The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston i can not say was a favotite. The extreme amount of details detracted from the novel itslef. I like the imagery, but it was so much that i was distracted from the story line itself. Also the constant jumping around from place to place and person to person caused a great deal of confusion. It was an intresting concept, but it was not written as well as it could have been. Overall I did like the book and would suggest it to others, but i suggest that the readers should read it twice in order to have a full understanding of the book.

Great book i read in high school. i just picked it up to re-live this horror again.

This book was scary, disgusting, detailed, and I couldn't put it down. It will keep you reaching for a bottle of hand sanitizer.
As with the other Richard Preston books, it starts with a gruesome case of the disease that it is about. (I made the mistake of reading the first few chapters before lunch.) Then, it talks about the history of Ebola, then it describes a new strain of Ebola that was in a monkey research faculty.
WARNING: DO NOT EAT SPAGHETTI WITH RED SAUCE AFTER READING THIS BOOK. YOU WILL REGRET IT.
I definitely recommend this book to unsqueamish people.

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston really opens the readers eyes to another world that we really do not know or do not want to know about. The first part of the book is gripping and you can't help but feeling for these people who are suffering. Knowing that this was based on truth, I felt a great sense of relief when characters survived or weren't exposed to the filovirus. When a flask was smelled in the lab, not knowing what it contained, I wanted to stop the people. Preston did a good job of letting you know who these folks were so that you did care about them. The end of the book leaves you hanging which can't be helped. There are no answers. Where did the virus come from? How does it travel? When will it hit next? Hopefully, Preston is not given a reason to write part II of The Hot Zone.

I have five children, a husband, a dog, a cat, am taking college classes with people over twenty years younger than myself and it it's not a textbook or a glance at the local newspaper then I don't have time to read it. So, it was a great treat to have an assingment in my Microbiology class be to read a book in reference to microbes or viruses. I wouldn't have taken the time to read this book but I am really glad I did!

This is a non-fiction book that keeps readers on the edge of their seats, compulsively turning the pages. In it the author gives an education on the possible origins of different deadly hemorrhagic viruses and the devastation that they cause in both animals and humans. The author describes actual outbreaks that occurred between 1967 and 1993. This is done in an engaging, straightforward narrative that reads like a medical thriller.

The nucleus of the story focuses on an outbreak of Ebola virus in Reston, Virginia in the tony county of Fairfax, just outside of Washington, D.C. in 1983. A special, highly trained teamed of Army specialists and scientists secretly converged on that hot spot to try and stop the spread of this deadly virus, as it had a kill rate of ninety percent.

The account that the author gives of the Army's mission is riveting, as is the vivid description of the rain forests and caves of Africa where these hemorrhagic viruses are suspected of originating. The devastation these viruses cause to both animals and humans is horrifying, shocking, and, unfortunately, all too true. The author has managed to make science accessible to the general public and eminently readable. Bravo!