Review: The Terranauts

The Terranauts by T. Coraghessan Boyle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Boyle takes the concept of Biosphere 2 and builds it into what could easily become a TV series. We follow two inhabitants of the desert biosphere and one support worker, who all take turns narrating the story from their point of view. There’s danger, but it’s a kind of manufactured danger due to the cult-like sense of mission. There’s passion, but it revolves among the limited number of characters seeming to pair up in as many combinations as you’d get on a few seasons of Friends. There are surprising occurrences, but they are telegraphed. One character, or rather all characters, are schemers at some level, trying to get what they want. One is played for comic relief (and not surprisingly that was the character I most appreciated). So it was a lot like a typical cable series. While I appreciated the overall discussion on mission and the lengths people go to fulfill one, this didn’t come across to me as a very “literary” book, but more of a pop entertainment story. Enjoyable as such.

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