Book Review: In Ascension

In Ascension
by Martin MacInnes
Review by Harriet

Breathtaking and confounding in scope, this novel combines science fiction and natural history with meditations on memory, belonging and grief. The writing is rich and absorbing and though it moves slowly and I’m not sure I completely understood it all, the pleasure of my mind being stretched and the residual feeling of alertness to the remarkable world around us, was payoff enough. For those who enjoyed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, The Overstory by Richard Powers and the film Arrival.