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Fantastic Voyage by Isaac Asimov

"When a scientist, Benes, who has integral and world changing information attempts to defect and join our Side, he's injured. A blood  clot forms in his brain and the only way to save his life is to miniaturize the crew of the Proteus and inject them into Benes' body, so they can break up the blood clot from the inside. Of course, one thing after another goes wrong and every chapter is a new catastrophe but it was definitely a fantastic voyage.  

2 Stars

Pros: Grant is one dry character but he's a welcome bit of amusement in an otherwise serious and scientific novel. 

Cons: Grant is also SUCH a man that he spends most of the mission staring at saving the one woman board, Cora./Definitely ripe with anatomical lessons and what part of the body they were in. Since I've never been great at anatomy, a lot of it was lost on me and became burdensome near the end. 

Full Review:

As in all things, there is a good side and a bad side. This book is very vague as to which "side" that is. Either way, Grant, who's some sort of secret agent it seems, is tasked with getting a certain scientist, Benes out of the "Other Side" and into this Country. Benes, of course, has crucial information that could be world changing. Grant doesn't know why the man is so important but he does his job, gets him safely to the airport and then is relieved of duty and heads home. 

He's woken up a scant few hours later to a frantic knocking at his door. There's an MP there and he demands that Grant come with him. So, he does and he's brought to a secret scientific research base, the CMDF (Combined Miniature Defense Force). It turns out that Benes, was in a car accident on the way to the base and a blood clot has formed in his brain.  The only way to save his life and get the information that he holds about the revolutionary science of miniaturization, is to miniaturize a small ship called the Proteus, have the ship and crew injected into Benes' blood stream, travel to the brain, break up the blood clot with a laser and then leave Benes' before they "de-miniaturize" (grow back to their full size.) And they only have 60 minutes to complete their mission. 

Grant, though insistent that he held up his end of the bargain and got Benes safely to the airport, is ordered to join the crew of the Proteus. There's the pilot of the ship, Owens, a Dr. Michaels, who's an expert at plotting the various pathways and trails through a persons body. And then there's Duval, a crotchety, stern, serious surgeon and his beautiful assistant, Cora. Owens will pilot the ship, Michaels will guide him, Duval and Cora will break up the blood clot and Grant will keep the command room informed on the wireless. 

And of course, just before they're miniaturized, the head of the CMDF informs Grant that he's pretty sure there's a traitor in their midst, so if Grant could sniff that person out, that'd be great. 

What follows is definitely an adventure and an interesting one at that. The idea of being small enough to travel through someone's body, seeing red and white blood cells, lymphatic nodes and all other such things, well, it's definitely a novel idea. And though I enjoyed the book, it was very heavily bogged down with anatomy and the workings of the body, which by the end became tiresome. It was definitely a unique idea and Asimov really did his homework but in the end, it was a little too "sciencey" for me. 

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