Ascent, Jed Mercurio
Ascent, Jed Mercurio
List: $16.99 | Sale: $11.89
Club: $8.49

Ascent
A Novel

Author: Jed Mercurio

Narrator: Todd McLaren

Unabridged: 7 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/27/2007


Synopsis

Fascinated with the secrets still surrounding the Soviet Union's race against the Americans to put a man on the moon, Jed Mercurio proposes a compelling scenario: What if the Americans weren't the first? And with its inscrutable but intriguing hero, Yefgeni Yeremin, a brilliant Soviet cosmonaut, Ascent allows us to imagine what that terrifying journey might have been like.

Yeremin, a Soviet MiG pilot, rises from the privation of a Stalingrad orphanage to the heights of the cosmonaut corps. During the Korean War, as a member of an elite squadron, he shoots down the most American fighter jets—a feat that should make him a national hero, but because the Soviets' involvement in the war is secret, Yeremin's victories go unreported. When he is recalled from obscurity to join the race to the moon, he realizes it is his chance for immortality. In hypnotic, deceptively spare prose, Mercurio tells a haunting tale that questions the power of ideology and the nature of fate.


About Jed Mercurio

Jed Mercurio trained as a doctor and joined the Royal Air Force while at medical school. He adapted his first novel, Bodies, into an award-winning drama for the BBC and is currently developing an American version for the Showtime Network. He lives outside London.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Gary

I love the television series ‘Line of Duty’ written by Jed Mercurio so jumped at the chance of reading this book. I should have read more about it before I decided to read it, it is so far from my normal genre and was hard work for me personally to get into. I have this habit of starting a book with......more

Goodreads review by Rachael

Jed Mercurio is probably now best known as the creator of the television series, Line of Duty. He has also written a few novels. Personally, I think his TV work is worth five stars while I would only give his books three stars. Take Ascent. It's a story about a Soviet fighter pilot who becomes a cosm......more

Goodreads review by Helen

This is a fascinating graphic novel about a Russian orphan, Yeremin, who overcame adversity to become an ace fighter pilot who then became a cosmonaut. Saying more about the plot will give away the story. So I will limit myself to a critique of the graphic novel as a successful (or unsuccessful) art......more

Goodreads review by Anna

Difficult to decide how many stars to give this one. The story was gripping, the characterization was impeccable, and much of the writing was moving to the point of tears. But it needed a better editor, dammit. There's repetition that could have been excised without the book suffering, and a few phe......more

I am a huge Jed Mercurio fan, after loving Bodies, The Bodyguard and my all-time favourite TV programme, Line of Duty. So much so, I hit the request button on NetGalley without looking at the blurb, and this was a lesson learned. I am definitely not a reader of science fiction, or espionage/spy thril......more