Containment by Christian Cantrell

Life on Earth isn’t what it used to be, and in order to ensure the continuation of human life the colonists of V1, the first permanent off-earth settlement, must rush to find viable solutions to colonizing the rest of the solar system.

Arik Ockley is the star of Gen V, the first generation of humans to be born on Venus. When he wakes up from a three-month coma after a horrible accident he finds that his wife is pregnant. Normally this would be something to be celebrated, but there’s one huge problem. V1 isn’t producing enough Oxygen to sustain a single additional life. This means that Arik must rush to find the answer to artificial photosynthesis, the key to producing more oxygen for this colony. Yet, things are not what they seem and Arik gets caught up in trying to find the answers to what’s really going on in V1 and on the planet in general.

Overall, Containment was actually a really interesting read. Though I still consider myself to be a sci-fi newbie, I think of this book as a pretty awesome hi-tech sci-fi mystery. I read it in a matter of a few hours because I really, really wanted to know what was going to happen. That mystery side of the story kept me absolutely hooked from beginning to end. In addition, the idea of colonizing Venus had me particularly curious, especially since in real life it’s all about finding life on Mars and hardly ever hearing anything about life… elsewhere.

All that being said, I have a couple of bones to pick with Containment. First, parts of the book were a bit slow moving. There are a couple of chapters that talk about the history of space exploration and such. A lot of this was stuff I knew already and I found myself skimming because I wanted to know more about what Arik was going to learn and do next. The other thing that bothered me was the ending. I saw it coming, I really did. I even understand why it ended the way it did. But it still left me with this feeling of… ‘what just happened?!’

On a positive note, Cantrell left it open for a sequel and according to his Twitter there will be one which I’ll be patiently-ish waiting for. ‘Cause, for reals, I need more. I’m not satisfied.

Bottom line, interesting book, but give me a sequel because I need better closure.