This book, for me, is a hodge-podge of thoughts. Straight from the book blurb: a roaring abyss, a supertanker catastrophe, a severed arm, and huge hole in a mountainside..."Could these catastrophes possible be related?" Um, yeah? If not, it would really be weird to just toss them into the fold, right? These vignettes set the stage to introduce the main players. Outside of that - they are a vehicle to provide some action in an otherwise slow start. Spoiler not spoiler: Wormholes (whisper it for dramatic effect). So, we have some super smart scientists and a super hot, smart, and brave, yet flawed, heroine geologist. A love pairing is obvious from the beginning. I won't spoil how that pans out. But the characters and the story don't really reach out and suck you in - at least not me. Then, an anti-matter arc drops into the read and turns this book into an Armageddon -esq (Ben Affleck variety). For my reading experience, this one is a bit slow without too much character interest. The writing and editing are pretty good. The science and concept is fun, too. But, I got the feeling that the author used mild action, mild character development, and over-the-top conflicts to drive the true purpose: show scientific knowledge about the theory and possible destruction capabilities of wormholes. In all - a fair read! Nothing grabbed me, but I was entertained. ARC provided by author.
3 of 5 stars. From the Publisher:
A suburban house in Oklahoma vanishes into a roaring abyss. A supertanker at sea suffers a fiery destruction. A blast in China drills a gigantic cavern into a mountainside. A severed arm plummets from the sky in Missouri. Could these catastrophes possibly be related? Intrepid geologist Dacey Livingstone is nearly killed by her first attempt to plumb the mystery—a perilous descent into a house-swallowing sinkhole. Still determined, she joins with eccentric physicist Gerald Meier in a quest that takes them from the ocean's depths to interstellar space. What are these exotic "wormholes" that threaten Earth? Can their secrets be discovered, their power even harnessed? Or will they spawn a cosmic monster that will annihilate the planet? Brilliantly original, Wormholes reflects Albert Einstein's famous assertion that "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." Veteran science writer Dennis Meredith has crafted this astrophysical adventure drawing on his decades of experience working at leading research universities such as Caltech, MIT, Cornell and Duke.
