"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

"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 reader
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