Lead Review (In Ascension)

• Book: In Ascension
• Location: World
• Author: Martin MacInnes

Review Author: tripfiction

Longlisted Booker Prizes 2023

A novel that packs it all in. Opening in Rotterdam, we are introduced to Leigh, within the bosom of her family. It is not a happy situation and her study of marine biology enables her to leave and work on research projects around the world. Her work is, in many ways, her lifeline.

She joins an exploration team looking at a trench in the Atlantic, and from there she ends up in the Mojave desert, where she is involved with an ambitious space agency that is making is making waves with its findings, discoveries and links.

The book is divided into very specific sections, each with a slightly different narrative hand. There is plenty of science detail to geek out on, giving a sense that the reader is in the exploration vehicle alongside the characters. This is speculative literary fiction that creates settings in which the human condition can be explored. It can feel didactic at times and at 496 pages it can feel like quite a tome – it has clearly ticked a lot of boxes to appear on the Booker Prizes longlist 2023.

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