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Title: The Eleventh Plague by John S., M.D. Marr, John Baldwin, Adams Morgan ISBN: 0786116838 Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks Pub. Date: January, 2000 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 10 List Price(USD): $69.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.01
Rating: 3
Summary: A for subject matter-F for writing/editing
Comment: Interesting subject matter but the many editorial/writing flaws in the book kept detracting from the story. I got worried when there was a date/time error in the first few pages of the book and the problem continued throughout. I don't mind flashbacks to earlier dates if the characters don't know on that earlier date what they had found out 2 weeks later according to the book's timeline.
There was other incorrect information in there such as the young Jewish boy saying he got hooked up to the Library of Congess to search Grateful Med. Grateful Med is provided by the National Library of Medicine. It made me wonder what other errors I wasn't aware of in some of the scientific/technical aspects of the plagues.
Despite my frustration with the authors/editors not catching some of the inconsistencies, I managed to finish the book because the subject matter interested me. However if you want to read books along this subject line, I'd have to recommend "The Hot Zone" or "The Cobra Event", "And the Band Played On" or several other books (some fiction & nonfiction like those mentioned above)before recommending this one. It was a struggle to stick with it even though the characters were fairly well developed and the concept was intriguing.
Rating: 2
Summary: Fction based on true medical science
Comment: Epidemiologists study diseases and their causes and origins, and take the lead in disease investigations. Dr. Marr has a wealth of experience in this area, and he has used much of it to provide a backdrop for this novel. As a result, the science here is reliable, and this alone is refreshing in a work of fiction (compare for example with the movie "Outbreak"). The Eleventh Plague would provide a worthy basis for a popular movie, and as a novel it moves along at a reasonably good pace from one scene to the next. Don't look for Frederick Forsythe; the style is relatively shallow, and the characters are poorly developed, but it's a good commuter pocketbook, with just enough intrigue to get you to re-open it each day on the subway!
Rating: 3
Summary: enjoyable reading, but...
Comment: I enjoyed the book, primarily because I am interested in the subject matter (cbw) and seek out books on such topics, whether fiction or not. Having said this much in favour of the book, I would like to linger on the book's weaker points.
EDITING/PROSE The book is very poorly edited for language and consistency. As already suggested by some of the other reviewers, date inconsistencies, grammatical and syntactic errors, poor transliteration and translation from Hebrew, and many other slip-ups can be found in abundence. It's difficult to imagine that this book was edited by anyone other than the authors (and authors, quite naturally, become blind to the faults in their own prose). The poor editing is probably a syndrom of the word processing age: Authors generate camera-ready or near camera-ready manuscripts that are printed as-is or subjected to but the most cursory examination.
TECHNICAL ACCURACY At least one of the authors is an M.D. It's therefore amazing and amusing to notice the many technical inaccuracies that exist in the book; Presumably the authors are writing about topics they have some knowledge of, and since these are technical topics one wouldn't really expect an editor to catch on to them. Perhaps books that deal with scientific issues, even if in the form of fiction, should be passed on for technical peer reviewing. The most gross technical error I found in the book was to classify prions as viruses. Prions do not contain genetic material (dna or rna) and are therefore not viruses. I found other slip-ups throughout the book, and once noticed, they do hurt the basic credibility of the authors; After all, this isn't science fiction they're writing about.
Otherwise, the book was interesting and informative. I don't think it qualifies as great literature, but it was fun weekend reading, and I certainly learned a few things from it. I took some notes as I was reading, and this is a nice basis for learning more about the subject. One reference that's mentioned in the book, and that you DON'T want to miss on is ProMED. There really is such a mailing list, and you can search it online...
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Title: The Third Pandemic: A Novel by Pierre Ouellette ISBN: 0671525360 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Forbidden Research by Howard Simon ISBN: 0671021842 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
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Title: The Cobra Event by Richard Preston ISBN: 0345409973 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: In the Blood by Don J. Donaldson ISBN: 0425178781 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 06 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The First Horseman by John Case ISBN: 0345435796 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: June, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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