Richard Preston's "The Hot Zone: Third Edition" - A Gripping Account of the Origins and Spread of Deadly Viruses

Juan P Espana: It is super entertaining and ultra excitement. At the beggining you think you are reading a sci-fi book. Its so interesting that you dont remember you are reading a non fiction book. When finally you fall... it changes your outlook of everything. The people... the victims, the ones who could cope with it... the "what was it" and the "whats going on then"... there it brings you again to reality and its when you get amaze again. You learn a lot of general culture and understand how the nature protects its self. Supra book.

United States on Aug 26, 2023

Aunt B: Well written. Page turner. Attention getting.

Canada on Aug 23, 2023

victoria Stephens: Absolutely love the book haven't put it down

United Kingdom on Jul 09, 2023

L. R. Jewell: This is not an up-to-date account of the global fight against Ebola. This is a US-focused book published in 1992, and it shows. It spends much of its time discussing an outbreak of Reston Virus - a close cousin of Ebola, which was discovered during the events of this book not to be harmful to humans - in a monkey house in Virginia: a fascinating story to be sure, but ultimately a sidebar in the history of the disease.

This is a book of two halves, with the first being an intensely readable, if debatably hyperbolised, account of Ebola's discovery and spread. This part of the book makes for compelling reading but Preston's taste for melodrama, particularly when describing the disease's symptoms, sometimes gets ahead of medical fact. Though Ebola is undoubtedly extremely dangerous and highly lethal, it doesn't actually liquefy your organs, and reading between the lines makes it plain that it is nowhere near as easily spread as 'The Hot Zone' would like us to believe. Highly contagious, yes. This contagious, no. You can't catch it just by sitting next to someone in an airplane, unless you're extremely unlucky. More irresponsibly, the book repeatedly promotes an untested,...

United Kingdom on Jun 20, 2020

Carla Gallardo: Richard Preston's Hot Zone is a well-written book, that keeps you wanting for more, page after page. It's the kind of book that makes you think 'Okay, just one more chapter'. It gives you the chills, and it has you at the edge of your sit as you read about gory death and smart scientists. Yet, as a virologist in formation (working on a masters degree), I must tell you all that Preston exaggerates.

Filoviruses ARE dangerous level four biosafety agents, but they will hardly cause the end of humans species, as Preston practically suggests. He paints filoviruses as thinking predators out there for your blood, when in reality that is not the case. There are way much more important viruses (influenza) with a higher mortality rate that people tend to overlook.

His interest and passion for the topic are evident, but he lacks in objectivity and exceeds at drama. He makes it look worse than it really is.

I had read this book twice. The first time, during my first year of College and the second one during my first year of Masters.
While the first time I read it I pretty much panicked, the second time I realized it was way overdone.

My recommendation:
If you...

Mexico on May 07, 2019

Listing Books: y Review and Thoughts:

This is truly a mind altering book that leaves you scared crap-less in so many horrifying, real life ways. This book showcases the brutal reality of this horrible virus that is more killer than anything else. This is the real life monster living somewhere out there ready to attack in waves of pure painful death that is graphic, disturbing and most of all a ravaging beast inside your own body.

This book left me breathless and utterly disturbed. This is possibly one of the best books ever written on a virus. Richard Preston gave a voice to this beast of destruction. He allows you to understand and grasp the horror of this virus. In vivid detail he recounts the moments of infection, key figures who came down with the virus. The exploration of this virus in all its horrifying, painful moments that lead victim after victim to death. A death that is both painful and described in this book in brutal means.

This book details total fear. This book showcases the truth of this virus in all its fascinating brutality. Dreadful in the thought that it lingers out there waiting.

I think what stands out with this book is Richard gives a human side...

United States on Sep 13, 2015

McSusan: It is 1979 and a virus kills Charles Monet, a French citizen living in Kenya. It is believed he contracted it on trip to Mount Elgon, Kitum Cave in southern Sudan. Characterized by black vomit, red spots that turn purple, blood coming from all orifices, intestinal muscles die and go slack, blood clots in the brain and elsewhere, dizziness, convulsions followed by the loss of consciousness.

The virus then travelled to Germany (where it was identified as a sort of rabies but more) through the transportation of monkeys from the Lake Victoria area of Central Africa. It was named the Marburg virus for the city in Germany where it first infected a man named Klaus. It was later learned what they called Marburg was a form of Ebola.

In 1983 at USAMRIID, U.S. Army pathologist Major Nancy Jaax gets assigned to work with this now known Level 4 hot virus, EBOLA. (Named EBOLA for the river of the same name.) There was no known vaccine and no cure. Nine out of ten infections were fatal. A Dr. Johnson will work with her. USA Research Institute of Infectious Diseases

Ebola is made up of 7 different proteins we know little about. They target the immune system and attack...

United States on Oct 27, 2014

Dr. Simon Howard: The Hot Zone by Richard Preston is a book which has been on my ‘to read’ list for years. But, in the light of the recent outbreak, I thought the time to dive in has come.

The book describes an outbreak of Ebola, which occurred in the late 1980s in Washington, DC, a mere stone’s throw from the White House. The outbreak initially spread among imported monkeys and (I don’t think this is too much of a spoiler) then to a small number of humans. The narrative follows the medical, public health, and scientific teams involved in controlling and tackling the outbreak; describing not just their actions, but also their thoughts, feelings, fears, and reflections.

Preston converts this tale into a page-turning thriller. Much of the content isn’t typical thriller material, but Preston does a sterling job of explaining complex scientific concepts and processes in simple (yet accurate) terms; this is quite an achievement. Preston lends his eloquence to horrifying descriptions of Ebola-related deaths, which, I suspect, some readers might find hard to stomach. He also adds heaps of drama and tension that might reflect the atmosphere of a group of experts grappling with an...

United Kingdom on Oct 01, 2014