Gravity

Gravity is the greatest force in the universe. It has the power to hold enter galaxies in its grasp, crush atoms into a spaceless mass and imprison light in a black hole warping time and space. It is also the one force in the universe humans have been unable to master. One team of scentists operating on the fringes of science with an eccentric benefactor believe they can change that, and in the process, the world as we know it forever. Review by Monica HuberMonika says: Ever since Nicolaus Copernicus has presented his heliocentric worldview in the 16th Century, which as we know didn't win him glory and friends, the research of gravity is a key part of physics. The same forces that keep the planets in their orbits around the sun are active all throughout the cosmos and on Earth make sure that objects are falling to the ground like the famous apple that as legend has it inspired Isaac Newton to "invent" the law of gravity.In the science fiction world we are used to interstellar space ships and space stations with artificial gravity and don't waste a thought on how this is actually achieved. Up to this day nobody has managed to control gravity. James Butler's first novel GRAVITY tells the story of Charles Freeman, a scientist with the ambitious goal to utilize gravity for the benefit of humanity.Freeman lives in a world that is not so very different from our own. In the future it will not be any easier to get funding for research projects, especially when they don't bring immediate success. Controlling gravity? Who would fund such an ambitious and hopeless project? It's not easy to cut through all the red tape and that is more than true if you want to try your luck off the beaten paths. Freeman is lucky to interest a rich industrialist for his research and win his support. But there's a price for everything. Freeman gets tangled in a web of intrigue and stumbles over the tracks of one Wanita Sanchez, a scientist also interested in gravity research who vanished a while ago without a trace.GRAVITY is classic science fiction with the stress on science. The characters of the novel are no heroes but ordinary people whose bureaucratic lives are interrupted suddenly by events that force them to make life-threatening choices. A remarkable first book that makes you curious for Butler's next novel.