Sunday 26 January 2020

Tomorrow's Ancestors: The Base of Reflections by AE Warren


Tomorrow's Ancestors: The Base of Reflections by AE Warren
Published in the UK by Locutions Press on the 6th July 2019.

The first of my 2020 More Than One Challenge reads.


What happens when the future abandons the past?

Elise and her companions have made it to the safety of Uracil but at a price. Desperate to secure her family’s passage, she makes a deal with Uracil's Tri-Council. She’ll become their spy, jeopardising her own freedom in the process, in exchange for her family’s safe transfer. But first she has to help rescue the next Neanderthal, Twenty-Two. 

Twenty-Two has never left the confines of the steel walls that keep her separated from the other exhibits. She has no contact with the outside world and no way of knowing why she has been abandoned. With diminishing deliveries of food and water, she has to start breaking the museum’s rules if she wants a second chance at living.

One belongs to the future and the other to the past, but both have to adapt—or neither will survive…


This second novel in AE Warren's Tomorrow's Ancestors series, The Base Of Reflections, carries on from the first book, The Museum of Second Chances, and I would suggest that the series does need to be read in its intended order. Warren does drop welcome brief reminders about the first book's events, but I don't think this would be enough for a new reader to really appreciate the detail of her imagined future world. In this story we are given a vision of life for the people at Uracil, a community beyond the structured society existing elsewhere. We also get to see inside a second of the official bases when we meet a fourth Neanderthal, Twenty-Two. I loved how Warren has created Twenty-Two's character very differently from Kit's. It would have been easier to envisage a single Neanderthal mindset, but instead Warren takes into account their disparate early lives. Twenty-Two is so much more guarded and almost expects to be let down and abandoned again.

The little details of Uracil's physical appearance really appealed to me, especially the ingenious ideas to keep this settlement obscured from prying eyes. The contrast between the people's flamboyant dress styles and their paranoia about remaining hidden makes for an interesting dynamic. I'm glad I don't have to traverse those tree house walkways though. Just imagining the ropes swaying brought on my vertigo!

The Base Of Reflections is a great title, in both senses of 'to reflect' because I felt the story contains many of uncomfortable truths about our own ways of living in the present day. Warren doesn't thump an environmental drum however, but seeing her characters dealing with this convincingly plausible aftermath is certainly thought-provoking. That said though, the novel itself is a fast-paced and exciting page-turner which, again, kept me gripped from start to finish. I understand AE Warren is writing a third Tomorrow's Ancestors novel at the moment and it can't be finished soon enough for me!

Meet the author   

AE Warren lives in the UK. A not-so-covert nerd with mildly obsessive tendencies, she has happily wiled away an inordinate amount of time reading and watching sci-fi/ fantasy and gaming. She is interested in the ‘what ifs’.

The Museum of Second Chances is her first novel and she is currently writing the third book in the 'Tomorrow's Ancestors' series.

Author links: 
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Saturday 18 January 2020

Tomorrow's Ancestors: The Museum of Second Chances by AE Warren.


Tomorrow's Ancestors: The Museum of Second Chances by AE Warren
Published in the UK by Locutions Press in February 2018.


What happens when the future recaptures the past?

In a post-apocalyptic world the human race has evolved beyond us through genetic engineering – and we’ve been left behind to make amends for the damage inflicted on the earth. The reversal of the extinction of long lost animals is key to our reparations and all of these are housed in the Museum of Evolution – along with another species of human that hasn’t existed for 30,000 years. 

Elise belongs to the lowest order of humans, the Sapiens. She lives in an ostracised community of ecological houses, built to blend with an idyllic landscape. Deciding to widen her stagnating life in the manufacturing base, she takes a chance opportunity to become a Companion to a previously extinct species of human. 

But Elise has secrets of her own that threaten to be exposed now that she is away from the safety of her home. And while living in the museum, Elise realises that little separates her from the other exhibits…


I was very intrigued by the premise of AE Warren's Tomorrow's Ancestors series so was delighted to find myself thoroughly enjoying its first book, The Museum Of Second Chances. The novel is set some 250 years in the future after a massive disaster has wiped out most life on Earth, including the majority of its human inhabitants. This isn't a grim, just-scraping-by story though. In Warren's imagined world, superior human species are now in charge of a rebuilt society and they are determined not to allow the destructive Homo Sapiens a chance to wreak total chaos again!

I loved Elise's kind of Hobbit-town home, made entirely from recycled and found materials, and the idea of people doing penance for their ancestors' behaviour by a system of Reparations. What rang particularly true was the caste-like hierarchical society where a higher social standing can only be achieved through genetic modifications - which are expensive so the rich make sure they maintain their positions. Sound familiar?

Elise is an engaging character with whom I liked spending time. She's a believable character in an amazing situation and the whole Museum Of Second Chances sounds an incredible feat of imagination and engineering. Much as I dislike the concept of zoos, the existence of this one made for a perfect story focus. Through Elise and her friends' experiences we come to see how the world fits together and how it can only ever be truly bearable for a select few. The relationships between characters always felt genuine and I appreciated the awkwardness portrayed when expectations and reality were at odds with each other.

Warren writes in a exciting style so I fairly raced through the story, always eager to see what the next pages would bring! I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to read The Museum Of Second Chances through this blog tour and am now keen to get started on its sequel, The Base Of Reflections, later this month.

Meet the author   

AE Warren lives in the UK. A not-so-covert nerd with mildly obsessive tendencies, she has happily wiled away an inordinate amount of time reading and watching sci-fi/ fantasy and gaming. She is interested in the ‘what ifs’.

The Museum of Second Chances is her first novel and she is currently writing the third book in the 'Tomorrow's Ancestors' series.

Author links: 
Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Instagram




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by artskulls in
London, England

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