Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jed Mercurio has range beyond my expectations - excellent, 15 April 2007
The writer behind the brilliant "Cardiac Arrest" and "Bodies" shows here that he is more than a Robin Cook with grit. I had the feeling that Jed Mercurio might be a one-trick pony before I read this, but "Ascent" shows that the writer has breadth beyond expectations.
The book follows the career of Yefgenii Yeremin from bullied, abused Stalingrad orphan to pioneering cosmonaut via flying MIG15s in the Korean War. Yeremin spends his whole life achieving heroic feats but is always unrecognised due to the shadowy politics of Soviet Russia. He is everyman and nobody. A hero of his times yet utterly anonymous. His yearning for success in everything that he does is attempted merely as a challenge to himself. His actions right up to the lonely finale show that it is the deed that is important and not the recognition that goes with it. In a way this is a beautiful refutation of today's shallow instant celebrity culture. Whether Jed Mercurio meant this I don't know - but that's how it comes across to me.
The narrative is simply presented without complicating side plots making "Ascent" an easy and enjoyable read. It's style reminds me of anothe great book from late last year, Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It is a bleak portrait of human life, warts and all - I guess in that way it IS similar to "Bodies".
I'd highly recommend this book, it's a moving portrayal of one man's battle with his own demons to prove that he is the best. Great buy!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The praise is justified, 19 Mar 2007
I seldom buy hard-cover fiction at full price. Having said that, I made an exception as the reviews of "Ascent" that I've seen or heard were uniformly enthusiastic - not that uniformity of opinion is a guarantee of anything. I purchased "Cloud Atlas" on a similar impulse, having forgotten that I grew weary of science-fiction by the age of 16, which was some time ago. But I've always been a bit of an aviation enthusiast, even if falling some distance short of the anorak-y, so I stumped up the full cover price for "Ascent".
It's as good as the reviews suggested, written in a sparse and transparent style that's completely appropriate to its subject matter. Jed Mercurio's decision (what a name!) to use technical vocabulary and associated acronyms without recourse to footnotes, glossary or explanatory digression is a bold move which may irritate some readers, but which only adds authenticity to what is, in general terms, a very convincing story.
Which makes a couple of plot points stand out as all the more implausible. Firstly, during air combat in Korea a pilot is said to have been hit in the leg by a ".22" bullet from another aircraft: yet another occurrence in the venerable tradition of the "minor flesh wound"... I haven't checked this out but it seems more than unlikely that such ammunition, more suitable for use on rats at close range, has ever been used in aircraft weapons. In early WW2, even the eight .303 guns used on some British fighters were quickly seen to be underpowered.
The second implausibility is the "push" which the hero imparts to his colleague's fighter after it runs out of fuel. Well, maybe. It's one way of generating a bit of necessary thrust to the plot, but it sounds absurd to me.
The characterisation of Yevgenii, the central character, is skilfully handled too. An essentially cold, orphaned individual, emotionally crippled beyond repair in an early childhood, is a difficult character for whom to create empathy, but the author pulls it off wonderfully, particularly in his evocation of Yevgenii's relationship with his almost equally damaged wife. It's hard to see many women readers being attracted to this novel on the basis of its overt subject matter, so it's a relief to see that at least one woman reviewer here has enjoyed what's liable to be seen as an archetypal "boys' book".
There are many other good things about the book. As an example of "counter-factual" fiction, frequently a doomed undertaking, it could hardly be bettered. Its handling of the human relationships within the Soviet military / scientific bureaucracy is both a convincing depiction of utilitarian callousness and an acknowledgement of human resilience and loyalty.
Despite minor criticisms "Ascent" is a brilliant novel which, like another reviewer, I could hardly bear to put down. I wish it had been a little longer.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Top Gunski, 1 April 2008
After penning TV medical drama Cardiac Arrest and hospital based book Bodies (afterwards made into a TV series) who could have guessed that Mercurio's next bit of fiction would be a thrilling depiction of Ace fighter pilots and an alternative version of the space race? Not me, that's for sure.
The story of Yefgenii Yeremin begins at the end of the Great Patriotic War. His entire family dead, he is sent to an orphanage where he endures brutal treatment at the hands of one particular boy. But from this inauspicious start he begins his ascent. During the Korean War, as part of the Soviet Union's secret force, he becomes an ace pilot. It is here that Mercurio's descriptions of dogfights and air battles really bring this novel to life. As he pushes his MiG to the limit you can almost feel the G-forces pressing down on you, the smell of sweat in the cockpit and that alienated thrill as another American jet trails black smoke and plunges to the earth.
'The aircraft fitted him and he fitted it. The picture outside the cockpit represented a universe in its most comfortable and understandable aspect: a patchwork land below, a sky above, and in between a sport of death and survival for men to play.'
But due to the hidden nature of the Soviet involvement 'Ivan the Terrible' receives glory only whilst the war continues and only amongst his colleagues (and that begrudgingly due to the competitive nature of ace pilots). At its end he is shipped off to Franz Josef Land, a freezing exile from which he will be saved when the man from the Space Committee comes calling. As he joins the race to put men first in orbit and then to the moon itself we feel the real pressures of pulling off so difficult a challenge. Mercurio conveys this even more effectively by making Yeremin by this stage a man past his absolute prime. His body is wracked by pains from his past and with weight limits playing such an important part in crew selection we see him training with the dedication of a sportsman and rejecting food itself in an effort to bring his weight down to an acceptable limit. With the Russians falling ever further behind as the Apollo missions progress how far will the programme and Yeremin be prepared to go?
I read this novel with the kind of zeal you only feel as a child. There is something a bit boys own about it all which may mean that the novel has limited appeal to women, especially as the solitary female character is underdeveloped and only ever referred to as 'the widow'. But for sheer thrills and page turning excitement it can't be beaten. Imagine a combination of Top Gun, The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 and you'll have a fair idea. Yeremin is an interesting hero, damaged like the country itself at the outset, his desire to rise through the ranks and achieve glory in the name of his country, even one that treats him as a mere subject, means that we empathise with a man who can seem distanced and cold when it comes to personal relationships. His physical flaws mean that there is no sense of inevitability to his successes which keeps us always involved. The final sections of the book are incredibly focused; it's just you and him and his predicament. If you're a nail-biter don't expect to have any left by the final page. Mercurio includes just the right amount of technical info without it becoming boring but it's his ability to convey the excitement of being airborne, the impossibility of men conquering that realm to which we don't belong, which really makes this book soar.
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