Book Review: Cold Storage by David Koepp
Title: Cold Storage
Author: David Koepp
Release Date: September 3rd, 2019
It’s crazy how the passage of time has taken place over the last five years or so.
Since the onset of Covid-19, I’ve personally found the last five years has flown by while also taking forever. Some things feel like they happened a lifetime ago, while others just the other day.
Such was the case with this book. When it was first released, I was super intrigued, but I’m also terrified of organism based horror. Books like Jason Parent’s ‘The Andromeda Strain,’ Michael Crichton’s work and Nicholas Kaufmann’s Dr. Laura Powell series that have seemingly sentient organism’s that can mutate and find ways of devouring and overtaking and controlling organic matter. When I went to the theatre – way back in the 1900’s as my son says – and watched ‘Outbreak,’ I was terrified. We truly live in a globally connected world and as such, everything can be spread faster than the blink of an eye. Even the timing of me writing this review – on a break at work – demonstrates that. The first patient I saw this morning landed last night in Edmonton, returning from a work trip to Hong Kong. Over the last few days, they travelled over 10,000 kms (6200 miles) and then came to their appointment.
So, even though I purchased this book for my Kindle on Christmas Day, 2020, I was stressed about reading it. I knew it’d be great. I knew Koepp would deliver – seriously, the guys screenplays have generated over SIX BILLION DOLLARS in theatres – but I didn’t know if I could handle it.
Finally, after That Horror Bish told me I HAD to read it, I took the plunge, and wow. What a plunge it was.
What I liked: The story opens roughly twenty-five years ago, when Roberto and Trini are called into to investigate a strange event in a rural Australia village. Aided by a biochemist, they discover that a rocket that crashed upon returning to earth was harvesting some sort of bacteria that didn’t burn up upon re-entry. The organism is beyond anything they’ve ever encountered and to protect earth, the sample taken is stored deep under ground in the US in a cold storage facility.
Fast forward to present day and the government has sealed the storage facility and rented the ground level section to a normal storage company. Folks rent the units, store their crap and life goes on. Until one day, when a malfunction occurs and two workers decide to investigate what the beeping sound behind the wall is.
From there, Koepp delivers a fast-paced, engaging sci-fi-horror novel that is neither ridiculously over the top nor bogged down in so many details that you’d need a PHD to even understand what’s going on.
Our two main characters, Teacake – real name, Travis – and Naomi, work well together, even if they’re tentatively awkward at first and Koepp works their relationship weirdness of being coworkers then potentially an item perfectly.
As the stakes get higher and the reality of the organism getting out, Roberto returns with a plan in hand.
I’ll admit, this part of the story is very cinematically over the top. A bit Michael Bay cheese if you will, but it worked well for the story and it kept the tension high and the pages flipping all the way to the end.
What I didn’t like: For me, the one thing that I felt was a bit light throughout, was the actual organism. When it’s a factor it was a factor, rapidly mutating and exploding and overtaking and just creating brutal carnage. But it wasn’t as prevalent as I expected, and there was only so much of Teacake’s nervousness and Naomi’s calmness that could be used to continue the story forward.
Why you should buy this: This was a really fun, edge-of-your-seat thriller that had me completely invested. It was set in a great setting, the characters were charmingly annoying and I’m a huge sucker for this exact type of organism-based sci-fi/horror. Definitely one to read if you’ve had it sitting on your TBR forever, like I did.
4/5
