The Hot Zone

    Written by author Richard Preston, The Hot Zone is a non-fiction bio-thriller that depicts the origins and discovery of some of the deadliest diseases known to man. Through a series of vivid, in-depth depiction of real-life events, Preston weaves a story of how a deadly disease wreaks havoc among society and its potential of driving humanity to extinction. Beginning in Africa, the story begins with the discovery of the Marburg virus, a highly infectious virus which induces major blood hemorrhage and results in the death of nearly seven-tenth of it's victims. From there, Preston describes the chaos and panic Marburg wreaked across Africa; destroying villages (literally and figuratively) and killing people. From there, Preston jumps ahead and writes about even deadlier and scarier diseases, ones that would make anyone lose their lunch and breakfast when told about.

    The author, Richard Preston, obviously wrote this book to inform the populace about the horrors of Ebola and it's sister viruses. By providing real stories and information about them, Preston describes one of the more deadliest viruses known to man. With accurate accounts, statistics, and descriptions that vividly paint a picture of something that put the world in a panic even greater than the "Red Scare" (Cold War paranoia of communism taking over the world). One can tell that alot of time and research had been put into this book, somewhere around months or years of searching and researching. That alone is enough to earn my respect, since if it were me, I'd have given up already on account of my extreme laziness and wanting to do nothing. The very prospect of spending time researching this topic blows my mind and makes me faint from dread. Back to topic; Preston wrote this book in the hopes of enlightening the mainstream populace about this deadly disease and it's symptoms and lethality. It scares the jebesus out of me just thinking what would happen if I ever got infected. -Shivers- All in all, I do believe that Preston gets his point across that we should all be aware of Ebola and it's deadly family, all of which can kill off the human race like a hot knife on butter. (I have no idea if I said that correctly).

    Before reading the book, I thought it would be intriguing and thrilling; and it was... at first. The book had me hooked for the first few fifty pages or so, but then it started going off onto different tangents; each more confusing than the last. In all honesty, half the time I had no idea what was going on in the story. All the scientific mumbo jumbo confused me too much, and threw off my concentration. Half of me would be trying to read the book, while the other half exhausts my brain trying to comprehend was the book said twenty pages before. I mean maybe, this book wasn't intended for young audiences, and maybe I should slow down and try to understand what the story is saying before reading even further but it's still damn annoying to read something that you absolutely know nothing about and not know what it's saying.

 Maybe the authors should consider downsizing their vocabulary. But if you consider it carefully, it would seem that Preston wrote this book for more mature and knowledgeable audiences. I mean, it wouldn't have been in the Health and Medicine section of Borders if it wasn't, now would it? The author probably wrote it with medical school students or doctors with their fancy Ph D.'s or something. It's not very hard to tell, since he keeps referring to medical terms and other scientific jargon that makes my head spin when thinking about it. The writing might be more than what a average highschool student can understand, unless you're someone who reads alot of high-level books that're close to college level. I dunno about the average highschooler, but every college level book I ever read leaves me with a headache that's twice the size of China (No offense intended). Then again, I'm sure that if you have a dictionary handy, it'd be easier to understand the book.

    Another thing that I don't very much care for about this book is the way Preston jumps around on the topics through out the story. At one point, he'll be talking about a specific person that's important to the story... But the next minute he'd jump off and talk about something that's compeltely different like doctors looking for something in some backwater cave in Africa.

It really annoys me and somewhat pisses me off at the way he just veers off course and leaves the reader hanging off a cliff without anything. It's like a giant middle finger to their faces. What sort of person would like reading something they're completely into and then being cut off for three chapters of nothing but a bunch of scientists in white lab coats searching a cave in God-knows-where. In my honest opinion, the author should have just kept the story together, instead of separating it all out around the book like some sort of shuffling deck. I would've paid better attention and udnerstood the story a bit better if he had kept it all neat and tidy, which would provide me with a better understanding as to what the hell was going on in the story at the moment. And that's only ONE of the small grievances I have against this book. As they say, "the tip of the iceberg".

    This book may have many faults, but I must say that it was one of the most intriguing books I've read in a while. And it also kept me entertained for the better part of a week without me blowing my brains out form boredom. But after that, I began losing interest in the the story. Personally, if you're into bio-thriller and outbreak stuff, I'd recommend you stick to Resident Evil, but this book would also work if you're in college or some other medical crap.