Scan barcode
A review by loischanel
Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi
1.0
Ascension was daring and visionary but ultimately an underwhelming waste of very unique potential.
----
Alana Quick is a talented sky surgeon from the city Heliodor on the planet Orpim. She lives with her Aunt Lai in a poverty-stricken neighbourhood known to many as the "fringe." They make their living as engineers, fixing damaged starships in need of repairs. The jobs don't pay well but eventually they hope to one day earn enough to pay for the treatment needed to cure Alana's chronic pain disorder.
After a chance encounter with a mysterious crew who is after Alana's sister and desperate to pursue the adventure of the Big Quiet, Alana stows away on the crew's ship where she encounters a lot more than she bargained for.
----
Despite the many moments of perfection in this book, in terms of the writing style and the diversity of representation, Ascension was a huge let-down.
I was excited to read a science-fiction novel and this book did give me a lot of action and world building that made me suspend my disbelief. I also loved the idea of interplanetary habitation and travel and I appreciated the wide range of diversity, in that the book features disability, queer, black and polyamourous representation.
But there were too many issues to redeem this book in my eyes, including the diction in some places as well as the pretentious verbosity. In parts, it read like fanfaction novel to me and it wasted a lot of time on wordy, superfluous internalising which could've been used to develop bits of the story that were sorely lacking for want. This book needed a lot more simplicity and a lot less of the emotional verbiage. (Not including the references to Alana's illness)
This book offered so much inventive, unique potential and speaks to a much wider audience of marginalised perspectives, unlike many books that we see in most mainstream publishing, so I really wanted to get behind this book and promote it but unfortunately, it ended up being very disappointing.
----
Alana Quick is a talented sky surgeon from the city Heliodor on the planet Orpim. She lives with her Aunt Lai in a poverty-stricken neighbourhood known to many as the "fringe." They make their living as engineers, fixing damaged starships in need of repairs. The jobs don't pay well but eventually they hope to one day earn enough to pay for the treatment needed to cure Alana's chronic pain disorder.
After a chance encounter with a mysterious crew who is after Alana's sister and desperate to pursue the adventure of the Big Quiet, Alana stows away on the crew's ship where she encounters a lot more than she bargained for.
----
Despite the many moments of perfection in this book, in terms of the writing style and the diversity of representation, Ascension was a huge let-down.
I was excited to read a science-fiction novel and this book did give me a lot of action and world building that made me suspend my disbelief. I also loved the idea of interplanetary habitation and travel and I appreciated the wide range of diversity, in that the book features disability, queer, black and polyamourous representation.
But there were too many issues to redeem this book in my eyes, including the diction in some places as well as the pretentious verbosity. In parts, it read like fanfaction novel to me and it wasted a lot of time on wordy, superfluous internalising which could've been used to develop bits of the story that were sorely lacking for want. This book needed a lot more simplicity and a lot less of the emotional verbiage. (Not including the references to Alana's illness)
This book offered so much inventive, unique potential and speaks to a much wider audience of marginalised perspectives, unlike many books that we see in most mainstream publishing, so I really wanted to get behind this book and promote it but unfortunately, it ended up being very disappointing.