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As the Earth's ability to support human life begins to diminish at an alarming rate, the Global Space Agency is formed with a single mandate: prote...
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Feb 02, 2012
Alisha
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Parts of this book were absolutely amazing, including the story, the main characters, subject and the science of it all. Obviously the author is very intelligent as his descriptions of things are very realistic. However, his descriptions also hold this book back, as sometimes they get too detailed and tedious. For instance at the end of the book where he spends a page going on about how the train(or whatever he calls it) works, especially since we had been introduced to the train multiple tim
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Jan 07, 2012
Crazyjamie
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Containment is the second book that I bought for mere pence from the Kindle store. The description of the book sounded interesting enough, so I thought I'd give it a go. In short, after Earth's near devastation in the future, the world sets up the GSA (Global Space Agency) to set about colonising other planets in an attempt to preserve the human race. This is eventually achieved on Venus, where a largely self sustaining colony of 1000 people is set up to work on technological breakthroughs that
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Oct 21, 2011
Gene
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Containment is a rather nifty science fiction novel, rife with fascinating ideas and twists. It's heavy on the science, and engineering geeks should get a big kick out of it, although environmentalists will get just as much from it. The best part is how well-thought out all the concepts are -- the science is believable, and intricately detailed but rarely boring, with some very difficult explanations boiled down to easily-digestible nuggets. The biggest problem is the characterizations, which
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Oct 16, 2011
Jeannie
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When Arik Ockley wakes up in a hospital after being rescued from a serious "outside" accident, his life is suddenly turned upside down when he begins to use his genius-like high-tech skills to uncover a well hidden secret that the founders of A1 (a geodesic dome style containment on the planet Venus) have been harboring for decades. To Arik, "outside" means outside the dome of what he believes is the outer atmosphere of another planet where he was born and raised in seclusion
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Oct 02, 2011
Jacobi
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For some reason I've become hesitant to give books five-stars, because even if I love something, I don't think anything is perfect. But five stars doesn't have to mean perfect, it can just signify an incredible reading experience, and book that achieves everything it sets out to do. Just so you know where I'm coming from.
Containment, was awesome. This just might be the most well realized world I've ever read in a scifi book. Even though this book is shy of 300 pages, the amount of e More...
Containment, was awesome. This just might be the most well realized world I've ever read in a scifi book. Even though this book is shy of 300 pages, the amount of e More...
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Sep 20, 2011
Gary
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I finished reading Containment and decided to let it sit for awhile before I wrote my thoughts in the form of a review. For the most part I enjoyed working my way through the novel, eager to understand how the world evolves in the future in such a way that we successfully colonize Venus. Christian Cantrell is obviously a very bright guy and I was drawn into his explanations of how the colony was engineered - in fact, most of his scientific exposition throughout the book was impressive in my opin
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Aug 23, 2011
Christine
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I picked this up from the Kindle store when it was either free, or rather cheap (under a pound). I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but when I finally got around to reading the blurb and seeing what it was all about, I was keen to read on.
This is the story of the first off-Earth colony, based on Venus, and how it got to where it is and how it is going to survive going forward. There are twists and turns along the way, some of the obvious and some of them not so much.
The story gets off to a bit More...
This is the story of the first off-Earth colony, based on Venus, and how it got to where it is and how it is going to survive going forward. There are twists and turns along the way, some of the obvious and some of them not so much.
The story gets off to a bit More...
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Jul 18, 2011
James
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I picked this up, to be completely honest, because Amazon recommended it and because it was 99 cents and I really wanted something to read on the train. Given the degree of care that went into the selection, I feel like I ended up on the right side of the deal. The story was entertaining and satisfying enough; a fine piece of escapist literature.
That said, the Kindle edition I bought had ... issues. Perhaps this is the consequence of having gotten it on the digital equivalent of More...
That said, the Kindle edition I bought had ... issues. Perhaps this is the consequence of having gotten it on the digital equivalent of More...
May 24, 2011
Maurice
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Containment is not for all sci-fi fans. If you enjoy paragraphs of technical details on the workings of possible future technology and chapters devoted to ancillary background narrative, then this book is for you. I might have been persuaded to look past all that, after all it was very successfully handled by Stephen R. Donaldson in his Gap series. But all this exposition often comes at the expense of story flow. Even at the end, when the protagonist's great plan is about to be sprung, the s
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Nov 26, 2010
Lars
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Considering the content of the book, I don't want to say much in order to avoid giving a spoiler. The author describes a colony on Venus and the difficulties the settlers have to deal with. To begin with the positive aspects: one of the biggest assets of the novel is discussing interesting technologies like terraforming, cloud computing and genetic engineering. I really liked the questions Cantrell brought up, as some of the issues are of concern even today. On the other hand, the technical focu
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Jan 15, 2012
Chance
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"Containment" is one of the most cerebral novels I've read in a long, long time. The joy of the novel is in defining and resolving problems of planetary colonization. On a more basic level, the novel describes how to think both creatively and scientifically. I'm not a scientist, but the physics appear to be quite solid and well-founded. For this accomplishment, and its rarity, the novel deserves four stars.
Switching to the right side of my brain, no --- wait --- the left i More...
Switching to the right side of my brain, no --- wait --- the left i More...
Aug 30, 2011
Randy
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I really had to dig deep and get through this book. It had alot of cool ideas of future science and a great cliffhanger, but overall fell flat against all the techno babble.
I went into Containment with a good feeling, reading a few reviews on Goodreads and Amazon lead me to believe it was a quick story with a great twist. That said, the twist half way through was great but the science that lead to that point wasn't. Most of the times I tried to wrap my brain around everything Cantrell More...
I went into Containment with a good feeling, reading a few reviews on Goodreads and Amazon lead me to believe it was a quick story with a great twist. That said, the twist half way through was great but the science that lead to that point wasn't. Most of the times I tried to wrap my brain around everything Cantrell More...
Jun 25, 2011
Robert
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Sep 20, 2011
Jason
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Aug 20, 2011
Patricia
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I liked this book. You really need to understand some basic science principles, especially concerning space and subatomic theory. Well, maybe not, because they explain some of it, but definitely would be a better read if you did have a background. What makes this different than most science fiction is that the author bases his story on scientific knowledge up to the present. As the book progresses, we are introduced to the science of the future. What happens to space travel? What do we dis
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Feb 15, 2012
John
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To summarize the blurb on this book, Arik is one of 1100 members of the first off world colony (on Venus). Recovering from an accident that left him with no memory of what happened, he must recover and work on a solution to the problem of oxygen consumption and generation before his daughter is born.
This is a well written book, with the chapters alternating between events after Arik's accident and events preceding the accident, as well as a few chapters to get the reader up to speed More...
This is a well written book, with the chapters alternating between events after Arik's accident and events preceding the accident, as well as a few chapters to get the reader up to speed More...
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Dec 30, 2011
Kristin
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Jun 30, 2011
A.R.
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This one was a mixed bag for me. I loved the story concept. The science was fantastic, but a little too much. The idea was great. I loved the twists and turns along the way.
To readers, if you're not into hard SF, this isn't the book for you. It's heavy on the science and very light on the character. Like most hard SF, these characters are in the book only to support the concepts behind the science. This was a little disappointing because the baseline of Arik, Cadie, Cam and Zaire's c More...
To readers, if you're not into hard SF, this isn't the book for you. It's heavy on the science and very light on the character. Like most hard SF, these characters are in the book only to support the concepts behind the science. This was a little disappointing because the baseline of Arik, Cadie, Cam and Zaire's c More...
Dec 15, 2011
Jose
rated it:
Wow!
Mind boggling, science heavy, great story!
This is the kind of sci-fi story which merits its Sci part.
The author creates a very believable world and while explaining the science involved (engineering, computers, biology, genetics, psychology) in this Venus society, it slowly deconstructs what he built.
The story is also written in two time frames, and we see the past and present of Arik rapidly meeting to this unexpected ending.
Mankind last hope is he More...
Mind boggling, science heavy, great story!
This is the kind of sci-fi story which merits its Sci part.
The author creates a very believable world and while explaining the science involved (engineering, computers, biology, genetics, psychology) in this Venus society, it slowly deconstructs what he built.
The story is also written in two time frames, and we see the past and present of Arik rapidly meeting to this unexpected ending.
Mankind last hope is he More...
Aug 13, 2011
Kathryn
rated it:
This is a reasonably clever story about a future colony on a hostile planet. The colony cannot increase its population because its ability to generate oxygen is sufficient only for the number of lives then in being; the story is told through the eyes (but not the voice) of the young man the colony looks to to change that constraint. Or--is that what really what the colony is looking for? The premise is interesting, the story well structured (and definitely a play-fair where clues are concerned
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May 15, 2011
John
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While reading this story which has received some rather enthusiastic reviews, I kept on having the feeling that I was reading a technical manual — and I rather liked it. Of course it wouldn't be everybody's cup of tea, or plate of coils and chips, but I was after all, reading Science Fiction.
Science Fiction has surely to be fiction with a lot of science in it. Switch them round and you'd have fictitious science, which simply wouldn't work at all. So without further ado, I read the fict More...
Science Fiction has surely to be fiction with a lot of science in it. Switch them round and you'd have fictitious science, which simply wouldn't work at all. So without further ado, I read the fict More...
Nov 10, 2011
Noor
rated it:
Containment is hard science fiction. In fact some may even say that its more science than fiction. Much of this novel reads like a science textbook from the future.
The cover features a futuristic city scape which has little to do with the actual storyline. The story follows young Arik's coming of age and induction into the adult world of V1, the first human extra-planetary colony, based on Venus. A select 1000 live within a network of inter-linked buildings and biodomes whose key focus is More...
The cover features a futuristic city scape which has little to do with the actual storyline. The story follows young Arik's coming of age and induction into the adult world of V1, the first human extra-planetary colony, based on Venus. A select 1000 live within a network of inter-linked buildings and biodomes whose key focus is More...
Jul 10, 2011
Brian
rated it:
Okay, so I don't think I've felt "compelled" to write a review in a long time... or really ever for that fact. But after I finished Containment I was just thrilled. I actually wanted more. A lot of the reviews I have glanced at bashed the technical detail that Cantrell included, but I couldn't have imagined it without it.
Yes, there is a large amount of detail when it comes to the technology... but it is a SCIENCE fiction book, so expect to have some kind of science in it. More...
Yes, there is a large amount of detail when it comes to the technology... but it is a SCIENCE fiction book, so expect to have some kind of science in it. More...
Feb 06, 2012
Louis
rated it:
Very well written example of your standard hard sci-fi type novel. Only very little ends up standard here. We are introduced to a world apart from our own in the distant future, and are introduced to the people that inhabit this world in a way that makes most of them instantly likeable. The kindle edition suffers just a tiny bit from unclear transitions, but this may well be noted in print editions in some manner and was a minor irritation at best as you catch on pretty quick when the story d
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Dec 11, 2011
John
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A lot of detail was put into describing the technological happenings in this novel, even if some of it was just detailed enough to appease those in the know, but basic enough to appeal to the layman - It was a bit more refreshing than those books which try to dumb down the harder topics, either out of fear the reader won't understand it and can digest a simpler version, or that the author didn't research the topic well enough to do any better. This book had a very good balance of the two that I
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Jul 29, 2010
Asmodean
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This book surprised me. Mr. Christian Cantrell has written a very deliberately paced and methodical Sci-Fi thriller. I enjoy books that are heavy on the action and light on the explicative content. To give you an idea of what I mean, I'll give an example...Action is anything from a fast jog to a full run. Explicative is anything from baby steps to a brisk walk. Containment is a brisk walk that ended up feeling like a fast jog.
You will get a lot of information as pages are dedi More...
You will get a lot of information as pages are dedi More...
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Feb 14, 2012
Debra
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Containment reads like a science savant's journal. There is much, probably too much, explaining of technical, futuristic, scientific stuff that is relevant and interesting and perhaps necessary, but there is not enough action. Readers like action, dialogue, suspense - not pages and pages of long paragraphs explaining computer codes and security systems and radiation percentages. And yet, I kept reading. The premise of colonizing Venus, raising a generation of children who have never set foot on
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Aug 08, 2011
First the positive - this book pays a lot of attention to the science and making things as authentic and believable as possible. All the stuff that the protagonist talks about and does is a scientifically feasible extrapolation of current capabilities. I would even say that this has become a new genre - science fiction realism (I discovered this book when Amazon recommended it after I read Daniel Suarez's highly realistic cyber-thrillers). Unfortunately though, the actual writing isn't as pristi
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Feb 18, 2012
TJ
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Wow! Let me start by saying that I know I'm a science geek. My greatest challenge in writing this review is not to gush on what I've just finished reading and give it away with spoilers. So, I'm going to try to keep it simple. The main character was easy to relate to, the science was intriguing, and I loved the problem-solving aspect of the book as a whole. It was witty, had twists, mystery, deception and intrigue all wrapped into a great story. About 3/4 of the way through the book, I was hopin
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Sep 26, 2011
Gabe
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This book starts with an interesting premise, but the setting ends up deteriorating into a too-predictable, disappointing resolution. Less fundamentally, there are massive plot holes that render the main (well, only – there are no side tracks) storyline partly nonsensical.
The author focusses exclusively on his vision of the society and technology underpinning the story, bits of which, he goes to great lengths to explain in quite unimportant detail – though only bits that have current More...
The author focusses exclusively on his vision of the society and technology underpinning the story, bits of which, he goes to great lengths to explain in quite unimportant detail – though only bits that have current More...
