Reviewed by Douglas R. Cobb
Cargo Hold 4 is a Science Fiction/Horror novel by Lonnie Busch that takes the old trope of a stowaway aboard your spaceship to a different level. Perhaps the most famous example of having a stowaway aboard one’s spaceship in a Science Fiction movie is Alien. In literature and in movies, the trope of having a stowaway aboard a ship or even a train is a time-honored one. As with using any trope, it’s what an author does within the framework of one that attracts and holds the attention of the reader or fails to so. If you are a fan of the Science Fiction genre, I’d highly recommend that you check out Cargo Hold 4, a book that plays within the framework and also one that held my attention from the very beginning to the end. Purchase Here.
I don’t want to mention many spoilers, but it’s not a very big one to say that there’s a stowaway aboard the Gretel, the spaceship of interest in Cargo Hold 4. The woman commanding the Gretel is Captain Desna and Berlin is the spaceship’s First Mate. One twist here is that the rather noisy and troublesome stowaway is somehow not an organic being. According to the book’s very first paragraph:
“Everything they’d discovered on Planet J–S was stored in Cargo Hold 4, but none of it was organic, according to their scanners.”
I won’t give away how Busch deals with this issue. My desire to read how this could happen was one of the things that made me want to keep on reading, so I don’t want to ruin anybody else’s pleasure. Suffice it to say that Busch’s solution to this apparent problem of a nonorganic stowaway aboard the Gretel was a pretty cool one.
One of the other problems Captain Desna and her crew is confronted with is the ethical one of deciding exactly what should be done about the irksome stowaway. Two of the other things making life difficult for Desna, Berlin, and everyone else aboard the Gretel include the necessity of their handling an unplanned spacewalk and also how they should attempt to dislodge the unwelcome alien that had stowed away in Cargo Hold 4.
I asked myself as I read Cargo Hold 4 questions like: “is the book’s plot fast-paced?” “Are the complications that Captain Desna and her crew have to deal with dealt with in a realistic way?” and “Does Cargo Hold 4 have a plot that holds my interest and keeps me want to keep on reading it?”
I’m glad I read Cargo Hold 4. Besides being a captivating, page-turning Sci-Fi/Horror thriller, I liked reading the book for the added reason of discovering how the book’s author, Lonnie Busch, came up with inventive ways to play within the confines of the stowaway trope. I highly recommend Cargo Hold 4 for anyone who enjoys reading intelligent, fast-paced examples of the Sci-Fi/ Horror genre. Check it out today!