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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
mysterious
medium-paced
A spore sample infecting a group of people, isolated from the rest of the world not just by distance but by the vacuum of space. A race to save anyone as each crew member of the ISS gets exposed. And a fear of how they could be rescued when dealing with something so dangerous.
Comparisons to Michael Crichton's work- in particular The Andromeda Strain- are inevitable here, due to the topic and especially the tone of Gravity, but Tess Gerritsen crafts a story more compelling, more interesting, and infinitely more satisfying. I picked this up outside of my normal reading times because I could not keep away from it for too long. I sacrificed sleep to continue reading. This is a thriller that stands out for me in its genre.
I'm a fan of science fiction. This isn't news to anyone. Medical thrillers aren't usually my bag because of how much of a paranoid germophobe I am. Gravity blends these together in a way that feels plausible in both: a day-after-tomorrow future dealing with the obscure and unprecedented disease threatening the human race. I don't think that this will make me too much more likely to venture into that genre, but I'm not ruling it out, and willing to consider it where I never was before.
It gets gruesome- a few stomach-turning moments in surgeries and after deaths- so beware of that. This is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.
But if you're a fan of Crichton, and want more in the same vein, this book will be right up your alley. You might even prefer it.
Comparisons to Michael Crichton's work- in particular The Andromeda Strain- are inevitable here, due to the topic and especially the tone of Gravity, but Tess Gerritsen crafts a story more compelling, more interesting, and infinitely more satisfying. I picked this up outside of my normal reading times because I could not keep away from it for too long. I sacrificed sleep to continue reading. This is a thriller that stands out for me in its genre.
I'm a fan of science fiction. This isn't news to anyone. Medical thrillers aren't usually my bag because of how much of a paranoid germophobe I am. Gravity blends these together in a way that feels plausible in both: a day-after-tomorrow future dealing with the obscure and unprecedented disease threatening the human race. I don't think that this will make me too much more likely to venture into that genre, but I'm not ruling it out, and willing to consider it where I never was before.
It gets gruesome- a few stomach-turning moments in surgeries and after deaths- so beware of that. This is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.
But if you're a fan of Crichton, and want more in the same vein, this book will be right up your alley. You might even prefer it.
Gravity is one of two books based on biology that I have read recently. This one was my science fiction pick for this round and The Hot Zone was my science pick for the start of the next round [post to come]. I picked Gravity because I knew The Hot Zone was coming up. The former biology teacher at my school, now principal, used to have a quarter project where she assigned books to be read, amongst them were these two and Jurassic Park. I, of course, have read Jurassic Park, before but I had never read these two. When I found out recently that The Hot Zone was about an Ebola outbreak I figured it was relevant to get around to listening to it now. That decision triggered in my memory that I had never gotten around to listening to Gravity, so here it goes.
I have very mixed feelings about this book. There is a lot that I have to forgive it of because it was written in 1999 and there were things that she didn't know were coming, but at the same time, so many things just seem wrong. For starters a summary will be necessary [no spoilers outside of those given on the dust jacket]: the book focuses on an outbreak of a Archaean Chimera [think very adaptable bacteria] that turned infectious aboard the International Space Station [ISS]. There were times where this book got a lot of the science and some of the operations of the ISS right, and there were other times where it was way off. It was like looking at a bad poor reflection, where I recognized that this was supposed to be the ISS, but compared to how it actually runs and operates the description was so foreign that it just seemed off. Now, in the author's defense international cooperation between the Russian space station MIR and the US Shuttle Program was not great, and Apollo-Soyuz was pretty much nothing but diplomacy. It seems that she based how ISS would run and operate off of this and off of construction plans, after all construction only started in November 1998, and permanent habitation didn't start until November 2000. So the crew members in her book don't speak any shared languages, didn't train together, are pretty unfamiliar with the other nation's sections of the space station, and not only don't work together as a team, but are even antagonistic towards one another. On the other hand there were many optimistic views about the space program including shuttle missions in the mid-2000s in the 150s and 160s, whereas the actual final mission was STS-135 [mission #135] in 2011, Challenger was the only disaster, Columbia was still around, and launches were quick and frequent- including multiple missions at a time.
Although the book was gripping and enjoyable, it became predictable and unbelievable pretty quickly. If something could go wrong it did. And although I enjoy books where the author isn't afraid to kill off characters, there was no time to establish a connection with the characters before they were gone. There are also some containment mistakes that just seemed obvious. At times I was reminded of a bad Andromeda Strain. I do understand the point of assigning this as a biology fiction book about infectious disease, but in the end it stretched believability and credibility. The science in the book was accurate for what I know of biology and was believable and based upon confirmed science. Also, the symptoms of the disease were a lot like Marburgh and Ebola, which are the focus of The Hot Zone and current news, although it seems unlikely that an Archaean could behave like a filovirus, and although it is easy to let it slide, bacteria and viruses are fundamentally different.
Right before reading the book, I stumbled across a blog post on the authors webpage. I remember when I first heard about the movie Gravity that I assumed it was based off of this book. I was immediately going to listen to it, however, I shortly learned thereafter that the movie was not based upon the book. I end up watching the movie before reading this book, and outside of having a female lead character and taking place on the ISS with a disaster driving the plot the two seem to have nothing to do with one-another. According to her press release linked above she claims to have given them the benefit of the doubt at first, and that in the screenplay version she helped write she added in damage from a meteor shower. Why the movie needed even more disasters than the book had I don't know, but such an event did not occur in the book. Also, when it comes to movies in space there really is a limited number of disasters you can imagine happening and an unplanned meteor shower or collision with space junk is one of the predominate things you can think of, so I'm not sure this plot idea is all that unique. I don't wish the author any ill will, but I don't think I find her claim credible.
I have very mixed feelings about this book. There is a lot that I have to forgive it of because it was written in 1999 and there were things that she didn't know were coming, but at the same time, so many things just seem wrong. For starters a summary will be necessary [no spoilers outside of those given on the dust jacket]: the book focuses on an outbreak of a Archaean Chimera [think very adaptable bacteria] that turned infectious aboard the International Space Station [ISS]. There were times where this book got a lot of the science and some of the operations of the ISS right, and there were other times where it was way off. It was like looking at a bad poor reflection, where I recognized that this was supposed to be the ISS, but compared to how it actually runs and operates the description was so foreign that it just seemed off. Now, in the author's defense international cooperation between the Russian space station MIR and the US Shuttle Program was not great, and Apollo-Soyuz was pretty much nothing but diplomacy. It seems that she based how ISS would run and operate off of this and off of construction plans, after all construction only started in November 1998, and permanent habitation didn't start until November 2000. So the crew members in her book don't speak any shared languages, didn't train together, are pretty unfamiliar with the other nation's sections of the space station, and not only don't work together as a team, but are even antagonistic towards one another. On the other hand there were many optimistic views about the space program including shuttle missions in the mid-2000s in the 150s and 160s, whereas the actual final mission was STS-135 [mission #135] in 2011, Challenger was the only disaster, Columbia was still around, and launches were quick and frequent- including multiple missions at a time.
Although the book was gripping and enjoyable, it became predictable and unbelievable pretty quickly. If something could go wrong it did. And although I enjoy books where the author isn't afraid to kill off characters, there was no time to establish a connection with the characters before they were gone. There are also some containment mistakes that just seemed obvious. At times I was reminded of a bad Andromeda Strain. I do understand the point of assigning this as a biology fiction book about infectious disease, but in the end it stretched believability and credibility. The science in the book was accurate for what I know of biology and was believable and based upon confirmed science. Also, the symptoms of the disease were a lot like Marburgh and Ebola, which are the focus of The Hot Zone and current news, although it seems unlikely that an Archaean could behave like a filovirus, and although it is easy to let it slide, bacteria and viruses are fundamentally different.
Right before reading the book, I stumbled across a blog post on the authors webpage. I remember when I first heard about the movie Gravity that I assumed it was based off of this book. I was immediately going to listen to it, however, I shortly learned thereafter that the movie was not based upon the book. I end up watching the movie before reading this book, and outside of having a female lead character and taking place on the ISS with a disaster driving the plot the two seem to have nothing to do with one-another. According to her press release linked above she claims to have given them the benefit of the doubt at first, and that in the screenplay version she helped write she added in damage from a meteor shower. Why the movie needed even more disasters than the book had I don't know, but such an event did not occur in the book. Also, when it comes to movies in space there really is a limited number of disasters you can imagine happening and an unplanned meteor shower or collision with space junk is one of the predominate things you can think of, so I'm not sure this plot idea is all that unique. I don't wish the author any ill will, but I don't think I find her claim credible.
Great thriller with awesome science mixed with the lessons on the importance of friendship, love and never giving up on your dreams
This was so different to all other Tess Gerritsen books that I’ve read so it did take me a little bit longer to get into the story. In the end I did enjoy it but I’m glad I’ve read her others first otherwise I don’t think I’d have picked up more books if this was the first one I’d read.
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I've had this book for a very long time. If I wanted to go back through my BBs attic history (if it's still around) it could probably tell me exactly when. I'm pretty sure that this was the very first book I ordered from Paperback Swap in the early 2000s. I tried to read the first page, a bunch of times, couldn't get past it, and put it on the shelf. And it's just sat on my bookshelf ever since then looking sadly at me whenever I read a new book instead of this one.
Well, its day finally came, and I loved it! I'll admit, I had the same experience this time around... I brought it as my only option to my "Silent Book Club" so that I'd either need to read it or fake it for an hour, and I read the first page 3 or 4 times before I just said "f*** it" and flipped to page 3 and started there. Before the end of the hour, I'd really gotten into it. At the end, I went back and tried the first page again and I still couldn't get through it and although I now understand what was going on there I really and truly did not at the time, even 39 pages in. I even had one of the others try to read it, and she agreed... it was awful. Bad way to start a book!
So all that to say... if you're having trouble starting this one, skip a few pages and try again. It's worth it. Looking back, I spent over a week to get 37% of the way in... and then finished the rest of it in a day.
Some of the descriptions had me crawling in my skin, or wanting to vomit. It was awesome and horrifying at the same time. As soon as that damn mouse took a lick I was like "ohhh sh**" and then all my worst nightmares came true. I enjoyed the relationships between the crewmembers and I hated the relationship between Emma and her "husband" (yes I'm using quotes there but I do understand they were married ugh) and the weird not-a-triangle with the creepy other guy. And I don't really understand what happened to the scientist lady- I guess what's his face was tracking her because otherwise it's too coincidental - or how they disposed of her frogs.
This is probably the worst review I've ever written :) But I loved the book and I look forward to seeing the movie.
Well, its day finally came, and I loved it! I'll admit, I had the same experience this time around... I brought it as my only option to my "Silent Book Club" so that I'd either need to read it or fake it for an hour, and I read the first page 3 or 4 times before I just said "f*** it" and flipped to page 3 and started there. Before the end of the hour, I'd really gotten into it. At the end, I went back and tried the first page again and I still couldn't get through it and although I now understand what was going on there I really and truly did not at the time, even 39 pages in. I even had one of the others try to read it, and she agreed... it was awful. Bad way to start a book!
So all that to say... if you're having trouble starting this one, skip a few pages and try again. It's worth it. Looking back, I spent over a week to get 37% of the way in... and then finished the rest of it in a day.
Some of the descriptions had me crawling in my skin, or wanting to vomit. It was awesome and horrifying at the same time. As soon as that damn mouse took a lick I was like "ohhh sh**" and then all my worst nightmares came true. I enjoyed the relationships between the crewmembers and I hated the relationship between Emma and her "husband" (yes I'm using quotes there but I do understand they were married ugh) and the weird not-a-triangle with the creepy other guy. And I don't really understand what happened to the scientist lady- I guess what's his face was tracking her because otherwise it's too coincidental - or how they disposed of her frogs.
This is probably the worst review I've ever written :) But I loved the book and I look forward to seeing the movie.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Gore, Infidelity, Xenophobia, Car accident, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Cancer, Death, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Police brutality, Grief, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic
adventurous
challenging
informative
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read this years ago and picked it up again from the library BorrowBox when I was looking for a 3am read. As I remembered, it's the kind of book where you can see the film - it's very atmospheric and you can picture the space station and the action scenes. Very entertaining and suspenseful and not at all dated.