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Title: The Cobra Event by Richard Preston ISBN: 0-345-40997-3 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 29 August, 1998 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17 (285 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: great blend of science - fact and fiction
Comment: It's interesting to read this book in the aftermath of the most recent war in Iraq and all the news about WMD. The Cobra Event was written before biological weapons were in the news regularly, and the descriptions of UN weapons inspection teams and biological weapons programs in Iraq and the former Soviet Union are compelling. This book is about a biological weapon, but not in the way that you might think. It provides a suspenseful tale of high-stakes investigation that quickly runs "hot" in the biological sense. Preston does a nice job of incorporating scientific detail throughout but explaining it as he goes along, making it interesting for the scientific-minded yet understandable for the general reader too. There is some gory detail in the first third of the book, but it's not included just for the sake of gore; it's there to underscore the reality of nasty viruses, the type of deaths they can cause, and what goes on in an autopsy. The final chapter is a nice touch and a great way to conclude the book.
Rating: 4
Summary: A great book, I couldn't wait to see what happened next.
Comment: Alice Austen, a doctor with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta is sent to help the medical examiner for New York City with a couple of suspicious cases he's working on. When Alice gets to the city she finds some very unusual things. The victims of the illness seem to die suddenly from symptoms that at first mimic a bad head cold. Not only do the victims die, but they turn on their own bodies before doing so. More cases turn up, and the F.B.I. is alerted. This story gives the reader an insight into how the F.B.I. would react to this scenario. It is easy to root for the main character Alice Austen. She never gives up and really does some great detective work. This thriller is full of medical terminology, but is easy to read. It is a race to find out who is releasing this deadly biological weapon into the city, and to try to stop them before it is too late. The autopsy sections are in detail and may turn off some readers. Included in the story are details about the history of biological warfare, and how weapons inspectors in places like Iraq do their job. I bought this book on September 9th, of this year. I finished it about two days before the first case of anthrax appeared. I was riveted by this book. Even now when I watch the news or read a newspaper, I am brought right back to the things that happened in the book. The book was extremely well written and the next time I come across a book by Richard Preston, I will most certainly buy it.
Rating: 4
Summary: Pretty Good Tale
Comment: Preston's non-fiction works, "Hot Zone" and "Demon in the Freezer", are better. He brings an enthusiasm and readability to the subject of viruses and biowarfare that are, well, infectious. But he's just not a great writer of novels. His main characters --beautiful, smart, diffident, heroic, patriotic, and primed for action-- are little more than cardboard cutouts. The secondary characters are just names. Even the perpetrator in this book, the bad guy releasing the virus, is just a name and a description. Preston would have done well to start with the characters and then develop the plot from them, rather than vice versa. The science stuff is interesting, virology and autopsies and bio-reactors. It's a good tale, but not great fiction.
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Title: The Demon in the Freezer by RICHARD PRESTON ISBN: 0345466632 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 26 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Hot Zone : A Terrifying True Story by Richard Preston ISBN: 0385479565 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 20 July, 1995 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World--Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It by Stephen Handelman, Ken Alibek ISBN: 0385334966 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 11 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Virus Hunter : Thirty Years of Battling Hot Viruses Around the World by Mark Olshaker, C.J. Peters ISBN: 0385485581 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 13 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett ISBN: 0140250913 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 1995 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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