What Am I Reading Wednesday - Containment by Christian Cantrell

I’d like to treat you kiddies to this epically awesome story by first time novelist Christian Cantrell.  I mean seriously treat you. Cantrell bases Containment inside a dome on the planet of Venus. Humans have managed to colonize the inhospitable planet but still struggle to be completely self sustaining.

The book is way passed imaginative with it’s faux history and inventive look into our Earth’s future and his world’s past. The story chronicles Arik a young genius raised completely inside the Venus dome along with 99 other young people. His life’s purpose is to make the Venus dome habitable for more the dome’s vigorously monitored population of 1,100 citizens.

His job becomes that much harder when his wife Cadie become pregnant. While searching for a method to create a plentiful air supply Arik discovers a mountain of secrets that threaten everything he know about the dome and his own existence.

I loved this book because like another techno thriller I reviewed earlier in 2012, this is chocked full of brain busting imagery and science that my head twirled trying to grasp what the author was showing me. I get a great sense of feeling in each section and found myself not bored with the technical jargon despite my lack of education in that arena. I literally did not want to put the book down after Arik made his discoveries and even missed my bus reading how he found a resolution to the conflicts in the story.

Arik is  very likable character until the very end and because he maintains a likable guy status so well,  I ended up hating just about everyone else in the story even his wife Cadie regardless of her involvement in the conflict, which was pretty minimal. I pitied his genius for what knowledge he found and applauded the sacrifices he makes to make sure that the people inside the Venus dome achieve everything they asked of him and the information they weren’t supposed to know.

This story isn’t so much about a conspiracy. It is more like a crisis of identity, with everything Arik believes and understands. How Cantrell brings Arik to that realization is purely masterful.

I recommend Containment for anyone who has hope for the future of space travel and has faith in the Human Natures ability to still be curious.  

You can find Containment on Amazon.com here