In Ascension

Praise for In Ascension:

"A substantial work, carefully paced and plotted...There is an elegant symmetry to the novel, which balances Leigh's stratospheric career against the collapse of her personal relationship... [MacInnes'] novels have an unusual sobriety, a serious atmosphere, and a searching quality. The prose is clean and spare but rarely designed to impress; there's wisdom rather than cleverness in the storytelling."-Daisy Hildyard, New York Review of Books

"[A] capacious, broody work of speculative fiction."-The New Yorker

"Astonishing . . . 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."-Guardian

"Mind-altering... On nearly every page, details arise from the novel and demand their own attention, rather than only contributing to a scene. ... In a book filled with substantial literary achievements, In Ascension's primary achievement is sustaining this appreciative sensitivity throughout its pages, inviting readers to be fascinated by every detail in its world, and then equally fascinated by the world around them." -Dan Kubis, The Brooklyn Rail

"Martin MacInnes's third novel, In Ascension, is a searching, deeply empathetic work of literature-a story about one woman's struggle to find connection in a world that is tearing itself apart. In this cross-genre epic, MacInnes seamlessly blends grand tropes from science fiction...with probing philosophical meditations about what gets lost when we lose contact with one another and the natural world around us."-Jonathan Hahn, Sierra Magazine

"A thought-provoking story of underwater and outer space exploration. . . . MacInnes ensures readers never lose sight of what Leigh calls 'the generosity of porous life.' This brims with humanity."-Publishers Weekly

"I don't think I've ever read a book that was as profound and moving at every scale - the cell, the family, the universe. A remarkable, expansive, stunning achievement."-Karen Joy Fowler

"A shattering investigation of nothing less than humanity's place in the cosmos."-Daily Mail

"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." Financial Times

"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."-Times Literary Supplement

"A gorgeous, sombre epic, worthy of its precursors in Stanislaw Lem, J.G. Ballard, Olaf Stapledon and Stanley Kubrick. It will be of commanding interest to all whose ears prick up at those names, or any readern hungry to see the novel's cosmic and intimate dimensions reconciled with seemingly effortless grace." Jonathan Lethem

"Martin McInnes's imagination knows no bounds: he unites the unplumbed depths of the oceans to the infinity of interstellar space in his bravura, breathtaking, audacious In Ascension. Like Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life, and Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, this is an instant classic. Read it and feel awe and wonder." Neel Mukherjee, author of A State of Freedom

"Monumental . . . In Ascension rarely slips from G-inducing pace. It's that rare thing: a big, brawny novel of ideas that's actually readable. And for that considerable achievement, MacInnes deserves praise. It's no small thing, after all, to reach for the stars." Telegraph

"One of the best sci-fi novels I've read for ages . . . Transcendent."-New Scientist

"Its intellectual daring is formidable. This is fiction which is both stellar and grounded; an exemplar of what the novel alone can still do."-The Scotsman

"In Ascension is strewn with jaw-dropping ideas . . . I'm still chewing over them." Spectator

"A wondrous, hypnotic book."-Ned Beauman, author of Venomous Lumpsucker

"Laura Jean McKay, Colson Whitehead and Emily St John Mandel are serious novelists . . . crafting extraordinary and original speculative fiction. To that list, add Martin MacInnes." SFX (UK)

"An absorbing, serious, and wonderful novel. It will stay with you."-Daisy Hildyard, author of Emergency

"An extraordinary novel - planetary and beyond planetary. The salt and blood, the tide and the bloom, the stuff of the world, will haunt you."-JM Ledgard, author of Submergence

"Truly incredible. Beautiful and moving. A masterpiece."-Lee Rourke, author of Glitch