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Ascent

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Ascent

By: Jed Mercurio
Narrated by: John Hopkins
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

A truly stunning novel of one man's dangerous obsession with immortality, from the BAFTA award-winning creator of Bodyguard and Line of Duty.

One of the Guardian's '1000 novels everyone must read'.

Yefgenii Yeremin is a flyer and a phantom.

Destined to go down in Soviet history books as 'Ivan the Terrible', the most deadly fighter pilot of the Korean War, one moment of madness sees Yefgenii throwing his reputation to the wind. Exiled to a remote Arctic base, his name unknown and victories uncelebrated, he must endure a fate worse than death: anonymity.

But when a man arrives from Moscow's Space Committee in search of a volunteer prepared to sacrifice himself for his country, Yefgenii seizes his one last chance of immortality.

©2007 Jed Mercurio (P)2021 Penguin Audio Action & Adventure Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction Space Exploration Interstellar Destiny Air Force

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Critic reviews

"A completely gripping, read-at-once novel." (The Times)
All stars
Most relevant  
John Hopkins is excellent and makes the most of the meticulously detailed text. However as I'm not a pilot or aviation lover it left me cold. The human interest is a very minor piece of the story which started so enticingly.
Admired but disappointed
It will make a great action movie without doubt

Meticulous Read for Aviators

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I enjoyed this book. The research must have been meticulous. The detail in the description was thoroughly emersive. I felt that the story lacked the human connection present in other Mercurio writing. However, the subject is cold, lonely, even bleak. Our hero is a loner driven by cold ambition so perhaps the story reflects these traits. I would recommend the audio book.

Detailed, emersive, but remote.

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