Pre-order Ascension here - U.K. | U.S.

FORMAT/INFO: Ascension will be published by Harper Collins in the U.K and by Penguin Random House in the U.S. on April 27th 2023 and April 25th 2023 respectively, in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Ascension is a standalone science fiction horror thriller told in epistolary format, as the protagonist Harold Tunmore's brother discovers letters that he wrote, but never got to post. Harold was never easy to understand, and was a rather enigmatic personality. One year, he randomly shows up to his brothers house and starts showering his niece with love, as well as frequent visits. While his brother does not know what prompted this change, he welcomes it. And then Harold disappears for many years, only to be rediscovered in a mental health facility, having lost his fingers, and seemingly, his mind as well. The rest of the book contains the contents of the letters, and shares the story of what happened after he disappeared.

This is a book that increasingly made me want an explanation for the years of the main character's disappearance. The daily letters that are written by Harold and allegedly assembled into this book serve to further the need to find out, because he doesn't know the answers either. He is recruited by a bunch of people and taken to the base of a mountain that has suddenly cropped up in the middle of the ocean, and nobody has an explanation. Neither do they know what it's made of, or what creatures might reside on it, and he becomes part of this exploratory team that is put together to find those answers. Each of his letters state eerie happenings, unexplained phenomena that the synopsis promises, and I have to be honest here and admit that that's the part of the book I best loved.

This book has a great hook, and page-turning suspense. The members of the exploratory team have different ideas of how to live life, faith, and don't always get along, which served to heightened the tension in the story, because I never knew who would turn out to be a detriment for the expedition. As much as I am not fond of stories in which a band of misfits are forced to journey together, their arguments and conversations played well into the atmosphere of the story. 

The central idea behind this hooky story is a blend of myth and science, and I believe it to be one that's easily accessible, and it's likely one you'll follow without a lot of effort even if you skim over most of the science-y bits. I wouldn't recommend that, but you can get away with it. What's even better is that it shows that the author is widely read in many classics from around the world, and I can't help but respect how he brought something from quite a lot of them together. Not only is the author well-read, but so are his characters, who are leading experts in their chosen fields.

The story moves at a constant pace, and while the characters experience loss, their hope is palpable and I couldn't help but admire them for trudging along. Harold's letters are even told in a fractured timeline, and this serves to recall his past, and works like a slow unravelling of the enigma of Harold Tunmore, who progressively feels more human, real, and capable of faith, love, hurt, and disbelief. The balance maintained to the scientific concepts presented in the book should make it easy for consideration for those who want to read what I would term "soft sci-fi".

With such a strong start, and an even stronger progression, I wondered if anybody could do justice to the tension in the book with the reveal at the end, and unfortunately, the end of the book did not stick the landing at all. 

CONCLUSION:  The end of this book may not do justice to the mystery at all, and that's ok, because I strongly feel that the rest of it is executed so well that you should read it for the first eighty percent alone. It is worth a try, and definitely one I will recommend to fans of soft sci-fi that like genre-blending mindfuckery written with a classical tone.