diseases

I kept putting off reading "The Hot Zone", even though I study single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses, and continued to hear references to it. I finally bought a copy and was rather shocked. Ebola haemorrhagic fever is a very frightening disease, and the hundreds of people who have died from it since it was identified in 1976 (along with its sister virus Marburg which was identified in 1967) suffered horribly. Preston does these victims and their families a disservice by discussing Ebola haemorrhagic fever in sensationalistic and cartoonish prose. The story the book tells is both tragic and fascinating, but from most of the reviews here, one would gather that it is just a gruesome shock-fest. Just because Ebola virus is native to the forests of Africa does not mean that its victims should also be treated as distant, exotic characters in a horror picture. I'm not trying to be politcally correct by saying this. Even Preston's descriptions of the scientists involved in the study BL-4 agents feel as though they were written by Ayn Rand on steroids. I give this book 2 stars because I do think it has helped inform a number of readers about the continuing threat of infectious diseases and has probably led some of them to more detailed and down-to-earth works like Laurie Garrett's or William Close's. If you have read these works, though, you'll have trouble wading through "The Hot Zone".

The novel The Hot Zone is a true story about the Ebola virus. People in Africa start coming down with a very threatening unknown virus. Doctors cant figure out what it is and people are dieing. This disease soon finds its way to Washington D.C., and they have figured out that it is Ebola. The main characters Nancy Jaxx and Peter Jaxx, they lead the operation and mission to stop the virus. They must find where it is coming from and how to stop it, because it kills nine out of ten people that it encounters, and there is no cure for the virus.

I found this novel very intriguing. It was educational on the subject, and had some action scenes, which kept the novel alive, because some parts could get a little dull. The Novel stayed alive, on how it went into great depth to explain how they managed to fight Ebola, and to contain it. At these points in the novel became very exciting, and very interesting, because it is telling a nonfiction story. If you like bio hazards this is a must read book.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in science/biology. I think they would like this novel very much. I wouldn't really recommend it to someone who is not interested in Science/biology. I don't think that I would recommend it to anyone younger than I ( 15 ), for I don't think that they would follow along with the novel at times, or be interested but other wise I would recommend it to someone.

After months of stuffy old British classics we read THE HOT ZONE by Richard Preston in my sophomore English class. What a breath of fresh air! The book reads like a novel, but is full of fascinating information about ebola. Whether you're a biology buff or just want a good beach read, this is a great book. I highly recommend this(...)