So I really liked this book.
I read a series either earlier this year or last year by Joe Hart, and it was very different from this book. I guess that series was still science fiction-y, like this one, but it still felt very different.
We begin this book by meeting Gillian, as she’s basically getting into a car accident with her husband. We learn that he has this terrible brain disease called Losian’s, that’s similar to Alzheimer’s, but affects all ages. He’s starting to forget her, and he will eventually become irritable and violent. Right now though, he’s just basically losing consciousness and driving them into something. Oh, and Gillian’s pregnant.
We flash forward eight (I think) years, and Gill is now a respected research scientist and neurosurgeon (neuro something, I can’t remember, but it’s not really important). She’s trying to figure out where Losian’s comes from in the brain, and how to stop it. A new wrinkle is that her daughter (who she was pregnant with during the car accident) also is showing Losian symptoms. And her funding just ran out. So basically, Dr. Gill is in dire straits.
Enter her knight in shining armor. Or is he?
An old boyfriend comes to her and asks for her help with his new space station. He needs her to check on the crew, because they’re showing signs of Losian’s (loss of memory, violence, etc), and he’s not sure what’s happening. NASA is spending millions on the project, so they need to figure out wtf is going on. Dr. Gill really doesn’t want to leave her daughter for six months, but he promises that the work might help her daughter, and also promises to fund her research indefinitely. It’s really the thought of helping her daughter that gets her to say yes.
So Gill goes through the training, and her and her research assistant (an awesome Swedish/Norwegian (I need to write these reviews like immediately after I finish the books, the details keep escaping me) sidekick) jet off into space.
It turns out that the mission isn’t quite what was sold to them, and I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but they need to go into stasis for 2.5 months. Dr. Gill decides she’s not going into stasis, and she’ll work on her research during that time to figure out what experiments to run on the crew. So basically she’s alone for 2.5 months. The first half of this book filled me with so much dread while Dr. Gill was alone. I really felt like I was up there with her hurtling through space all alone, but maybe not quite alone? There’s so much more, and I don’t want to ruin it, so I’ll just leave you all with this:
TELEPORTATION TUBES