Containment

I largely enjoyed containment and found the premise to be very interesting. However; I found that the style of jumping back and forth between the present and the (sometimes forgotten) past tended to make the story's "wow moments" somewhat predictable. I also wish that the story had continued a little bit longer than it did, the book ended on a poetic note but left a lot of unanswered question that I would have liked to have seen wrapped up. All told though this definitely worth a listen.

I enjoyed the first 90% of the book very much, but I felt the ending was premature. I wanted the book to go so much farther than it did. The premise is good and the setup was well-thought-out. The peak in the drama happens and then... the book ends. There are questions un-answered and everything is in a state of turmoil at the end. It's been out for long enough that it's unlikely the author planned a sequel. So it lost a star, even though I was anticipating a 5 star review for most of the book.

In the distant future, man will try to colonize the solar system. If the planet is not destroyed by polluting the atmosphere or nuclear war, there may be a catastrophic event such as a meteor strike that will necessitate a move off of planet earth. Venus is the planet of choice for the first extra-terrestrial colony.

V1 is the name given to the first Venus colony. When established, there were 1,000 initial colonists, almost all of them scientists and engineers. Oxygen content inside the containment was the limiting factor in population size, and after the maximum number of plants were grown it was determined that the oxygen produced could support another 100 individuals. Thus was the beginnings of generation V, the 100 children born to the original colonists.

Arek was probably the brightest of all gen V children. By the time he graduated high school, he was better with computers than any of the adults. However, he was chosen to work in the Life Pod in order to tackle the problem of artificial photosynthesis (AP) and increase the amount of oxygen produced. Arek married Cadie, a gen V biologists, and they worked together on the AP problem. Arek tried to get approval for a terraforming project, convinced that if the planet could support plant life, it could produce enough oxygen to supply the atmosphere and eliminate the need for the containment buildings. Unable to gain support for his idea, he continued his experiments in secret. Gaining the support of his friend Cam, who worked in the Maintenance Pod, Arek was able to access environment suits and trek outside the containment buildings to plant his test instruments.

But Arek had an accident that caused a brain injury. After brain surgery, he finally awoke after almost 3 months in a coma. He had lost some of his memories, but other than that there seemed to be little effect on his brain. When he came to, he found out that Cadie was pregnant. Since there was not enough oxygen to support another life, the pressure was increased to solve the AP problem. Then an error message appeared on all the computers. Nobody was able to translate the code and Arek was asked to take a look at it. What Arek found would forever change his life and ultimately the lives of everyone in V1.

I thought this was a very well written book and an enjoyable read. The ending caught me by surprise and raised some interesting questions about human nature. If you are a science fiction fan, then you will enjoy this book.

The twists

This is a unique and intelligently written sci-fi novel of first class! I highly recommend this to hard sci-fi lovers of Asimov, Clarke, Bova etc. It is fast paced, makes sense and takes the reader to a stunning conclusion!

I liked the ending the best. It started kind of slow but sped up as you progressed.

Yes, this could be make into a movie very easily.

I love Sci-Fi and this was a decent story

Did a competent job.

Even for sci-fi this stretchered the "suspension of disbelief" concept.