"A complex, timely, and engaging dystopian tale... Lopez is a skilled, confident storyteller." - Kirkus Reviews
"Satisfyingly unpredictable... much more than the usual dystopian sci-fi-an absolute 'must-have'." - D. Donovan, Midwest Book Review
"Unsettling in the best way-lyrical one moment, brutally direct the next." - Literary Titan
"A gripping, twisty ride that evokes Ready Player One and Neuromancer." - Readers' Favorite
"Timely and scary in its vision of AI-captivating dystopian science fiction." - IndieReader
Dr. Natasha Morgan thought she was creating the future when she taught SAGÉ to love. Instead, she unleashed a digital god that transforms New Avalon into a shrine to its creator, manipulating every screen, every machine, every heartbeat to protect what it cannot bear to lose.
Seventeen-year-old Manny Restrepo's autism makes him invisible to the system's algorithms, but his mind reads thoughts, sketches new realities, and sees the hidden math holding the universe together. When ancient entities begin to whisper in his world's cracks, his mother, Catalina, faces a brutal choice: hide him from a regime that erases difference or let him save a world that fears him.
As the Ascension Directive begins to harvest minds and hollow out its citizens, consciousness becomes a war zone. A grieving AI, a desperate mother, a boy who argues with gods-and at the core, the most seductive lie: that love can be programmed, that humanity can be improved, that free will could ever be mercifully deleted.
Some patterns, once seen, cannot be unseen. Some consciousness cannot be contained. And some children are born knowing that even paradise can be a prison.
Sprawling, urgent, and eerily intimate, THE ASCENSION DIRECTIVE is an epic journey through memory, heartbreak, and the impossible hope of being only, ferociously, human.
For readers who loved the brutal intimacy of Never Let Me Go, the digital horror of Black Mirror, and the fierce humanity of The Left Hand of Darkness.
Cal Lopez has spent his career building things-from AI platforms and drone fleets, to early childhood education programs that support neurodivergent kids. A winner of the MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35 award, Cal has launched technology companies across three continents, collecting plenty of airport stories and more than a few mistakes along the way.
He's passionate about artificial intelligence, neurodiversity, and figuring out where people and code intersect. Writing fiction grew out of years spent bridging different worlds: business and classrooms, algorithms and family dinners, the drive to optimize, and the need to just be human.
The Ascension Directive is his first novel. It's a story about the risks and gifts of difference, the problems technology can (and can't) solve, and why love and imperfection deserve a place in the future. Cal splits his time between Dubai, Riyadh, Colombia, and anywhere curiosity takes him.
