In Ascension - Outside of a Dog

English language

Published May 15, 2023 by Atlantic Books, Limited.

ISBN:: 9781838956264

No rating (1 review)

Leigh's upbringing in Rotterdam revolved around her fascination with the waterfront, which served as a sanctuary from her troubled family life and an unpredictable father. Her enchantment with the mysterious undersea realm of her youth propelled her to excel in marine biology, taking her on journeys around the world to study ancient organisms. However, her life takes a dramatic turn when an expedition in the Atlantic Ocean uncovers a deep trench. Leigh eagerly joins the exploration team, hoping to uncover evidence of Earth's earliest life forms. Instead, her findings cast doubt upon everything we thought we knew about our origins.

This discovery leads Leigh to the Mojave Desert and an ambitious new space agency. As she delves further into the agency's work, she uncovers a web of interconnected phenomena spanning the globe, hinting at a pattern beyond human comprehension. Leigh faces an excruciating dilemma: continue her work with the agency, …

Leigh's upbringing in Rotterdam revolved around her fascination with the waterfront, which served as a sanctuary from her troubled family life and an unpredictable father. Her enchantment with the mysterious undersea realm of her youth propelled her to excel in marine biology, taking her on journeys around the world to study ancient organisms. However, her life takes a dramatic turn when an expedition in the Atlantic Ocean uncovers a deep trench. Leigh eagerly joins the exploration team, hoping to uncover evidence of Earth's earliest life forms. Instead, her findings cast doubt upon everything we thought we knew about our origins.

This discovery leads Leigh to the Mojave Desert and an ambitious new space agency. As she delves further into the agency's work, she uncovers a web of interconnected phenomena spanning the globe, hinting at a pattern beyond human comprehension. Leigh faces an excruciating dilemma: continue her work with the agency, forsaking her ailing mother and younger sister, or remain with her family. It's a choice that forces her to weigh the cosmic against the familiar.

"In Ascension" takes readers on a profound journey through the natural world, evoking the same wonder and reverence typically reserved for the stars. It's a compassionate and deeply inquisitive epic that extends its exploration to the grandest existential questions while also illuminating the minutest facets of the human heart. Ultimately, the novel illustrates how, no matter how distant we may be from our origins and how much hope we've lost, our innate longing brings us back to the people and places we call home.

2 editions

Jim Brown reviewed In Ascension by Martin MacInnes

Cixin Liu + Jeff Vandermeer

No rating

Beautiful book.

"Even at this distance, Jupiter is incomprehensibly vast. We stare through the porthole at its soft milky hue, the watercolour whirls, repeating our unbelief. K looks at the settings on the screen showing the camera feed. Something in the rendering of Jupiter looks too virtual, too predictable. It's exactly like the images I've seen of it before. This is a senseless thing to say, of course, but I expected the gas giant to appear different when I saw it myself, so close. It looks too perfect, too controlled. It lacks independence, as if conforming to our expectations, which is ironically not what we expected at all. You're in shock, Tyler says. We all are. It isn't the camera, or the screen, K, it's us. We don't know how to see it." (357)