Lawrence E Maynard’s Inevitable begins in 1972, during U.S. President Richard Nixon’s visit to China, when diplomat Nicholas Matthews arranges to adopt Chinese infant Yi Nuo. The agreement brings Yi Nuo to Washington with Dai Lu, a Chinese woman assigned as her nanny, while officials in the Chinese capital, Beijing, treat the family as part of a plan extending far beyond the adoption. Nicholas becomes useful in the American government as China seeks influence in Washington, while Yi Nuo grows up connected to two countries whose relationship will define her future. As decades pass, the Matthews family becomes entwined with a Chinese strategy designed to survive every change of president across generations. What begins as a private arrangement develops into an alternate history of America shaped by a plan conceived under Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong.

Lawrence E Maynard’s Inevitable is imaginative historical fiction with an incredibly unique premise based on familiar history. Maynard does a beautiful job of making those revisions feel at home in their periods, such as a Chinese-backed publicity firm steering an American film project toward what becomes The Karate Kid. That same approach gives Florida’s 2000 presidential recount a fictional origin in specially altered punch cards. Maynard then takes the idea into the future as a Solar Corporation lunar robot transmits alien symbols that lead researchers toward fusion power. His inventiveness continues on Mars, where an experiment using beet pulp produces the profitable hallucinogenic product known as Martian Toast. Maynard makes a century-spanning timeline easy to follow. Well written and immersive, readers who enjoy historical fiction with speculative science will have a lot of fun with Inevitable.

Inevitable: Democracy’s Demise by Lawrence E Maynard can perhaps be best described as speculative fiction with a dangerous and dark undertone. Spanning a hundred-year story, the narrative takes readers on a journey that feels inevitable as plans put in place during Chairman Mao's era to undermine the West play out across the canvas of one family’s lives. A young Chinese woman, Dai Lu, is raped by Mao in 1971, and the resulting offspring, a young girl called Yi Nuo, is secretly adopted by an American couple. The family, with Yi Nuo and her true mother Dai Lu, traveling as the couple’s au pair, returns to the U.S., where Matthews and Dai Lu are blackmailed into spying for the Communist regime as well as committing several acts of treason against the United States and, by association, its allies. With a timeline that spans Watergate through to the colonization of the moon and Mars, this tale presents the familiar stories of the past along with predictions for the future, all underpinned by the Chinese long-term plan of world domination.

Inevitable is so well-written and linked to past world events and historical figures that it is easy to forget that it is fiction. Lawrence E Maynard's premise and characters, real-life figures such as Nixon, Kissinger, Clinton, and many others, lend credibility to the background of the subterfuge and blackmail. I particularly appreciated the underlying precept: China, as a controlled political environment, thinks, plans, and executes ideas and actions for the long term, whereas, in the West, governed by regular election cycles, the event-planning horizon is much shorter and consequently sometimes rather myopic. The author does an exceptional job of creating characters, outlining their motivations, their weaknesses, and giving them a depth that is often missing from other espionage novels. The author uses the lessons learned in the COVID-19 pandemic to lend weight and power to what was now happening in the 2040s. The development of a separate culture and identity in those living on the moon and on Mars came as a shock, and I wonder if that is something that future colonists may have to consider prior to establishing permanent bases. This is a fantastic, stimulating read and one I highly recommend.

The year 1971 saw the birth of a baby in China. Yi Nuo was not just any baby. The chain of events that followed is described in Inevitable: Democracy's Demise by Lawrence E Maynard. American diplomat Nick Matthews and his wife adopt Yi Nuo. Together with Dai Lu, the mother of the child, the couple was drawn into a sinister plot to achieve communist domination. The book explores American territorial ambitions and the formation of a new political alliance incorporating nearby states that were formerly independent. This brought with it many new citizens and a growing welfare debt, while China’s quest for world domination through communist expansion continued unabated. The rivalry between the major powers soon extended to the conquest of space. The Moon and Mars were colonized and commercialized. What followed is a tale of intrigue, corruption, blackmail, and trickery. This ranged from undermining American politicians to election rigging. Deadly viruses were developed to undermine governments. The decline of capitalism and democracy takes place against a background of human frailty, ego, and greed. Bribery and seduction were commonplace. The world of politics, lobbying, espionage, and propaganda is dissected. As democracy was about to collapse, the remaining group was left to fight back.

Lawrence E Maynard sketches a highly original scenario spanning a hundred years, during which leaders came and went. Commercial exploitation and manipulation continued, as did the space race. The Chinese path to supremacy was smoothed by clever tactics and a steady cash flow to those who were complicit. Many of the names will be familiar, and their personality quirks are captured to perfection, from infidelity to trade wars and tariffs, while the legacy and lineage of the former Chinese Chairman was perpetuated. The story unfolds relentlessly with a complexity tinged with subtlety that mirrors oriental culture. The stark differences between Eastern and Western culture are contrasted. The saga fittingly ends in 2076, the American tercentennial. Written as speculative alternative history, Inevitable is a social commentary that provides thought-provoking scenarios that incorporate actual events. The clever dialogue is a testament to both the author’s grasp of international politics and skillful writing. Despite the length of the book, the reader will remain engrossed throughout. It is a thoroughly absorbing account that will tease the imagination.

Inevitable: Democracy's Demise by Lawrence E Maynard is an alternate history that begins in 1971, when Dai Lu is assaulted by Mao and later gives birth to a daughter named Yi Nuo. American diplomat Nicholas Matthews adopts the baby, with Dai Lu joining him back in America as a nanny. However, Nicholas has no idea Dai Lu has been sent along by the Communist agent Zhong Bao Mei as part of a much bigger scheme against the United States. Over the following decades, Dai Lu and Matthews become unwilling pawns in Zhong's schemes as China works toward global dominance. A chain reaction begins because of the decisions of the past that affect the future.

Lawrence E Maynard clearly put a massive amount of thought into weaving together three generations of one family with a hundred years of political history. Dai Lu is such a tragic, compelling character to follow. Her journey from that horrifying opening scene into decades of manipulation raised the emotional stakes. Even if I didn’t agree with some of her decisions, I understood why she made most of them. I loved how the story eventually opens up into space exploration too. I liked the book because it was so well-executed, but it did surprise me. Yi Nuo and Yu Lao's work on the Moon gives the book such a hopeful, forward-looking energy after so much darkness on Earth. The scope of the narrative is genuinely impressive. It jumps across decades and continents while still keeping one family at the center of it all. Inevitable is a bold, thought-provoking novel for readers who love big, multigenerational political thrillers.