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Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, drawn to the waterfront as a refuge from her unhappy home life and volatile father. Enchanted by the marine world of her childhood, she excels in postgraduate research on ancient algae. When an unfathomable vent appears in the mid-Atlantic floor, Leigh joins the investigating team; what she finds there will change her life forever. Around the same time, a trio of engineers, unknown to each other, make a seismic breakthrough in rocket propulsion, announcing an almost limitless era of space exploration. Billions of dollars is poured into projects, and Leigh's classified research on the ocean vent sees her recruited to develop an experimental food source for off-world travel. From her base in the Mojave desert, she's drawn further into the space agency's work, where she learns of a series of anomalies suggesting a beacon sent from the far side of the solar system.… (more)
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I thought it a tad too long but felt it was very well written, often the prose is down right beautiful.
This novel was available to me on
Personally, I think this novel would make a very good movie
But I gradually became aware that, in this complex novel, each step on her way was related both to her traumatic childhood, to her parents and sister, and to her adventures to come. The book is about people and emotions as well as scientific and engineering details There are also questions about how life on Earth, including we humans, came to be the way we are now and, what might happen in the future.
Only when she finds herself one of a crew of three on a spacecraft moving rapidly through the solar system, toward interstellar space, did I think the pace slowed and wander into maybe too much detail. But that doesn’t last for long, and in the rest of the book Macinnes skillfully describes what could be only day-to-day routine in ways that kept me entranced to the end.