Dr Emma Watson, a brilliant research physician, has been training for the mission of a lifetime: to study living organisms in space. Jack McCallum, Emma's estranged husband, has shared her dream of space travel, but a medical condition has grounded him. Now he must watch from the side-lines... The mission aboard the space station turns into a nightmare when a culture of single-celled organisms begins to regenerate out of control - and infects the crew with agonising and deadly results. Emma struggles to contain the deadly virus, while back home Jack and NASA work against the clock to bring her home. But there will be no rescue, as the astronauts are left stranded in orbit where they are dying one by one.
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[He was gliding on the edge of the abyss]***
(HarperCollins, 19 July 2011, 355 pages, ebook, A Year of @EpicReads 2019, a book recommended by your book favourite author, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveLibs, recommended by @StephenKing)
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I chose to read this book because one of my favourite authors recommended it. I'd heard of the author but never read them so had no idea what to expect. This book blew me away. I don't read a lot of novels set in space so a book really needs to be special to get my attention. This reminds me a lot of the novella Nightflyers by George R.R. Martin. This is a good thing. I loved Nightflyers. I read the book fairly quickly because I couldn't put it down, I absolutely had to know what the hell was going on and if there would be any survivors. The organism infecting the crew, creepily known as Chimera because it's made up from the DNA of several species made my flesh crawl. I loved the way the author develops the characters and paces out events. This is a remarkable novel. I need to read more by this author.