Gravity

This is my second reading of my favorite Gerritsen book so far. Dr. Emma Watson is on the International Space Station doing scientific experiments when something goes terribly wrong. One of the crew is afflicted with stomach pains, vomiting and blood-red eyes. Soon, he's dead and his body seems to be liquifying before their very eyes. NASA is being told they have to abandon their astronauts; they have no clue what is happening to their crew members, so they can't allow it to come here and kill more people. But Jack McCallum, Emma's soon-to-be ex-husband, is back on earth trying to figure out what has gone wrong - and how to save Emma and the rest of the crew from dying from this strange disease that has somehow made it onto the space station. Where did it come from? How did it make it through all the security regulations for an ISS experiment? I loved this book - it's fast paced, creepy, and extremely well-written!

Dr. Jack McCallum washed out of astronaut training because of kidney stones. However, his wife Emma stayed with the program. Though not divorced, they are not together. They keep finding excuses to put the divorce off.Emma is training for a mission to the ISS, the International Space Station, in the near future. Then because the wife of one of the astronauts up on the Station is in an accident, he has to come home, so Emma is tapped to replace him. All of a sudden she's going into space now.Meanwhile the ne'er-do-well brother of the director of the Houston Space Center is working on his own space plane, one that's much cheaper than the shuttle, however his first attempt ended in disaster and he needs a pilot for his second attempt.After Emma gets up on the station things start turning terrible. The lab mice start dying. Green blobs are floating around. Than the astronauts themselves start dying horrible deaths, worse than Ebola, and it appears to be highly contagious.Jack frantically tries to track down a cure before the disease attacks Emma, but even after he believes he's solved the riddle of what's killing our spacemen, no one will let him go up. Better to let them all die, the authorities say, rather than to risk the disease getting back to earth.So where was that cheapo space plane again?"This is a futuristic thriller that is pretty straightforward. You just know what's going to happen before it does, but that doesn't take away form this story one bit. There are plenty of thrills here, lots of suspense and some plain old grisly horror. Also this story is very different from anything Tess Gerritsen has done to date, but don't let that put you off, because this is one very good book. I couldn't put it down.

Despite the fact I love Tess Gerrittsen's medical thrillers, I postponed buying this because the Astronaut/Space Mission theme did not appeal to me. I thought the NASA stuff would either bore me or get so technical I'd have trouble following the story.I'm thankful I bought it -- I loved it even more than Gerrittsen's books "Harvest" and "Bloodstream"! (Which is saying a lot because those books are both 5* in my opinion). She does such a commendable job explaining the tech. aspects (without going into too much detail) that you get a good feel for the shuttle layout & the tasks astronauts perform. Even if you are easily bored by tech. stuff or not mechanically inclined, you'll find "Gravity" captivating AND easy to follow! Gerrittsen paints such a vivid picture you feel you're there with the astronauts. Setting a medical thriller in deep space rachets up the suspense, increasing the tension several notches! Since the main character is a million miles from earth and surrounded by astronauts dying from an especially virulent and mysterious plague -- she has only herself to rely on.Once again, Gerritsen has created well-developed characters you care about. When the ending reveals the cause of the plague, you will marvel at Gerrittsen's ingenious plot and how easily everything falls into place! This is one of those books that once it's finished, you wish you could turn back time in order to relive the thrill of reading it the first time. A side note: The vast majority of Gerrittsen's books are romance novels (which I've never read) -- DO NOT let that dissuade you from reading her medical thrillers. If you're of the opinion most romance writers are lightweights who crank out formulaic feel-good fluff, don't be mistaken. Gerrittsen (who is an M.D.) possesses remarkable skill in the med. suspense genre. For years I've been a fan of Robin Cook's med. thrillers and I'd rank Gerrittsen above Cook. Her characters have greater depth than Cook's. You get to know the characters so well, you'll feel as those you live in the same house.

No environment contains as many medical threats as a space station. A small group of people living in close proximity, limited medical equipment, and a host of biological experiments always in process, all of this adds up to a high risk for infectious and deadly diseases. For this reason, incoming work is carefully screened for possible toxicity, and the team is trained in careful adherence to procedure. Yet the smallest of slips can spell disaster.When a tragic accident back on earth triggers a momentary slip on the station, something unexpected is let loose. Dr. Emma Watson arrives on the station to discover the first signs of an inexplicable infection that has horrific symptoms. Without good equipment, all she can do is try to ease the symptoms and wait for a miracle. Back on earth, her husband tries desperately to find the source of the disease and a way to treat it. But government authorities start directly interfering with NASA efforts and McCallum begins to suspect the problem is worse than a bad bug.Tess Gerritsen succeeds at the kind of medical thriller that is the Waterloo of writers with less capability. She has to balance a tremendous amount of science with the personal issues of men and women faced with a slow and ugly disease. Making everything seem real is a major challenge. Gerritsen was an internist before she took up writing and she has a knack for communicating medical details without stupefying the reader. In addition, she manages to master NASA speak well enough to convince this reader that her scenes were completely real.But Gerritsen really shines at steadily building suspense in the interweaving of the personalities of her characters. What her characters feel and think will complete engages the reader. From the relationship problems of Jack and Emma to the kind of government agents you love to hate, the author offers the reader countless opportunities to become involved.Gerritsen's flaw is her compulsion to make sure that all the clues are in place. While managing to keep the reader guessing, she withholds very little information. If the reader puts in all the effort required, it is possible to anticipate too many of the plot twists. The solution, of course, is to read it a bit faster and brace yourself for a rollercoaster ride. That should be no problem at all.

I'm one of those people who picked up this book because it just had too cool of a cover to pass up (that, and I'm a Robin Cook fan, so I was challenging King's cover quote). So, is Tess Gerritsen better than Cook? Hard to say; can't really compare the two. Tess leans more towards the sci-fi, while Cook sticks to terrestrial diseases. But, that doesn't make Gravity any less thrilling! This is one of the few books to actually give me the chills! Strong characters, vivid and graphic pictures of what exactly the crew members of the ISS are facing combined with superb research and writing skills make Gerritsen an author I'll be returning too. I eagerly look forward to reading her other books! Gravity is a roller-coaster of a read and one you won't soon forget.