In Ascension
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4.0 • 60 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 BOOKER PRIZE
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
An astonishing novel about a young microbiologist investigating an unfathomable deep vent in the ocean floor, leading her on a journey that will encompass the full trajectory of the cosmos and the passage of a single human life
Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, drawn to the waterfront as an escape from her unhappy home life and volatile father. Enchanted by the undersea world of her childhood, she excels in marine biology, traveling the globe to study ancient organisms. When a trench is discovered in the Atlantic ocean, Leigh joins the exploration team, hoping to find evidence of the earth's first life forms - what she instead finds calls into question everything we know about our own beginnings.
Her discovery leads Leigh to the Mojave desert and an ambitious new space agency. Drawn deeper into the agency's work, she learns that the Atlantic trench is only one of several related phenomena from across the world, each piece linking up to suggest a pattern beyond human understanding. Leigh knows that to continue working with the agency will mean leaving behind her declining mother and her younger sister, and faces an impossible choice: to remain with her family, or to embark on a journey across the breadth of the cosmos.
Exploring the natural world with the wonder and reverence we usually reserve for the stars, In Ascension is a compassionate, deeply inquisitive epic that reaches outward to confront the greatest questions of existence, looks inward to illuminate the smallest details of the human heart, and shows how - no matter how far away we might be and how much we have lost hope - we will always attempt to return to the people and places we call home.
Customer Reviews
My First MacInnes
A sci-fi book that combines exciting exploration of deep ocean trenches with space travel. The characters are interesting and complex. MacInnes seems to know a lot about the subject but he spends a bit too much time on details of algae growth and cell structures for my taste. He does know how to tell a story. Some of the discussion about psychological states under pressure seemed a little exaggerated but on the whole I found the interpersonal dimensions in the story pretty good. I must admit I was somewhat mystified by the ending. I loved the way MacInnes set the ending up, but what actually happened was not clear to me. I don’t quite understand why he would not have wanted to be much clearer.
Sad. Not worth it.
Relentlessly depressing. The hard science was good but not sure what the point of this book was. A self-absorbed first person point of view is just boring.
A stunning glimpse into what makes us human
This is a remarkable novel, meditative and almost dreamlike. It is beautifully written, and it gives essential insights into the human condition on the cusp of self- destruction.