In Ascension
By Martin MacInnes
- Genre
- Science Fiction & Speculative Fiction
- Publisher
- Atlantic Books (UK)
- Publication year
- 2023
- ISBN
- 9781838956240
A Dutch marine biologist's research takes her from a newly discovered deep-ocean trench to a space mission investigating an anomaly at the edge of the solar system. Across vast scales, Martin MacInnes's novel probes the origins of life, family and consciousness. It won the 2024 Arthur C. Clarke...
From the crushing dark of a newly found ocean trench to the silence beyond the planets, Martin MacInnes's Clarke Award-winning novel moves across scales most fiction never attempts. Its center is Leigh, a Dutch marine biologist whose fascination with the origins of life carries her from studying deep-sea microbes to a mission chasing an anomaly at the solar system's edge - while, back home, an ordinary family history quietly frays. In Ascension is speculative fiction in a contemplative, literary key, more interested in awe and unease than in incident, and it asks large questions about consciousness, evolution and humanity's place in a universe indifferent to it. MacInnes writes with cool precision and an almost oceanic patience; the novel rewards readers willing to drift with its currents rather than demand propulsion. The effect can be hypnotic, occasionally disorienting, and finally sublime. For those drawn to cerebral, expansive science fiction in the lineage of Solaris or Arrival, it is a remarkable, quietly ambitious achievement.