The Curiosity by Stephen P. Kiernan

The Curiosity by Stephen P. Kiernan
Fiction

The Lazarus Project is in the Arctic trying to find hard ice and the sea creatures within it to reanimate them and bring them back to life. They're hoping to find larger creatures rather than the small shrimp and sardines they've been working with but they never dreamed they would find a human. This story comes from the perspective of three people: Dr. Kate Philo, a top scientist in charge of the expedition, Daniel Dixon, the journalist along for the ride, Erastus Carthage, the egotist responsible for The Lazarus Project, and Judge Jere­miah Rice, the frozen man.

Not surprisingly, bringing the dead back to life creates a circus. Jeremiah Rice left for an expedition 100 years ago and fell off the ship he was on in to the freezing water. He wakes up, what feels like moments later, but is actually a hundred years later with Dr. Philo by his side. Philo and some of the other scientists try to bring Rice up to speed on what's happened in the last 100 years and his condition but Carthage is busy plotting and scheming which is affecting almost everyone.

The science aspect of this book was well explained and not at all tiring to read like some books can make this subject. This provided an interesting 'what if' scenario to ponder over. If we could be brought back to life after being frozen, would you consider it?

This book grabbed me as soon as I started it because Kiernan does such a great job of writing his characters. The style of his character writing rather reminded me of Jodi Picoult. It helps make for a very easy read. This also helped me get through some of the holes I thought there were in the book. For example, Dr. Philo is supposed to be an incredibly smart scientist but when Carthage cuts her down and puts her on a menial job, she makes one threat then does nothing about it. I feel like the rest of the book she's objectified as the token female scientist even though she's no longer conducting any science. There were also some threads that were never wrapped up by the end of the book. An example of this was Dixon looking in to the background of one of the protesters. Except we never found out who he really was, so what was the point of looking him up?

Despite the few flaws in the book, I still really enjoyed this, mostly due to Kiernan's writing style.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for letting me be a part of this tour.

First Line: "I was already wide-awake when they came for me."

Rating:
(4/5)