Adam Roberts, The Guardian
‘Beautifully written, richly atmospheric, full of brilliantly evoked detail, never sacrificing the grounded verisimilitude of lived experience to its vast mysteries, but also capturing a numinous, vatic strangeness that hints at genuine profundities about life. Nobody else writes like MacInnes, and this magnificent book is his best yet.’
Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman
‘Its intellectual daring is formidable. This is fiction which is both stellar and grounded; an exemplar of what the novel alone can still do.’
Carl Wilkinson, Financial Times
‘To the handful of recent classics such as Richard Powers’ The Overstory and Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future can be added Martin MacInnes’ In Ascension… The richness of the novel is endlessly rewarding. In Ascension is a far-reaching epic that blends a deep scientific knowledge with a wide-eyed wonder at our place in the universe.’
Beejay Silcox, The TLS
‘In Ascension finds as much poetry in the human microbiome as it does in the grand revolutions of the planets. It is a love letter to life… a primer to marvel.’
Kirkus Reviews
‘Readers of speculative fiction will appreciate this intellectually rich addition to the canon, which considers what new discoveries might tell humans about ourselves and the planet we inhabit… An interesting investigation of home and interpersonal responsibilities through deep-sea and far-space travel.’