Wow, wow, wow.
I REALLY enjoyed this one. I’ve been thrift shop hunting for a copy of Michael Crichton’s “The Andromeda Strain”, and this definitely fulfilled my craving for a space-y medical thriller in the meantime.
Tess Gerritsen has quickly become one of my favorite authors. I read “Bloodstream” and “The Silent Girl” (Rizzoli & Isles #9) this year and really enjoyed both of them, but this was by far my favorite. I read it over the chaos of Christmas, sneaking little moments with my Kindle whenever I could, and I ripped through it in 2 days. I would be nursing my daughter at 4AM and end up staying up longer to read in the middle of the night!
It’s a very fast paced and exciting novel.
It has a very cinematic feel (man, Gravity the Sandra Bullock movie would have been WAY better based on this novel) and it’s quite scary. If body horror bothers you, I wouldn’t read this. BUT the whole medical mystery aspect is fascinating, and the fact that it takes place mostly in space added an interesting dimension to the usual medical thriller genre.
I liked the characters – there was quite a large cast, but I found it pretty easy to keep track of who was who, and I liked how the various plotlines all ended up tying together. THAT SAID, there are a couple of things in this book that may strike you as implausible. This didn’t bother me, though. Frankly, I find the whole idea that we somehow *know* that there is in fact a gazillion trillion galaxies or whatever implausible, too.
Like many sci-fi novels, this book is pretty atheistic in worldview, but again, as a work of science fiction I don’t get too bothered by the fact that I don’t agree with all of the fictional/speculative conclusions.
Early on a character does refer to another character who is a creationist as a “scientific moron” who wants schools to “throw out biology and teach the Bible” which is of course a pretty silly strawman of what creationists (of various viewpoints) think, but what can you do. I enjoy reading different perspectives and having an additional element to discuss.
All in all, I really really enjoyed this story and I was sad to finish it. I am trying to pace myself on reading Tess Gerritsen’s entire backlist. š
You can get the book here on Amazon. As anĀ Amazon AssociateĀ IĀ earnĀ from qualifying purchases. š
