[.ca] Gravity: A Novel of Medical Suspense (ISBN 0671016776)

From Amazon.com:
Tess Gerritsen used to be a doctor, so it comes as no great surprise that the medical aspects of her latest thriller are absolutely convincing--even if most of the action happens in a place where few doctors have ever practiced--outer space. Dr. Emma Watson and five other hand-picked astronauts are about to take part in the trip of a lifetime--studying living creatures in space. But an alien life form, found in the deepest crevices of the ocean floor, is accidentally brought aboard the shuttle Atlantis. This mutated alien life form makes the creatures in Aliens look like backyard pets. Soon the crew are suffering severe stomach pains, violent convulsions, and eyes so bloodshot that a gallon of Murine wouldn't help. Gerritsen brilliantly describes the difficulties of treating sick people inside a space module, and how the lack of gravity affects the process of taking blood and inserting a nasal tube. Dr. Watson does her best, but her colleagues die off one by one and the people at NASA don't want to risk bringing the platform back to earth. Only Emma's husband, a doctor/astronaut himself, refuses to give up on her. As we read along, eyes popping out of our heads, all that's missing is one of those bland NASA voices saying, "Houston, we have a problem--we're being attacked by tiny little creatures that are part human, part frog, and part mouse." Other examples of Gerritsen's controlled medical horrors: Bloodstream, Harvest, and Life Support. --Dick Adler

fantastic!:
I was tired when I first started to read this book and didn't get all hot and bothered by it, so I set it aside for a day or two and picked it and started to read it again. Boy, was I ever glad! As I got into the story I couldn't put the book down. I hadn't thought much about space stories before, so didn't know what to expect. Emma Watson gets to go into space to study living beings in space. While there, an experiment goes wrong and the space crew begin to die from it. The organisms that are infecting the astronauts come from outerspace only they don't know at first what is causing the deaths. It is as interesting to learn about what is involved with NASA, etc. as the storyline, especially, after hearing on the news years ago that there is life on Mars and the current interest of our government in going there. I highly recommend the book.

His Love is so Far Away, Can He Get to Her in Time?:
This is a story that takes place in the not far off future. NASA has a space station in orbit and a deadly virus, the result of a secret Army experiment, gets loose aboard. One of the crew dies and Dr. Emma Watson, who is going through a divorce from Doctor Jack McCallum, a man she still loves, goes up on the shuttle to replace him. The returning shuttle crew gets infected as they bring the body back and they all die. Then one by one the crew aboard the station dies too, till only Emma is left. Back on Earth, Jack, who still loves Emma too, works frantically to find a cure. But even if he does, he's afraid the Army will not let them take it up to his wife. He believes they're going to leave her to die. However, there's a struggling company that has designed a small shuttle like vehicle and they've bought a Russian rocket. So now all Jack has to do is find the cure, get himself aboard that tiny shuttle and ride that Russian rocket, but even if all that is possible, can he get to Emma in time? Gravity is a thrilling story that had me burning the midnight oil and as a bonus, I learned an awful about our astronaut corps and what makes the men who go to space tick. This is a super read that I can't recommend highly enough. Reviewed by Leeann Douglass

A Virus from Space Threatens to Kill Us All:
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.

A Possible Glimpse into a Frightening Future:
When an astronauts wife is in an auto accident and dies, NASA feels they have to bring her husband back from the space station and all of a sudden doctor/astronaut Emma Watson, who hadn't been scheduled to go up for months, is tapped to take his place. Unknown to the astronauts on the station, one of the experiments they're working on is being keenly watched by the Army. Knowing NASA would never knowingly experiment on a virus that could perhaps kill them all, the Army disguised their experiment as a civilian undertaking. As Emma's getting ready to head for the stars that Armu experiment aboard the space station is getting ready to reek havoc. By the time she gets there on the shuttle there is already one dead astronaut. They take the body aboard the shuttle, the body bag rips as the crew loads it in the bay and the crew die on the return trip. More of the crew aboard the station die. On Earth Doctor Jack McCallum, Emma's estranged husand who had flunked out of the astronaut corps due to kidney stones, works frantically to solve the problem, because if he doesn't, Emma can never come home. Then she gets infected. This book takes place in the not to distant future and let me tell you, it was a nail-biter from start to finish. Tension, tension and still more tension, but it's a romance as well. There is a lot of NASA speak throughout the story, but Ms. Gerritsen gives us a handy glossary in the back of the book so that we can keep all the initials straight. I loved the story, even though I must admit, it frightened me a little. Ms. Gerritsen knows her medicine and she has written a book that seems all to real, a possible portent of things to come. Still it gets my highest rating because it's a terrific thriller. Reviewed by Lenore Douglass

A Medical Thriller at it's BEST:
I am an avid reader of Tess Gerritsen and absolutely love her writing style. My favorite book was, (up until now) Harvest. This book was an exciting change from her others as it takes place in space. Gravity gives you an inside look at Johnson Space Center in Houston, along with all of her great medical insight. I would recommed this title to anyone in search of a great medical thriller -- this one blew me away!