Russia, we have a problem. Jed Mercurio’s ASCENT is a what-if thriller, examining what would have happened had the USSR beat the U.S. in the space race.
Mercurio’s cosmonaut is Yefgenii Yeremin. We first meet him in an orphange in 1946, being brutally raped. Thankfully, the novel quickly fast-fowards a few years to Yefgenii’s days in the Soviet air force in the Korean War, during which he kills lots of American fighters. His expert sky powers don’t go unnoticed, landing him a plum position that will take him to space, and one not without its own APOLLO 13-style fuck-up.
ASCENT has lofty ambitions, marked by Mercurio’s literary-minded style. But it’s mired in so much aerospace speak and tech talk that it feels insidery – no accident, given the author’s own time in the Royal Air Force – holding you at arm’s length, unless such a thing appeals to you.
Thus, the work lies somewhere between the high-minded epics of James Michener and the escapist entertainments of Tom Clancy. But that said, it’s rather staid for a thriller, at times even reading like a biography. From the point Yefgenii goes into orbit, ASCENT reaches its own peak, but it’s so late in the game, it’s a case of too little, too late. –Rod Lott
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