In my twenties, I was a fairly prolific reader, but since starting a family and devoting more time to my career, I find it hard to make time for reading. As a result, I’ve become less focused both in the act of reading and the book choices I make. For a long time, I’ve missed the amazing feeling of engaging with a book that stimulates me emotionally and intellectually. I’m ~50% of the way through In Ascension, and this emotional pull has returned. So far, it is an astonishing book that I do not want to finish, but cannot wait to complete.
Thank you for your review. I only came across this book online yesterday and ordered it. The synopsis felt something I can associate with on a deeper level, as my escape and my safe space has always been astrophysics (always keeping up with astroscience news). I was and still am a stargazer. Pondering about the universe and the laws of physics is calming and satisfying, makes me feel light like a feather, detached from mundane everyday problems. Can't wait to read this book. Greetings from Switzerland
I hope you enjoy his books and I’d love to know what you think when you get a chance to read one He’s such a fascinating writer and I hope this book gains him an even wider audience.
Btw, I love your critiques and choices. Great channel, not enough Channels dedicated like Eric here, to reading good works of literature. Love this channel. Keep at it Eric!!!!
Very unusually I was not so impressed with this as you were, it felt « over written » to me and I found the ending vaguely unsatisfactory ! Having said that it was a very enjoyable read and I would expect it on the Booker longlist. It is one of the best books of the year, but I just do t quite feel the love.😂
Thank you for your enormously positive review. I just finished this wonderful book, and can’t remember when I felt so profoundly moved by my reading. Such beautiful writing, such an elegant, deliberate, delicate circular narrative; connectivity imagined at a grand scale.
I just finished In Ascension. It has made a profound impact on me. Discovery and exploration were powerful themes all while pondering the cycles of life. I really loved it. Thanks for the recommendation. Maybe I can come visit your cabin and ponder along with you.
Thanks for the review. Similar to your experience, this was the first time I've ever finished a book and then wanted to go back to the beginning and read the whole thing again.
It was so interesting to hear you mention your stargazing experience and how it made you feel. I have experienced the same situation and this book brought that exact feeling to me. It made me feel so small and insignificant. I remember distinctly losing track of all the shooting stars I was seeing. I would have sworn it was a meteor shower but I checked and there wasn’t one that night. It was surreal and I still can’t believe I was lucky enough to see it. It’s also kind of a bittersweet memory to think about because it was when I was in Maui and they are really going through it there right now😢. Great review and it aligned very closely with how I felt as well.
I understand, that feeling is truly joyous ❤. Happened with me last week when I read Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov and re-read it immediately & took lengthy notes! 😄
That’s great to hear! 📚 While I felt mixed about Time Shelter I know a rereading would give me a much deeper understanding of the powerful concepts the book explores.
So happy you enjoyed this one. I preordered it after you shared it in one of your book hauls. I also read his novel Gathering Evidence which I really enjoyed. Looking forward to picking it up!
Yep this has got my attention! I loved Bewilderment but I’m one of those people who can never bring myself to reread a book. I’ve never done it, there’s always more books out there to read
I felt I would get a better appreciation on the second time around. I had the audio book, so I think there are parts where I was not 100% focussed. Anyway, it was the first book I've finished that I've wanted to immediately re-read (wanted to, as opposed to 'bring myself' to!).
This sounds incredible, it clearly struck a chord with you and I loved listening to your review. I think I’m going to choose it for my book club - I’ll let you know how it goes down!
I read this a few months ago and really enjoyed it too. A thoughtful and intriguing piece of literary sci-fi that had such a distinctive tone to it. I also liked that some of the book was set in my hometown of Rotterdam.
Just finished it and wow. MacInnes must have done so much research! First impression is that this is a love story to the earth and all living things and their resilience. Also about life and death and their meaning in the grand scheme of things. I also enjoyed the new perspective towards the end of the story.
So who🎉 you all got for the Booker, I just ordered The House of Doors (Long list ) and I'm reading presently In Ascention ( long list) and The Prophet Song ( possible winner). You Eric?
Even though I didn't get on with "infinite Ground", there was enough interesting writing in its early parts to make me want to get this, for as you say, it seems that's it's delivering on its ideas unlike Infinite Ground. I'll let you know how I get on with it. Thanks Eric.
I had mixed feelings about this one. I loved the basic idea and in places the book did inspire a sense of awe and wonder. However I thought some sections of the book were much stronger than others. I found the circa 200 pages allocated to the Datura and Kourou sections excessive and Leigh's increasingly central role in the mission implausible. As someone who has done scientific work in highly secure environments these sections often felt unrealistic to me. And there were too many places where the weak dialogue broke the 'spell' of the narrative. The prose is relatively plain, though it does often build effective episodes. But at the level of individual sentences I don't really recall any particularly beautiful or memorable ones. I read this book immediately after reading Solenoid, and in comparison 'In Ascension' seemed pretty lightweight. There were some sharp insights into the family relationships which were well done, including the shift of narrative perspective in the concluding Ascension section. But, other than the new family relationship perspective, I found this final section to be unrealistic and weighed down with tedious exposition. So a great idea that worked very well in places, but overall for me it didn't fulfil its initial promise. I'd give it a 6/10.
In the middle of this book, and I am completely transfixed, the pacing, the attention to detail, be it a part of a machine,.. to complex physics. It sounds boring, "nerdy" stuff right? ( Record: I never call a person a nerd, even if that's their gender) ohhhh, sorry. But the pedantic descriptions give way to beauty and awe, from the depths of our Oceans to Interstellar interference by...some thing off world. Got you yet? My favorite novel of the year, still got 75 pages left, but I've marked this for greatness several chapters in, when I locked on the narrative and got comfy with McInnes's tight.. wandering prose. Why are the Irish and Scots so bloody good at writing??? I have whole book shelf full and dedicated to those two..or is it Three??? Nations ???.Right. Anyways with a book about alien species both below and above, it's more the story of humans, in a double spaced 500 page novel. I now want to read everything McInnes ever writes or has written. I got Prophet Song for Booker'23
i just finished reading this. My single thought after every page: can it get any worse? Cannot believe you read this twice....omg, you deserve masochist of the century award :)
I just finished this book. I have mixed feelings. I thoroughly enjoyed the first part where Leigh is on an exploratory trip on a ship in a remote area. I also got the sense of discovery when they find a deep fissure in the earth crust and the finding of Arachne in the samples after deep sea diving. This is an important find which is going to be used in outer space exploration. Now we are on a mission to explore signals coming from the Oort Clouds. Who is funding this and who would sign up on a eighteen month maiden journey “hopefully round trip?”Helena, Leigh’s sister is very important to the story and especially later in the book. She sees their early Childhood differently. She is the down to earth type person-no pun intended. I liked the book but did not love it.
