Bright and Dangerous Objects

Solvig is a commercial saturation diver, and every few months, her job takes her to the seafloor, where she does underwater welding work on oil platforms and pipelines. Though her dives are highly dangerous, isolate her from her partner James, and require her to stay in the cramped quarters of a submarine, Solvig lives for the work. She even longs for a greater adventure: joining the Mars Project, an initiative to start a human colony on Mars. Unbeknownst to James, Solvig applies for the Mars Project and lands an interview, sending Solvig into a whirlwind as she tries to reconcile her plans to start a family with her dream of going to Mars and living there for the rest of her life.

Solvig’s voice as a narrator is lonely but unfaltering, and her efforts to make sense of her personal life and the details of her professional career are equally fascinating. While the novel is an appropriate length for the story it’s telling, there are some details that seem to beg for greater exploration and elaboration. Though more elaboration on these details may have yielded greater emotional payoff toward the novel’s end, Bright and Dangerous Objects nonetheless offers a fascinating glimpse into the complex choices ambitious women are faced with.