Hello and welcome to my stop for Power Divided by S.Behr, organized by Booktamins. This is book one in the Evolutionaries series and if you love YA books set in a Science Fiction fantasy world, you have to check it out. Usually I have authors write a guest post but today’s guest is not S. Behr but actually the protagonist of Power Divided. Princess Violet Amplifien is the runaway princess with elemental powers. She stumbles upon a thousands-year-old archive of ancient tech that will forever change her utopian kingdom.
Let’s learn from her about the search for humanity. Book blurb and author bio follow after. 🙂
The Search for Humanity
Earth is a planet teeming with life, on land, in the sea, and birds who fly through the air. Our ancestors had reached a population of over twenty billion souls that lived on every continent and some even living in orbit in the upper atmosphere. But when it was discovered an ice age was on the way, the humans only had two hundred years to prepare.
There were many ideas and solutions, but arguably the most important, in my opinion, was the creation of our people, the Evolutionaries. The second generation of humans.
What minds it must have taken? To find the courage to make the leap. The people from before the ice had to abandon ideals that had been held in place for ages. For those people had drawn a line and made an oath to do no harm. As time, and nature, marched unilaterally doing what they do best, they caused change and pushed boundaries of land and sea. The ripple effects coursed through the habitats of all living creatures on Earth.
It was the extinction of life as they knew it, it drove our ancestors to break boundaries they had fought over for centuries. The intangible line between right and wrong. God or science, help or harm. It was the idea of saving Creation that made faith, races, and countries fade and gave humanity one voice. Civilizations had risen and fallen throughout the history of man. It was the sum of humanity as a global entity that united the world in a search to see that all we had accomplished would not be lost.
While survival was the ultimate goal, there were hundreds of countries and territories, cities and people, that all believed in different solutions. As the great Dr. Travis once said, “If I cannot find the means to save every soul here and, in the future, then let our accomplishments live on in those we can save. Our purpose is greater than race, border, or bias. These times are uncertain, but in them we can find our greatest achievements, and it is up to the people of our time to see that those who came before us are not forgotten by the generations that will come after us. There is no other way forward than to be victorious over the coming extinction of humanity.”
In North America, in the countries of the United States of America and Canada, the idea of great cities underground was the choice. Over a hundred years were spent engineering, building, and creating the means for survival for those lucky enough to win the lottery to enter one of the underground colonies.
Along the way, the idea that the ice age could last far longer than the colonies became the greatest concern. The genetic bans were lifted, and scientists toiled and worked to create a solution to survive the universe’s greatest problem. Time.
Engineering marvels, like skyscrapers and floating cities, have stood the test of time, but it took millions of people, and lifetimes, to maintain these great wonders. But who could survive the harsh environment of an ice age to keep providing that kind of maintenance?
That was when scientists dug deeper and knew that there was a way. Geneticists spent generations finding each link to create the next evolution in humans. But not all scientists agreed.
The people of the South didn’t worry about earthquakes the way those in the West did, it was flooding that was their greatest concern. People in the East worried about food shortages, so labs across the United States of America and Canada focused on hundreds of variations of the same idea, breaking the boundaries of what humans were capable of.
There were many failures in the beginning, but little by little genes were manipulated, and success was found in people here and there. After several generations, people began to show signs of having made the leap across genetic boundaries.
When the colonies were sealed, the humans who had become something more numbered in the hundred of thousands. Over time, in the colonies under the ice, they were bred, born, and evolved.
Thirteen thousand years later, the Earth warmed, and the survivors emerged. When the people of this continent connected, they found that nature had taken its course. There was now an almost equal number of those like their ancestors before going underground, only human.
The other half that emerged was more than what anyone could have expected. Some with skin that was no longer shades of beige to black, some had scales and blue skin, while others hardly resembled a human anymore.
The scientists of old began the idea of what my ancestors could be, and within each surviving colony, they continued those efforts. If these people had existed before the ice age, civilizations may have considered them aliens, a product of witchcraft, or even as gods.
What man sought to create, nature took and did what it does best, grow and evolve.
And the Evolutionaries were no longer an idea, but a living breathing species.
Power Divided by S.Behr
The citizens of Amera are blessed with a range of extraordinary powers – from telepathy and healing to growing plants and breathing under water. As descendants of genetically modified humans desperate to survive an ice age, Amerans have built a peaceful, prosperous kingdom uniting nine realms, each with their own king and queen.
Violet is a princess of Neyr, the third of the nine realms of Amera, living in the transformed ruins of ancient New York City, high up in the reborn Chrysler building. Born into Neyr’s talented ruling family, she struggles to show evidence of any special power herself. Raised by one of the most powerful healers in Ameran history, Violet wants more than anything to pass her Criterion, a test all citizens must take to prove they are worthy and to find their place in society. But when her powers explode to catastrophic effect in front of her entire court, she runs from the unthinkable damage and misery she has caused.
In her desperate escape, Violet stumbles upon an incredible archive of ancient knowledge and awakens Hailey, an artificial intelligence relic who reveals hidden truths that could be the key to her return home.
But when the sanctuary of the Amera is threatened by humans, old enemies of Amera who live in violent colonies beyond Amera’s borders, Violet must master her burgeoning powers and find a way to protect her idyllic kingdom from the outside world.
About the Author of Power Divided
I love a good story, in all artforms. I have been a professional photographer for nearly 20 years and I had to learn to tell a story with a click of a button and capture the layers of emotion in a single image. Little did I know it was boot camp for writing.
Being an author was a childhood dream and as I got older it seemed to be a dream that grew further out of reach with each passing year. But with encouragement from a lot of friends, new and old, my husband being my biggest cheerleader, The Evolutionaries series has begun with Power Divided.
To keep me company during my writing bubbles are my husband and our fur babies. They love whatever I write, even if they can’t read it but they don’t always love the music I write to. We all have to make sacrifices! And I am still pinching myself ever since I found out, that, recently I became a Featured Author.
Finer her on Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram, Facebook and her website.
Thank you so much for stopping by on Armed with A Book today! Please check out all the wonderful blogs that are part of the Power Divided blog tour, organized by Booktadmins.
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