The naysayers will do their best to rip Lincoln Child's heart out for his rather erratic treatment of the hard science in his newest sci-fi thriller, "Deep Storm". And, it certainly has its weak or inaccurate moments! But the more important truth is that "Deep Storm" is a solidly gripping, wildly entertaining, credible science fiction thriller based on a truly imaginative and utterly horrifying premise.Peter Crane, a naval physician, is summoned to a top secret naval operation housed on Storm King, a former commercial deep sea offshore oil platform located off the shore of Greenland. Crane's short term mission - to treat and discover the causes of what appears to be an escalating epidemic of illnesses among the staff - is exceptionally difficult. The myriad symptoms he encounters range from sweats, fever and loss of attention or focus to murderous florid psychotic episodes and refuse to lend themselves to diagnosis and understanding through any common vector.
From the moment of Crane's arrival on the rig, Admiral Spartan, the military commander of the operation and Howard Asher, the senior scientist on board, steadfastly refuse Crane access to certain highly classified areas or their staff. Unable to understand the reasons why Storm King's apparent mission - the excavation of Atlantis, buried for 10,000 years under a volcanic event in the North Atlantic - would be shrouded in such secrecy, he continues to probe into the areas on the rig that have been closed off to him. Ultimately (well, what else did you expect?), the truth is discovered and - trust me on this one - it is not only a truly innovative and speculative sci-fi premise but it is monumentally humbling at the same time!
Just as he did with his writing partner, Douglas Preston, in their jointly written novels, Lincoln has peppered "Deep Storm" throughout with interesting scholarly asides on a variety of topics that inform and entertain without detracting from or slowing down the plot - epidemiology and diagnostic research techniques; the perils of living in an extended submerged and confined environment; "impossible" mathematics; forensic data recovery from catastrophically destroyed hard drives; the physical structure of the earth's mantle; the conflict between science and its potential weaponization by a right-wing military; and more.
"Deep Storm" is truly a winner - non-stop hair-raising action, interesting and informative asides, wonderful character development, respectable dialogue, exactly the right amount of romance without being sappy, a goodly number of twists and turns and red-herrings and a cliff-hanger thought provoking ending that will just blow your mind! The science itself is the only weak link (just one glaring example - since electromagnetic energy propagates at the speed of light, it is impossible to detect it on its way. If you can detect the field ... too late, it's already there!) If Child takes the time to submit his next effort to a more thorough scientific edit, he'll be unbeatable! But, in the meantime, a high-speed page turning frenzy ain't too bad anyway!
Enjoy.
Paul Weiss
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