and the Hollywood Book Festival. Placed primarily in current day Iraq and Syria at the beginning of the Iraq War, it is a multi-layered novel with three primary stories--reluctant CIA operative Stone Waverly torn between his family and love for his country, Special Forces soldiers Tommy Waters and Billy Bates dropped deep behind enemy lines near Najaf at the onset of hostilities, and long-suffering Kurdish peasants Tenya and Jalal--that in many ways encapsulates the challenges and triumphs faced in the Iraqi conflict. Beginning with the Anfel gassing campaign in 1988 to punish the Kurds for supposed collusion with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, the story fast forwards to the period just before and after the US led invasion of Iraq. The chapters tend to be short and focused. There are many underlying themes here...what it's like to be a CIA operative or soldier and having to leave your family behind for years at a time to defend your country, the dangers lurking in nuclear- and bio-terrorism (I hope the terrorists don't get any ideas from the finale of the novel), the plight of the Kurdish people in Northern Iraq, and the ongoing struggle between the Arab Sunni and Shia populations in Iraq. It is a wonderful story, even better than Winter in Kandahar (which I loved), in my opinion. You will love it!

A MOVING ADVENTURE TALE THAT ENCAPSULATES PRESENT-DAY IRAQ AND SYRIA

In 2003 and 2004, the years when Wilson's novel "Ascent From Darkness" takes place, I was doing construction work in Basra, Baghdad and Al Hilla, Iraq. I was fortunate to be able to talk to many Iraqi workers representing the many ethnic and religious groups - uneducated, simple, hard working people - from fourteen to well over sixty years of age. Each and every one of these men had tales of horror to tell. Some had their wives raped by Saddam's henchmen, their mothers and fathers tortured and killed, or children taken away and forever lost. Wilson brings these horrific tales vividly home. Reading his wonderful novel, I feel as if once again I am looking into those incredibly sad and tortured eyes under the hot desert sun. But Wilson's writing also gives us a glimpse of the hope that motivates these people--people who, despite what the pundits say, are so grateful to us for what we had done to give them a life worth living. Wilson weaves his gripping tale through three parallel stories. One stands by itself, the protagonist CIA agent Stone Waverly with an incredible, sometimes checkered, background; Special Forces soldiers, Tommy Waters and Billy Bates, initially young and innocent, but who grow up before our eyes; and a young Kurd fighter, Jalal, immersed in stirring events in the northern city of Kirkuk before and after the American invasion. This novel is extremely timely as the news media ruminates on the events occurring in Syria and Iraq and the pros and cons of our involvement in the war. As I am writing this review, in Kabul Afghanistan, I hear from the darkened city, the Muezzin's' evening call to prayer mixing with my neighbor's TV blasting CNN. In so many ways, this is symbolic of the entire struggle so vividly related in "Ascent from Darkness." As the story unfolds it becomes impossible to put the novel down. Wilson builds the plot, one suspense-filled scene upon another, one tight spot after another - all interwoven with descriptions of a part of the world that few have seen except through shallow, one-minute sound bites. If you want to read a vividly entertaining novel - and at the same time understand what is really going on behind the headlines in Iraq and Syria, catch a glimpse into a world that is a combination of an Arabian fairy tale and fierce firefight, and experience deep human emotions through the eyes of those who are living the headlines, then this great book belongs on your bookshelf, to be read again and again, and shared with family and friends.