Novel review: Richard Preston - The Hot Zone (1995)

After I recommended this to cabbagesorter.net and read her subsequent entertaining review, I told myself I'd read it again since I didn't remember much about it.

If you want the short version: this second reading was good. The choice to structure the novel into a smattering of stories and flashbacks about the discovery of filoviruses in newspaper clipping style and the main story about the Reston incident right in the middle kept it fresh and to the point, almost clinically down to earth at times (which fit the subject to a T).

I didn't remember how horrific the first part was, though! Forget horror novels or even movies, reading the very graphic and detailed description of a man being slowly eaten alive then destroyed by the virus was much more effective. And I read it while waiting for my order at a restaurant…

After that memorable introduction, we return to a more ordinary style of narration, with characters developed enough for you to start caring about them and their lives; which is important to get a feel for the danger they're putting themselves in! The constant "military war room" style tension really keeps you riveted to the pages, wanting or even needing to know how bad it'll get.

You even get a fascinating peek into the complex bureaucratic mess of the (irresponsible, as usual) media who could have stirred up a real panic or the idea that a single man at the CDC could have ruined the disaster containment effort just because he thinks he knows the virus.

All of that together with the relatively short length makes this into the kind of novel you read into one sitting or two, really.