Review by Booklist Review
A Dutch scientist travels farther than humankind ever dreamed possible to explore the origins of life itself in this extraordinary novel. Marine biologist Leigh's journey begins aboard a ship tasked with uncovering the secrets of a newly discovered vent of a seemingly impossible depth in the Atlantic--three times deeper than the Mariana Trench--which she believes could reveal truths about the earliest life on Earth. The expedition is fraught, and a sense of unreality settles over the crew as their submersible plunges to unfathomable depths. When Leigh returns, she's invited to join another mission, this time going beyond our solar system, taking advantage of newly discovered propulsion technology. The mission, Leigh learns, is a response to a mysterious beckoning from an extraterrestrial object. MacInnes (Infinite Ground, 2017) deftly unpacks Leigh's origins as the daughter of a violently abusive father and her distancing from her mother and sister, even as her mother's faculties slowly decline. Absorbed in her work, Leigh travels with her crew members beyond the reach of the sun's light and finds the same dreamlike, hallucinatory atmosphere of the underwater voyage that started it all. Thought-provoking, elegant, and riveting, In Ascension frames the search for our beginnings as a challenging voyage into the unknown.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Scottish writer MacInnes (Infinite Ground) spins a thought-provoking story of underwater and outer space exploration. At the outset, Dutch microbiologist Leigh joins a mission to explore a deep vent in the Atlantic Ocean believed to host ancient organisms. A series of dramatic episodes ensues as she encounters inexplicable phenomena and falls victim to a mysterious illness. Undaunted, Leigh then accepts a job with a space agency in California. What looks like an opportunity to further her investigations into algae turns out to be the start of a remarkable trek into the cosmos. Much of the novel's tension arises from whether Leigh will survive the journey and whether she'll encounter alien life, but MacInnes gracefully contrasts well-paced moments of peril with his protagonist's meditations on her relationships with her abusive father and detached mother, whose struggle with dementia complicates Leigh's decision to join the space mission. The familial dysfunction mirrors one of the book's major concerns: that the relationship between people and the natural environment has been damaged almost beyond repair. Despite the lingering sense of doom, MacInnes ensures readers never lose sight of what Leigh calls "the generosity of porous life." This brims with humanity. Agent: David Forrer, InkWell Management. (Feb.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A woman goes to the deepest parts of the sea and the farthest reaches of space. Raised in Rotterdam by an abusive father and an absent yet well-meaning mother, Leigh turned to the waterfront as a means of escaping the day-to-day difficulties of family life. Her fascination with undersea worlds leads her to study marine ecology and microbiology, and she develops an expertise in algae. As a young scientist, she joins a mission to investigate a hydrothermal vent that's mysteriously appeared in the floor of the Atlantic Ocean and may be three times the depth of the Mariana Trench. Discoveries from that mission change Leigh's life, as well as the trajectory of the scientific world. New objects are found in space, perhaps related to the hydrothermal vent, and Leigh gets tapped to develop an algae-based food system for an upcoming deep-space launch to investigate potential life. But when her mother's health begins to decline, Leigh must consider whether to return home or explore the wonders lying at the far reaches of the solar system. Written in straightforward, measured prose, the novel features a world similar enough to our own that the scientific discoveries seem nearly plausible, even when they play with the boundaries of our imagination. The novel lags during dialogue-heavy scenes; the characters' interactions can be somewhat stilted and drawn out, and Leigh's steady and often monotone narration can be frustrating in its lack of emotional edge. But readers of speculative fiction will appreciate this intellectually rich addition to the canon, which considers what new discoveries might tell humans about ourselves and the planet we inhabit. An interesting investigation of home and interpersonal responsibilities through deep-sea and far-space travel. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
