A 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.
An elegiac voyage through these questions, a vaulting exploration of the interplay between the micro and the macro, the human and the otherworldly ... Leigh’s connection to, and reverence for, the natural world is profoundly moving. MacInnes’s descriptions are lush, almost devotional at times.
Moves beyond the tactile, intimate surrealism of his prior books to tell a more epic if also more conventional story ... Lovely, energizing scenes ... Comes to life in awe-inspiring, tragic and life-affirming ways.
A thrilling, thought-provoking celebration of the marvels and mysteries of the universe ... The novel is beautifully constructed, each of its parts snapping together satisfyingly ... Few novels toggle so beautifully between the minute and the vast, the personal and the theoretical, the quotidian and the extraordinary, the knowable and the unfathomable. In Ascension raises big questions about the universe and humanity’s place in it. Even better, it evokes wonder at every turn.
