In Ascension

This is one of those sci-fi books that I would put on a "must read" list. It attempts to answer the question - why does life exist on Earth, and seemingly nowhere else? And the place it ends up at definitely makes it worthy winning the 2024 Arthur C Clarke Award.

The main character is Leigh, a Dutch scientist who obsessively dives into her scientific research as an excuse to avoid facing the difficult relationship she has with her mother and their family history.

It's set a little bit in the future - there have been advancements made in space technology, but the timeskip also shows Earth worse off - pollution has worsened, seas are rising and wildfires raging from the affects of climate change.

One of the reviews I saw mentioned alien contact, and although the book does have a slow build up towards this, it's not really the key part of the story. The writing is also excellent, with a lot of the focus on the characters rather than being a "hard sci-fi" kind of book.

I'm sad that I read it, because I'll never read it for the first time again.

3.5/4 - still processing it. Def. big ideas and too many themes covered. Elements felt familiar from so many ‘first contact' stories, but at the same time I feel like the story was never about that - it's more intricate it explores humanity, family relationships and perhaps in an odd enough way to me felt like an examination of the impact of work and obsession. I will need to come back to this book eventually, I feel like the first chapter invites me for one more dive - I just need time away from this story.

Story is set in a near future that is not all that different to our current world but there have been a number of big steps forward. These future science advances aren't necessarily new ideas and even though they are kept vague in terms of details, they are still interestingly presented. The main appeal of this are the characters reacting to how the new science advances impact their lives, work, opportunities, and the whole world to a certain extent. This book is more about the people than anything else. The characters are approachable and i was able to inhabit them, hope for them. Also this story had some very strong ecological threads and at times reminded me of Vandermeer's Area X, just not as weird as Vandermeer but still an odd vibe is there at times.

this book somehow made me care even less about algae

I am in love with this book. Such talented writing. Such big ideas yet grounded in granite-hard science fiction. I regretted watching the hours and minutes dwindling on my audiobook app. as the story unfolded. I could've stayed inside this novel for weeks and months.

For Fans Of: The Three Body Problem, Project Hail Mary, Ad Astra (film), 2001: A Space Odyssey

2.5 stars.

What a boring book! It starts fine, slow, but interesting and intriguing, but in the end, nothing happens.

Extraordinary.
A most wondrous author.