I found the writing to be too immature for what I assumed was YA. If it was MG then I think it would have been fine.

i really loved getting to know Liz as a character and her world, it was a unique read and I loved getting to go on this journey. It worked as a scifi novel.

I was sent this ebook in exchange for an honest review. I went into it with high expectations but the reality was sorely lacking. I couldn’t connect with the story or characters and whilst I tried hard to enjoy it— it sadly wasn’t for me.

Evolving Elizah: Initiatum is definitely the first book in a series. So many cliffhangers and questions unanswered at the end of the book. I feel like I have to read the next book in the series to get closure on this one. This is something I hate and so is a large part of why I gave this only a 3 star rating. Setting up for the next book(s) is fine but there should be at least some answers to what was covered in this book. I really felt like it left me hanging and so my closing thoughts about the book were that it was annoying. A shame considering I did actually enjoy reading the story.

I enjoyed this dystopian thriller.

Liz doesn’t remember a lot before natural disasters destroyed much of North America’s ground surface and civilization broke down. She does remember her older brother, Jackson, who doted on her and helped teach her before life got so hard that he left an 8-year-old Liz with their mother and strode off to join the New Generation, an activist group seeking a way to distribute food and aid to survivors. Jackson promised to return but never did. After years of searching through the Green Grow depot stations, Liz is convinced Jackson is dead. That is her past.

Now, not quite 25, Liz is a shuttle pilot living on the Green Grow 3, a space farm, orbiting earth while they try to figure a way to survive and share the food supply with people besieged by the hostile New Generation forces on earth. Liz needs to make a surface mission to retrieve certain supplies for an antimatter propulsion drive for the ship. The drive is necessary to take the ship out of the range of New Generation weapons. But danger awaits on the ground and now on the ship as there are apparently spies who have infiltrated the crew and are causing sabotage.

Liz makes the needed run to the surface but before she can leave the depot, she is hailed by starving refuges outside the gate. The group of 52 is running from a band of New Generation brutes who will savagely hunt them down. Liz makes a snap decision (another one) and rescues the people, bringing them to the ship with her.

Now there are more reasons to worry about spies and tensions build. Before Seth can put into place the plans to orderly move the ship out of orbit, an attack occurs, and a surprise enemy hails the ship and especially Liz. What can Liz do to help find the infiltrators and keep the crew and “her 52” safe?

The story follows Liz and tracks her past and her growth as she struggles along the perilous journey of survival... and betrayal. There is intrigue among the characters and I especially liked the intermittent scenes of The Scientist who is plotting an assassination. I was surprised when the identity is revealed as the book ends. Although the book ending is set to continue with the next book, I enjoyed how it got to that point. There is plenty of action and intrigue and just a touch of romance. I recommend this to dystopian sci-fi fans.

Source: 2020 NetGalley.

Set in an eerily near-future dystopian world where much of the earth has been so devastated by climate change triggered by an extinction-level volcanic event that most of the world's food is now grown in a spaceship in orbit, Evolving Elizah: Initiatum focuses on a young space-farmer-turned-politician of sorts named Liz Goeff. Liz is hardcore dedicated to the Green Grow 3 cause, having lied about her age at just 12 years old to get a job aboard the space vessel. How anyone mistook a 12 year old for 16 is beyond me, but it's probably good they did because by that point, Liz really had no choice. Her brother, Jackson, had left home four years ago to join the New Generation, a jobs program that turned into a rebel cause for....something. We never quite find out what. And her mother committed suicide right in front of her when she was just 12, like literally made her watch, in what has to be one of the most traumatizing accounts of parental suicide I've ever encountered. No small wonder that Liz basically has zero range of emotion and is in fight or flight mode constantly.

Once successfully employed and aboard ship, Liz develops what the author is clear is a non-sexual relationship (again, this girl is twelve) with a man who eventually becomes the captain of the ship. Not sure how old he is, but he was definitely an adult when she was 12. And their relationship may not have been sexual, but it was very clearly inappropriate. Even if he thought she was 16, which it is not at all clear that he did. Present day, Liz is now in her...late 20s? And she and Seth are very clearly in an intimate relationship and have been for a while. And this relationship is clearly clouding Seth's judgement, because while the reader knows that Liz is not a traitor, there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary and Seth stands by her and stands up for her through and through.

Liz hasn't heard from Jackson in over a decade, so she can only assume the worst. Every time she goes to the surface, she leaves messages for him and has never heard back. It's simply not possible that he could still be alive and not have come back for her when she needed him the most. Doesn't he know what she's been through? He just has to be dead. (Extremely predictable spoiler alert: he's not.)

So basically, the plot is pretty predictable and boring. I just really struggled to buy into this book. As if that wasn't bad enough, the "science" makes zero sense and is just a collection of science-y words. Even extremely basic and fundamental concepts when working with space like, you know, relativity, are completely absent. The spaceship is a cylinder of 37 levels (with the middle levels apparently wider than the ends), which may make sense for a space-based farm, but it's completely unclear to me why it has a propulsion drive at all, let alone one powered by antimatter. Then there is the issue that the thrusters are powered by the antimatter engine, but are unidirectional, so they can't reverse the thrusters, but apparently, if they had fuel of some kind, they could decelerate using the thrusters. (?????) This spaceship apparently has artificial gravity because people do a lot of walking and falling to the ground and trees and other plants apparently grow upright just fine. I really do not understand how they have continued to grow the same crops on the same plots for decades in an artificial environment. Apparently there is no need for crop rotation. And growing crops like rice in space has been shown to weaken cell walls, so it's not clear why that is the ideal post-apocalypse farming environment as opposed to, say, biodomes on the surface. As the novel progresses, we see the ship traverse a full 1.5 light years to leave our solar system basically instantaneously, but they are still able to communicate in real time with Earth, with no communication delays at all, let alone relativistic effects. A mad scientist is teleporting mice through space time with very weird and inconsistent side effects. Not to even get into the weird holograms that I can only very generously assume will be addressed in a sequel. There is literally just no actual science in this book.

Lastly, apparently early 20th Century American slang and early 21st Century preteen slang are making a comeback post-apocalypse and it's only slightly distracting. Phrases like "it's jake with me" and "bushwa" and "sweet shit sauce" abound from every character. I guess I know what phrases are going to make me feel old in another 30 years....

It's just not for me. It's a quick read. It's kind of entertaining. A little fun to guess who's good and who's bad. Others might like it much more than I did.

Much thanks to NetGalley and IngramSpark for the copy in exchange for the review.

Once I got into the story I did enjoy it, however the strange use of third person present tense was a little jarring at times. Every now and then it felt as though a narrator had interjected into the story, and I would find myself thrown out of my reading flow.


The main premise of the story was both interesting and imaginative and this was accompanied by really solid world building. There was plenty of conflict, intrigue, action and peril too. I'm guessing, from what felt like a rather abrupt ending, that this is the first book in a series, so this did seem to focus on painting the bigger picture and introducing us to the main protagonists. There were hints of romance between Seth and Liz, though it was all very PG rating.


I'm not sure if the author was aiming for the YA or the adult market with this, it seemed to hop between the two. Occasionally problems were overcome a little too easily and the plot felt a somewhat simplistic. At other times it had a more adult feel, posing moral dilemmas and having layers of depth to explore. I did like how the author began to blur the lines between the "good side" and the "bad side" in the story, I do hope this continues as a theme throughout as it's a more honest reflection of humanity.


The book is mainly written from Liz's point of view and we do see her undergo some character growth. I did struggle to follow the retrospective timeline (possibly because I took a break whilst reading this) and felt that Liz was very naïve and emotionally immature for her age, yet intelligent and with hidden strength at other times. However given the trauma and struggles of her youth it did feel fitting for her to be less self aware than a woman of her age should be. No man is an island, but Elizah has certainly held herself apart from others since being abandoned first by her brother and then by her mum.


I am definitely invested in the story enough to be committed to reading future books in the series.

Evolving Elizah: Initiatum
by C J Hall

After a volcanic eruption that caused the end of the ability to grow things on earth, Elizah moves to a new space farm station called Green Grow 3. She is a trained shuttle pilot, making regular visits to earth stations and returning to the space farm. One time, she picks up 52 survivors that are in danger of being murdered by the fanatical terrorist group New Generation.

Elizah is put into quarantine with the 52 survivors, dubbed Liz's 52, while the Council on board the space farm decides what to do with the survivors and with Elizah (Liz), herself.

They find out there are spies aboard Green Grow 3, who will stop at nothing to kill everyone there.

The book was pretty good, I lost interest near the beginning, several times. There is room for developing characters along the way. This is a stand-alone book but seems like the way is left open to continue on with a series.

I received a complimentary copy from #netgalley and #ingramspark and was under no obligation to post a review. Reviewed on Kobo, BN, Powells, ThriftBooks, LibraryThing, Amazon, Goodreads, Alibris, Chapters, Ebay, and many others.

This book will appeal to young adults intrigued by romance, swashbuckling language, and moral “good versus evil” situations presented in black and white.

It begins with a wonderfully engaging prologue written in the present tense. In it, a family of three (a sickly mother, a brother who is protective of his younger sister, and fun loving tike) are sheltering after an extinction-level volcanic event in the southwestern United States.

In chapter one, the story continues in the omniscient present, and tells the story of the young girl who has now grown into a hardened shuttle pilot for a spaceship that is currently orbiting the earth. The spaceship itself consists of two components: a cylinder of many levels dedicated to farming and a lower section that can separate and fly independent of the farm. Pretty cool beginning for a science fiction story, eh?

We learn that volcanic ash has lead to climate change, which has turned the earth into a barren Mad Max survival state. Having scarce resources, the United States has split into two warring factions. (*Ouch.) Which of these two factions is the honorable one? Is the other one evil or brainwashed? Or is it more complicated than that? To figure this out, we are given lots of juicy, emotional info dumps presented in a variety of flashbacks, conversations, arguments, omniscient peeking, and lots of interior monologues.

(*Fortunately, the two camps do not depict any flavor of the current two-party system and their sometimes mutually exclusive and sometimes mutually misunderstood goals.)

I love science, technology, spaceships, terraforming, generational ships, and so forth. Fiction or nonfiction. I was so disappointed when Biosphere 2 failed, and yet it didn’t quell my interest in space travel, growing food in space, and so forth. So I was really excited to read about these fictional “farmers in the sky” (which bear no resemblance to Heinlein’s) and I enjoyed those bits of the story. But in the end, I had a few problems that might just be chalked up to personal preference.

I know it’s sometimes a struggle to get the verb tense to agree throughout a piece and other times it just flows naturally. I was disconcerted, but not preoccupied, by the continued use of present tense. It just struck me as an odd choice.

The first time I actually became annoyed was during the info dump presenting the “evil scientist’s” perspective; he was depicted as so dramatically EVIL (I could just picture him, stooped over, rubbing his hands together and cackling “bwah ha ha”) that I immediately wanted to put the book down. From that point forward, the book lost almost all credibility.

But I was still engaged in the plot. I really wanted to know which of the two factions was truly “evil.” (Eeeeveeeel. Bwah ha ha.) Well, actually, that’s true and yet not true. I was curious about the two factions, but I sorta kinda dislike stories focused on calling out and separating “good” and “evil” into black and white categories. I think it’s short-sighted and not helpful.

So I kept reading, wanting to skip over any further info dumps in order to get back to the plot. I know, I know—info dumps are considered poor form in storytelling. However, I am pretty lenient about so called “faux pas,” such as info dumps and flat characters, if the information is technical or if there’s an interesting reason for presenting it in this fashion. For the most part, I found the prose was quite enjoyable although often amusingly over-enflamed and lacking subtlety.

And the last problem for me is that the story didn’t feel very science- or technology- oriented. Instead, the technology (for example, the glowing credentials embedded in the rioters’ palms) seems very “hand wavey” magical.

Although this novel wasn’t my cup of tea, I think it will probably appeal to younger folks who enjoy quests of a fantasy nature.

Thank you NetGalley for giving me a preview of this novel and listening to my feedback.

3.5 stars - solid, for fans of thoughful post-apocalyptic novels

Earth has become an increasingly hostile environment after several natural desasters that culminated in a supervolcano eruption. Now plants do not grow on the surface any longer and agriculture has been moved to large spaceships whose crew brings their grown food down to depots on earth. Were it not for the "New Generation", a movement of those left behind on Earth and whose goals we do not really know yet but who (in the beginning) seem to be quite the stereotypical bad guys who terrorize the remaining humans earthside with raiding parties.

This is the story of Elizah, or "Z", an orphan who has earned a reputation as a pilot on one of the space ships and who is grappling with the trauma of losing her mother and brother, being faced with a possible extinction of humans and the role that the New Generation might play in all of this. As is to be expected, as the story progresses we understand that things are more complicated than we (and Elizah) have been assuming.

This book is written in the present tense which is not my favourite and makes for a read that can be clunky and awkward at times. For me, it does not really work here.
But where this story shines are the reflections on how fragile a society becomes when recources become so scarce and the world so hostile. How people try to deal with their fears and trauma, some of them turning to violence, some trying to keep their humanity. And how important truly connecting with other human beings becomes in such circumstances, how comforting a friendly soul or a story told can be.

In this regard this book reminded me a little of Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, but it does lack the beauty and effortlessness that makes Station Eleven so touching.

Also, there are some pretty significant holes in the logic here. Like, resources have become so very scarce but still people built huge spaceships to grow their food on instead of going underground for example. Also, each ship can only feed some thousands of people - that does not sound like a very good payoff to the investment. And a researcher is on the cusp of discovering time travel, which speaks for a very advanced society but on the other hand the people living on the space ships seem to have rather limited technology at their hands ...

Nevertheless, this has been an enjoyable read and I can recommend this one to anyone enjoying post-apocalyptic reflections on humans and societies. I understand that this is the first part of a series and I would definitely return to this world to find out how the story continues!

Good premise, I like the scifi twist with older younger in their mid late 20s early 30s characters. Would love for more world building but im looking forward to what's next.
#CJHall #NetGalley

The main characters are interesting, as this appears to be a set up for a series. The backstories and world building were done well.

the re-intro of the brother was a little jarring and ending abrupt, but sets up the reader for the next story.