Emma Watson, a brilliant research physician, has been training for years for the mission of a lifetime: to study living beings in space. Jack McCallum, Emma's estranged husband, has shared her dream of space travel, but a medical condition has grounded and embittered him. He must watch from the sidelines as his wife prepares for her first mission to the international Space Station.
Once aboard the space station, however, things start to go terribly wrong. A culture of single-celled organisms known as Archaeons, gathered from the deep sea, are to be monitored in the microgravity of space. The true and lethal nature of this experiment has not been revealed to NASA. In space, the cells rapidly multiply and soon begin to infect the crew -- with agonizing and deadly results.
A recovery attempt ends in catastrophe: the NASA shuttle crashes, killing all onboard, and the space station is left dangerously crippled. Emma struggles to contain the deadly microbe, while back home, Jack and NASA work against the clock to retrieve Emma from space.
But there will be no rescue. The contagion now threatens Earth's population as well, and the astronauts are left stranded in orbit, quarantined aboard the station -- where they are dying one by one...Written with an exacting eye, Dr. Tess Gerritsen ensnares the imagination with Gravity, her most steely, unforgettable thriller yet.
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"I've enjoyed Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli and Isles books before, but I'd heard that she could also deliver a spine-tinglingly terrifying tale - this is the first of hers that I've read that really delivered on that aspect. Some of the scenes in this story of a biological and medical catastrophe, on board the International Space Station, were truly shocking and horrifying. The emotional rollercoaster she takes you on, through the series of life and death decisions, not just for individuals, but the potential threat to humanity, both took my breath away and seemed way too close for comfort with the recent activity to allow commercial space craft to dock with ISS. A truly outstanding piece of literature."
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Jane (5 out of 5 stars)