Friday, 8 May 2009
I have been reading several medical thrillers by Patricia Cornwell and while they have been extremely entertaining, they did not thrill me anywhere near as much as Gravity by Tess Gerritsen. I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that it is not thrillers in general that I love. It is Tess Gerritsen!
She is an extremely versatile writer. Gravity brushes on the sci-fi category. The story is about an apparently harmless organism that starts multiplying in a space station and infects and begins killing its occupants. At the centre of the story we have a heroine again. Emma Watson becomes the space station's physician when the current physician is forced to come home due to his wife suffering an accident.
When the organism starts killing the habitants inside the space station, they see themselves stranded and unable to come back to Earth. It is Jack (Emma's nearly-ex-husband) that will do everything in his power to bring her back home.
The book started quite technical to get us used to the NASA setting which made it a bit difficult to start for a NASA newb like me. However, once I got used to the acronyms, the story flowed wonderfully. The story had everything I could possibly like in it. There was the romantic tension between Emma and Jack and the realization of true love when facing disaster. The biology of the organism infecting the crew was interesting and kept me on edge. I really thought they were all going to die and that there was no cure possible.
I was expecting an average story due to the change in genre but it was great. I loved it.
Labels: Tess Gerritsen
Posts
You're right Tess Gerritsen is so appealing in her writing, I dont think I have tired of any of her stories yet. I am finding that I like thrillers but Tess blows them out of the water. This one in particular was brilliant. As an avid science fiction fan, interested also in astronomy and biology I found the idea of space affecting the growth of a normally harmless life form to a deadly all consuming seemingly alien virus absolutely fascinating. The research into NASA and the backgrounds of the characters are well rounded and comfortable, she introduces them in such a way it's like you're sitting down at a table with old friends who are telling you their tale of what happened. It's simply great. I think Tess could re-ignite interest in NASA and space exploration all by herself with more stories like this. I have to say best one yet!!