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I admit it. I'm a wimp. Spiders? I don't step on them. You have to get too close.
Heights? I get a nosebleed on a stepladder. Don't like flying, either. Needles? I don't do
needles. And oh, yeah, I'm claustrophobic, too.
Well, GRAVITY, the latest offering from internist-cum-author Terri Gerritsen, doesn't have
any spiders in it. Close, though. And a lot of it takes place aboard a space station ---
so, let's see, that covers heights and flying and claustrophobia, too, and because this is
a medical thriller there are lots and lots of needles. So I spent a lot of time reading
this book with 1.5 of my eyes covered.
And, of course, I loved every word of it.
GRAVITY is anything but a shake and bake book. You know the type. Take three teaspoons of
surgical procedures, mix with two medical crises, throw in a little gratuitous sex and one
domestic problem, season with a mystery thread and bake for 320 pages. That is not what
you get here. Ms. Gerritsen starts us off with an undersea exploration that in a heartbeat
goes horribly wrong, then switches locales to astronaut training. Within a few pages we
are aboard a space station, where things slowly but surely go horribly wrong, too. And go
even further downhill from there.
For there is a malevolent virus loose in the space station, and it is horribly and
irrevocably claiming the crew members --- one by one by one. And Ground Control does not
want the astronauts aboard the space station back. It is treating them as if they ...
well, as if they have the plague. They don't. Plagues can be cured.
Emma Watson, the physician aboard the space station, has to attempt to figure out the
source of the virus, and effect a cure, before it is too late. In the meantime, there are
those back home who know more than they are telling about the virus and its etiology.
Emma's estranged husband, Jack McCallum, wants her back --- on earth and in their home. It
is ultimately left up to him to surmise what is happening to his wife and her fellow crew
members before all of them are lost.
Ms. Gerritsen, being a physician herself, demonstrates not only her ample knowledge of
medical procedures but also her riveting ability to describe them in laymen's terms (a
caution: this is not a book you want to read while chowing down on a burger).
She has also done her homework with respect to the effects of low gravity on liquids
(which are hard enough to handle in earth's gravity, as anyone who has ever changed an
infant boy's diaper at 3:22 a.m. can attest to). With GRAVITY she has combined these
elements to create a novel which is by turns a horror story, mystery, medical thriller,
and romance --- and, most importantly, a terrific, nail biting story.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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