This is the third book about diseases and medicine that I've really enjoyed (though, yes, enjoyed seems like a poor choice of word) - the other two being And the Band Played On and The Emperor of All Maladies. Imagine a virus with the infectiousness of influenza and the mortality rate of the black plague in the Middle Ages- that's what we're talking about.

Preston definitely dramatizes the whole thing, but he's working with some pretty powerful material. Reality can be so much more scary than fiction. It acts like a predator, lying quietly in wait for a host so it can multiply and multiply to destructive effect. I didn't know that it is one of the most infectious diseases that have likely ever existed on this planet. I didn't know that it liquidates your organs and turns your body into a walking corpse days before you 'bleed out'. I knew it was a disease and that it killed people.

Preston uses interviews and first-hand accounts to tell the story of the Ebola virus and its various strains.

That's what The Hot Zone is: A true horror story. Because, well, the TV show might be very creepy, but I have to say it is nothing compared to the horror of this book. I read this book on the same days I was watching the Netflix adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House, which had a curious effect on me. It was written like a thriller, which made it really engrossing.Both species, the human and the monkey, were in the presence of another life form, which was older and more powerful than either of them, and was a dweller in blood. This book was extremely disturbing to read, although it kept me glued to my seat and I learned a lot of stuff. Like, imagine if we had an Ebola pandemic instead. It contains some of the grossest passages I’ve had the misfortune to read and makes me, well, very grateful that coronavirus was so comparatively mild of a virus to cause a pandemic. The Hot Zone is narrative nonfiction that chronicles the origin and spread of the Marburg and Ebola viruses, both of which literally liquefy your body and cause you to explode into a pool of blood. Once a virus hits the net, it can shoot anywhere in a day-Paris, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, wherever planes fly All of the earth’s cities are connected by a web of airline routes. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic “hot” virus. The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their “crashes” into the human race.” My ThoughtsĪ hot virus from the rain forest lives within a twenty-four-hour plane flight from every city on earth. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. “A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston