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.
A slowly told near future story of exploration, in the deep ocean, in space, inside ourselves. I particularly appreciated the themes of cooperation for survival. Individual strength may not be enough where a group can endure and thrive.
The scifi elements are handled lightly, told from the point of view of someone who doesn't know the details.
At the top of the mountain the view is spectacular, and then one must descend again.
"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)
First of all I have to mention I was listening to the Audiobook version of this book, I don't think that enhanced the experience. The story is a mix of family drama with some science fiction elements mixed in, I'd barely call it sci-fi and I'm not sure how much research went into the technical aspects. The story is set to a backdrop of childhood paternal violence, which is a recurrent theme throughout the book and doesn't seem relevant to the story. I felt no attachment to any of the characters, they weren't loveable, or dislikeable for that matter, just grey, soulless beings. The story just meanders, at some points I thought I'd accidentally skipped a few chapters. I read this because I saw it was on the Booker prize longlist and it was supposed to be sci-fi, from this point I will no longer be using the longlist as …
First of all I have to mention I was listening to the Audiobook version of this book, I don't think that enhanced the experience. The story is a mix of family drama with some science fiction elements mixed in, I'd barely call it sci-fi and I'm not sure how much research went into the technical aspects. The story is set to a backdrop of childhood paternal violence, which is a recurrent theme throughout the book and doesn't seem relevant to the story. I felt no attachment to any of the characters, they weren't loveable, or dislikeable for that matter, just grey, soulless beings. The story just meanders, at some points I thought I'd accidentally skipped a few chapters. I read this because I saw it was on the Booker prize longlist and it was supposed to be sci-fi, from this point I will no longer be using the longlist as an indicator of quality. There's nothing new here, other people have done it better, it could have been improved with heavy pruning. It'll probably make an OK film as it would be relatively easy to pluck out and extrapolate a story from the pages. I don't like criticising the work of other people because I'm not a writer and this must have taken a lot of effort to put together but frankly don't waste your time.
Hoped for a story like "Project hail Mary" but this is much slower paced. Started good. A bit like the film arrival. But find arrival as story even better.
