By Ande Jacobson

Tess Gerritsen continues her medical thrillers with Gravity, first released in September 1999. This time, she explores the unknown both on earth and in space. As she often does, she starts the book with a seemingly disconnected event, a deep sea researcher encountering an unknown life form on the ocean floor. It’s known that the fauna in the deep waters is not seen anywhere else on Earth, and many of the creatures living and even thriving there have unusual properties such as being able to live in super-heated, poisonous waters near volcanic vents. Gerritsen has done her homework on this one melding deep sea biology with space biology in a riveting story of what happens when life forms are thrust into alien environments. One of the biggest dangers to humans living in space is encountering a pathogen that threatens their existence, and this is a story of such an occurrence aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Continue reading →