Rift

Rift Saga #1

by Andreas Christensen

RIFT - The new dystopian trilogy book 1 from the author of the Exodus Trilogy. The RIFT Saga begins here. In the ruins of what was once North America lays the Covenant, a nation forged by the iron will of the Moon people, who descended from their dusty refuge on the Moon after the Fall. The Moon people are wealthy, ruled by a strong government who protects its citizens from the dangers from outside their borders. Their greatest achievement is having learned the secret of immortality, and every citizen has the opportunity to live nearly forever if they choose to, a life of riches and abundance. The English are the descendants of the original inhabitants of this place, and they live very different lives from that of the Moon people. They only live to serve the greater good, and citizenship is something few have the opportunity to earn. At the age of fifty all non-citizens are subjected to mandatory euthanasia. In order to maintain a sustainable society, they are told. Every year a number of girls and boys at the age of eighteen are selected for Service to the State. The brightest and most talented are sent to become Students. The strong, the fighters and the athletes become Janissaries, a band of soldiers protecting the northern border from the enemies of the Covenant. The Wardens, a secretive organization known to operate far to the west, near the Rift, which makes up the border to the wastelands, sometimes choses one or two initiates, but nobody knows what becomes of them. And then there is the Corpus, where the whip rules and backs are bent. Those who complete their Service, may become citizens. And although they will never be equal to the Moon people, they will have access to all the riches and opportunities granted by the Covenant leadership to its citizens. As Sue is nearing Selection Day, she secretly hopes to be chosen, despite having to leave her mother and brother behind. She doesn't crave glory or wealth though. A man or woman with citizen status can do a lot of good, and although few return to their home towns, Sue hopes to return to give her family a better life on the other side of Service. But the Covenant is rotten to the core, and as she begins to learn its secrets, Sue must question everything she has always taken for granted. Soon she will find herself in dire peril, for she has seen the truth and there will be no turning back after that... This science fiction dystopian trilogy is set more than two centuries after the events of Exodus, in a future dystopian society forged from the ashes of global disaster. "Mr. Christensen has absolutely found his genre, and I hope he keeps the stories coming!"

Genres: Science Fiction, Dystopia, Fiction, Young Adult, Amazon, Fantasy, Adventure

259 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 29, 2014

About the author

Andreas Christensen is a Norwegian science fiction and fantasy author. His most recently published work is Frostfall, an epic fantasy.

His popular series the Exodus Trilogy received rave reviews in both the U.S. and the U.K. and has been compared to classics such as Heinlein and Asimov. The Rift Saga is set approximately two centuries after the events of Exodus, and a reviewer described it as "Hunger Games on steroids". In a good way...

He is currently working on new projects, including a "second generation" story set in the Aurora universe, in addition to the Legionnaire Series.

Andreas Christensen has a degree in Psychology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and his professional background is mainly from public service. He has a weakness for cats, coffee and up until recently, books so heavy he'd need a separate suitcase in order to carry them every time he traveled. Luckily, the world has changed, and the suitcase has now been replaced by an e-reader.

You can find Andreas Christensen here:
Website and blog: christensenwriting.com
Twitter: @achr75
Facebook: facebook.com/christensenwriting

Get your FREE copy of ALIVE, the Exodus companion novella. Just go to christensenwriting.com to get started!

Reviews

[K.C. Nicola · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rift, aside from a few novel twists, is your standard run-of-the-mill dystopian. The writing also told more than it showed, and there were a handful of places where the story grew dull/difficult to follow.

Full RTC tomorrow.

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this as a freebie for my E-Reader and didn't have high expectations. Well, I'm very glad to tell you what a pleasant surprise I got from this very readable story. It us set in a far future after a worldwide disaster now hundreds of years in our characters' past. The Moon People descended, gathered together the scraps of humanity remaining and created a society based on service to the state, saving civilization. This is what our heroes have been raised to believe, and as the narrative begins, a group of teens waits to be "selected" for their duties to the State. If selected, and if they survive their tours, they will become Citizens with longer lives, better opportunities and the ability to take care of their families. Our viewpoint characters each discover, in their own way, that much of their society is grounded in myth and that the real monsters may not be beyond their borders.

I was impressed with the smooth narrative in this piece. Christensen moves us along through the story with a deft combination of action and exposition. The characters are likeable kids who hold our interest and feel real to us. I'm looking forward to sequels and am happy to support the author with a review.

[Jenny Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though a short read. very action packed. The prose was not overly flowery, and did a good job of sweeping me up. There is a series that actually comes before this, and I would suggest reading that first, since there is not much in the way of history in this one.

Bliss is ignorance.

A freebee on Kindle.

[Ken Jensen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Andreas Christensen is a competent storyteller. Unfortunately, he knows nothing about how paragraphs work, which makes it difficult to follow dialogue exchanges, sometimes even close to impossible. For example, one person says something, then another person does something, all within the same paragraph, indicating that the second person is the speaker when in fact it’s the first person. Furthermore, there are typos, punctuation errors, and grammar mistakes aplenty. A two star review is actually on the generous side, but I’ll give him credit for the story, which is interesting enough for me to want to read the entire trilogy.

[Gillian Murrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars Divergent meets Hunger Games. This was a good story I loved how it swapped protagonists all the time. The characters were interesting and very easy to get invested in. Who are these Moon people and how is it they get to live such long lives while humans are given euthanasia as a 50th birthday present, if they manage live that long. The chance of a career and becoming a citizen is like playing Russian roulette where only one chamber is not loaded with a bullet.

[RuthAnn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was surprisingly good. Some issues with unbelievable puppet master, why did he choose main character out of anyone in the world type stuff, but overall very good.

[Beatrix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ötletes disztópia, az Exodus folytatásaként meglessük mi történt a Földön. Bár a főszereplők fiatalok, a történet maga nem egy Divergent koppintás, elég egyedi ötletekkel dolgozik. Elég izgalmas ahhoz, hogy folytassam.

[Bambi Campbell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very overdone plot. A few too many grammatical errors. Several parts of the book felt like a run on sentence.

[Kylie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐⭐⭐

[Sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rift by Andreas Christensen
Series: Rift Saga, #1

This was a pretty good book, especially for a free ebook. It reminded me a little of The Hunger Games and Divergent. The characters were great, but there were some parts that were unexplained - like why some people get chosen for service or not - but overall it was good. The rest of the series is definitely going to on my to-read shelf. I'd recommend it to fans of The Hunger Games or Divergent, or to anyone who'd like a relatively short, but interesting, sci-fi read.

My rating: 4 stars

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was just ok to me. It just didn't hold my interest as the same with the characters.

[Musings of a Middle-aged Mum · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I read a lot of free kindle books, many are self-published, and many are the result of writing competitions. When that happens, I find it interesting to see how common starting points can result in totally differing books. Now, I don't know if that has happened with Rift, but there are definite initial similarities to The Hunger Games: Once a year a group of newly graduated (from High School) students get selected for Service to the State. The students don't get a choice in where they serve, or whether they serve, but get taken from their home towns and villages for the greater good.

Yeah yeah, I know that my two favourite genres are fantasy and dystopia, so when I come across a book that starts a series I will get absorbed and buy the whole series. I know that it will be of no surprise to you to discover that has happened again, and I ended up buying and reading Covenant and Legacy too, but it had to be done - honest!!

So, Rift follows the story of Sue. She is well educated and wants to go into Service so she can eventually become a Citizen and help her family have a better life. She becomes an initiate to the Janissaries - military service designed to keep the English and the Moon people safe from the French and other outsiders, thankful to have avoided service to the Corpus - chain gangs used to mine the earth for raw materials often resulting in illness and death.

During her time with the Janissaries, Sue becomes captured by the French and is treated humanely in a hospital - nothing like the monsters and imagery that she has been fed with. She discovers more corruption and starts to question everything to do with the Covenant and the Moon people - the saviours and masters of the English.

An amazing series. The author is really good at conveying the emotion, thrilling, cliff-hangers and menace as you get your head around this future dystopia for Earth. Loved it.

I hadn't actually realised that this series is a sequel to The Exodus Trilogy, and not having the previous knowledge, did not distract from this series at all. I have added the previous series to my wishlist.

[Darsie · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be chosen or not? That is the question at the start of this story.

If you are selected, you have a chance at a better life for you and your family in the future. Although first, you must serve and that service may literally be the death of you.

Yet the alternative to service is worse; a life of drudgery, ending in forced euthanasia when you turn 50.

But things are not as they seem. What we go on to discover about this society through the POV of three protagonists, unveils a conspiracy that has been going on for nearly two centuries!

So that is the gist of the story. I got the book as a free kindle download and this can be a little risky. However, this was a HUGE hit!

The story has a good pace with lots of action. The advantage of POV storytelling is, of course, that we get the inner thoughts of our characters too, not only what they are doing and saying, which makes us care about their fates.

Dave is so cerebral you think there is no way he will survive any of the options for service. But he has hidden depths and reserves of strength and surprised me. Sue on the other hand, is textbook hero material. Clever, determined, strong and moral. And then there's Mark. Someone so far on the inside that he saw it all begin. How and why didn't he stop it? But he's been looking for the right people to put things right for a while. He hopes he's found them.

Just a couple of minor editing issues that were missed but definitely not enough to spoil the flow of the narrative.

Overall, a really good story that could be read as stand alone if you really didn't want to know what happens to our rebels. But I do!
Book two will be downloaded to my kindle next.
Five Stars.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't realize this was a sequel to the Exodus trilogy until I had read a huge portion of it. It's good that it was a sequel because the Exodus trilogy left many unanswered questions. However, this novel was mostly about how the humans who fled to the moon before the rogue star struck Earth, returned to Earth and enslaved or killed the humans who had stayed on Earth.

The moon people were technologically superior and had discovered how to be immortal, but the decadent lives they lived demanded they have a servant population who could perform any hard labor and protect them against enemies. To keep population growth in check, mandatory euthanasia was required of the servant class when they turned 50. A few servants could escape this fate if they survived many years of very dangerous service to the moon people.

The book was mostly about the brutal lives of the servant class soldiers who were given a drug named Bliss. Bliss in combination with indoctrination and special goggles made the soldiers see huge hideous monsters when they looked at the people they were attacking.

Long war stories are not my thing, so I wasn't impressed with this novel. In addition, much of this novel felt like a young adult novel since teens were the main characters.

[elizalicart · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating dystopian society undersold by its writing.

The flaws of this book were apparent from the beginning. For the most part, Rift is told through largely filtered and infodumped paragraphs from either of two protagonist's points of view (or a third intermittent character). I regularly felt the need to rush through much of those pages in order to reach the action, but it never came. It isn't a particularly immersive writing style, and many times I found myself disappointed that I was merely told that something had happened, rather than shown it taking place. This meant that, to me, the story lacked depth—of its settings, characters, and plot.

It's a shame, because the idea behind the story has great potential, and the world building was impressive. The plot was somewhat predictable, but it did engage me enough to want to know the secrets behind what was going on. And the occasional scene (where the author did bestow some grounding) did make my heart pound!

Will I pick up the next books in the series? It's unlikely. As much as I would like to know the fates of Sue, Dave, and the Covenant, I feel I would gain just as much enjoyment from reading a summary of the series than reading the books themselves.

[Abby · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel isn't bad at all. Which I realize isn't exactly a glowing review, but I mean it in the sense that it has good bones. It has a great base as a slightly post apocalyptic novel without it having the cliche doom and gloom drama, but follows several different characters well. There's decent character development that I hope will continue with the series. What I liked about it was the fact that it didn't drag on and on. It got to the point with enough detail that it read like a YA novel without the over-produced romantic drama. I just hope it doesn't go downhill like "The Maze Runner" series. Fingers crossed.

[Sharman Badgett-Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Post-Apocalyptic Story of Survival

This tale follows the lives of three people caught up in a futuristic nightmare. Parts of its inventive future were believable (within the story's reality) while others didn't quite work. There was a sense of adventure and suspense, but the main characters discovered the self-serving secrets of their oppressors far too easily, though these secrets had supposedly been kept hidden for a very long time. The science behind the ways control was exerted over the oppressed was missing, making this more of a fantasy than scifi. Still, the characters were likable, and the action was engaging enough to be enjoyable.

[Tim Seabrook · Rating 3 out of 5]

The books was well written and an enjoyable read but had a strong element of tech that felt similar to The Fifth Wave and though this book was much better than the film ever could hope to be, the mind was pulled toward the tech involved.

It felt odd to me that the survivors looked after and supported by the Moon people were called the English. especially after you figure out where the story is set. Even with the small settlements and the period of time the book is set in, a singular language wouldn't have been the sole use.

[Mark E Barton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nice mix of different ideas that leaves the reader guessing which way the story is going to branch.

When I first started this book I was almost ready to pass on reading it all because it seemed like it would be one of those stories that took its main idea from somewhere else. A decision I am glad I didn't make.

The quick development of the characters made me stick around and read some more, and the more I read the more I realized how different this book was, and how it is more than capable of standing on its own legs.

[Shelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Source* Amazon
*Genre* Science Fiction / Dystopia
*Rating* 3-3.5

*Thoughts*

Rift, by author Andreas Christensen, is the first installment in the Rift Saga. This science fiction dystopian trilogy is set more than two centuries after the events of the Exodus trilogy, in a future dystopian society forged from the ashes of global disaster. In the ruins of what was once North America lays the Covenant, a nation forged by the iron will of the Moon people, who descended from their dusty refuge on the Moon after the Fall. The Moon people are wealthy, ruled by a strong government who protects its citizens from the dangers from outside their borders.

*Full Review @ Gizmos Reviews*

https://gizmosreviews.blogspot.com/20...

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rift is the first book in the Rift series. This should not be read as a standalone as it ends in a cliffhanger. There is violence. This storyline takes place approximately 200 years after the author's Exodus series. It is understandable that if all you ever know of "your world" comes from those in charge, you don't realize how much more "world" is out there. I definitely want to read the next story to see what else happens.

[Robert Castillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this book and found myself glued to reading it. Andreas imagination is amazing and I love how he brings new perspectives to known situations. The way he ties The Fall of the earth and then the rise of the moon people, as he weaves the story into the truth that will be revealed to the English.

Andreas character development is one of the things that keeps me coming back to read his books!

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyable

Civilization collapsed. A group of people rose up as saviors and set up a system to keep humanity alive and safe, for a price. This is the gist of it all. But there's more going on. Sue, Dave and Mark are all very interesting characters, with different motive for why they do as they do. There were a lot of "pulse pounding" moments where things were uncertain. I'm normally not a fan of cliffhangers but I admit to excited to see what's next.

[Jess Mobberley]

This book took me 2 goes to complete it. It wasn’t until I was half way through the book that I realised I had read half of it already.

I enjoyed this book but i think I just wanted to finish it because I didn’t want to not finish it again. The book itself was interesting following the various characters and their path towards each other but I don’t think I was truly into reading the book. Might just not have been the right time.

Not a bad book but not something I got myself stuck in.

[Sarah Creeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another dystopian novel about a society trying to control people and them rebelling. It was a bit slow to start, but it's interesting and unique in its own right. There is somewhat of an open ending for the second book, but I wouldn't really call it a cliffhanger.

Content review:

There is no language and no romance. There is some drug use, but it is forced to keep people in the dark. It's not glorified, though.

[B C Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must reaf

This book is incredible. It is well written and you really get a sense for the characters. I could not out this down and cannot wait to start on the other three. As an avid reader I must say that the writer has done this story justice and there is not a single thing that I would want changed. A++++

[R.L.S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This had some fun characters and an intriguing setting (social set up?) The selection and the class system were reminiscent of Hunger Games, but not so much so that it felt derivative.

There wasn't as much closure in the ending as I'd like, but it managed enough of an ending to keep from enraging me. I may or may not read more.

[Aubry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the premise of the story but it took me a long time to get it read. I didn't really get into the book until about the last quarter of the book. I kept reading other things beside this. So my rating would probably be more like 2.5 because though the synopsis caught my attention the book itself failed to until the end.

[Audra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for post apocalyptic fans!

I would recommend this book to any one who enjoys post apocalyptic stories. The story is interesting in that the end of the world destruction is not zombies or a virus, but humans are their weaknesses. I liked the concept of the Moon people and how the story unfolds. Enjoyable book that kept me turning the pages.

[Tom Reade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Action and thought

While there are similarities to how this society is set up, to others in this genre (Logan's Run/Convergence)--this is an engaging read. Very well drawn characters and lots of action. Some thoughtful questions are raised.

I enjoyed reading this, and will look for the sequel.