Ascension
A Novel
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3.8 • 74 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY VULTURE!
"You've gotta read Ascension by Nicholas Binge. Old-school creepy. . .five-star horror."—Stephen King
"Smartly paced, deploying twists and turns strategically to keep the reader moving. . . The ideas are big and the journey is a whole lot of fun." —The New York Times
"[An] excellent page-turner. . . a macabre, escapist pleasure for the thoughtful set.”—The Wall Street Journal
A mind-bending speculative thriller in which the sudden appearance of a mountain in the middle of the Pacific Ocean leads a group of scientists to a series of revelations that challenge the notion of what it means to be human
The only way out is up. . .
An enormous snow-covered mountain has appeared in the Pacific Ocean. No one knows when exactly it showed up, precisely how big it might be, or how to explain its existence. When Harold Tunmore is contacted by a shadowy organization to help investigate, he has no idea what he is getting into as he and his team set out for the mountain.
The higher Harold’s team ascends, the less things make sense. Time moves differently, turning minutes into hours, and hours into days. Amid the whipping cold of higher elevation, the climbers’ limbs numb and memories of their lives before the mountain begin to fade. Paranoia quickly turns to violence among the crew, and slithering, ancient creatures pursue them in the snow. Still, as the dangers increase, the mystery of the mountain compels them to its peak, where they are certain they will find their answers. Have they stumbled upon the greatest scientific discovery known to man or the seeds of their own demise?
Framed by the discovery of Harold Tunmore’s unsent letters to his family and the chilling and provocative story they tell, Ascension considers the limitations of science and faith and examines both the beautiful and the unsettling sides of human nature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The incredible premise of this superlative science fiction thriller from Binge (Professor Everywhere) gains credibility through the adroit presentation of the main narrative through letters and the pitch-perfect characterization of the brilliant lead, Harold Tunmore, who's haunted by a fatal error caused by his own arrogance. Harold, a British surgical consultant turned physicist, disappeared in 1990, leaving his family bereft. In 2019, long after Harold was declared legally dead, his brother, Ben, is stunned to hear from a friend that he thought he'd spotted Harold in a psychiatric hospital near Surrey. Ben reunites with his sibling, who seems out of it and dies by self-immolation soon afterward. Ben finds a collection of Harold's letters, which recount his participation in a covert expedition to the Pacific in 1991 to investigate a mountain, only recently discovered, which dwarfs the Himalayas. The sudden appearance of the massive structure proves to be just one of the mysteries Harold and his colleagues tackle at risk to their sanity and their lives. Binge's superlative imagining of how the mind-blowing scientific discoveries, which have global implications, would affect his characters elevates this above similar genre fiction. Admirers of Michael Marshall Smith's The Anomaly will be riveted.
Customer Reviews
Grateful to read this incredible book wow!
Great book! It made me feel something and think about what it means to live. Would recommend it!
More hole than plot
I gave up less than half way through when a room full of the most brilliant scientists in the world seemed to be completely unaware of any species between chimpanzees and humans - Neanderthal anyone? They also didn’t know exactly how tall this mysterious mountain was. Nobody thought to send a U2 or SR71 or a satellite to take a look. A group of nerdy middle schoolers would have done a better job than the elite military and scientific team they assembled for this investigation.