Book Review

Europa: Rise of the Cornelians

By Jason Gehlert
Published by Stonegarden.net Publishing
ISBN 1-60076-138-0
Available at www.stonegarden.net
http://europa2045.blogspot.com
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Review by Robert Berryhill

When you've crafted six novels in the horror genre before the age of 30, you can take a much needed break. Just breathe easy for awhile.

Not Jason Gehlert. Although he had the successful Quiver series and Contagion to his credit, he was still scratching a 10-year itch to move into the Sci-Fi field.

So he planted himself in front of the TV and watched the Discovery and Science channels. For days. For months.

He soaked up technical information about the fragile state of life on Earth, natural disasters, space exploration. He worked up a cast of about 14 characters, ranging from a mysterious and crafty billionaire, to a newly elected President of the United States, and a scientist who is a pain in the butt to complacent bureaucrats.

Jason Gehlert ignites his first Science Fiction novel with a conference about an impending bang. A Big Bang. The long overdue eruption of North American's biggest volcano, smack in the middle of Yellowstone Park.

Europa: Rise of the Carnelians takes place in the near future, about 30 years down the road. It is a strong story of survival of the human race as it escapes to Europa, one of the moons of Saturn. But Europa is not a new Garden of Eden. It houses a very nasty form of alien life called the Carnelians.

When Yellowstone finally erupts on Christmas Day, 2045, a crew of scientists and engineers use the billionaire's innovative spacecraft to escape the global-spanning disaster. Their destination is a space station at Europa designed to colonize the Saturn moon.

When they climb into their cyrogenic berths to hibernate for the long journey, they don't know what awaits them. Contact with the Europa space station crew has been lost for several months. Not even a distress call has been heard.

A few years later the fleeing earth crew awakens to dock with the space station. But something is amiss. Where are the Europa space station crew members? Why are there bloody hand prints on the walls?

Jason Gehlert weaves his story with smooth patches of taunt dialogue that is often spiced with humor. He has mined such a wealth of research, and crafted such a likeable cast of characters, that he is now emarked on a sci-fi trilogy.

Europa: Rise of the Carnelians is the first shot of the trilogy that is sure to build him a audience of Science Fiction readers.