manner more horrible then most people's worse nightmares. The Hot Zone tells the history of the people who study this virus, how it was discovered, what it does and what little is known about how it is contracted. But most frightening of all The Hot Zone tells of how in Reston, VA, a small community close enough to Washington D.C. to be within sight of the Washington Monument, an outbreak of Ebola Zaire occurred and was stopped...this time.
With all respect to Stephen King, The Hot Zone makes the scariest thing he's written seem like a child's fairy tale. The Hot Zone has the effect of a well written horror novel as well as a non-fiction work on the history of a deadly disease. The scientific aspect of Ebola and other communicable diseases are clearly explained so that even a layperson can understand them, but without slowing up the pace of the story. In fact, the descriptions of Ebola's effect on the human body are so explicit, and by their very nature grotesque, that those who are squeamish by nature or tend to hypochondria would probably do well to avoid this book like the plague. The human effect, regarding the people who's lives have been touched by Ebola, either as researchers or victims, are both well researched and nicely fleshed out with interviews from the different doctors and scientist who study Ebola. The seriousness of the work they do, and how death could easily result from the smallest error, gave The Hot Zone an especially nice dramatic edge. There was a very believable sense that this book describes what will be the next major disaster, a plague of unimaginable proportions, to hit the human race. This was very scary stuff.
The only nits worth picking are that the book tends to jump around a bit too much from one scenario to another, which made following some of the effects a bit challenging. Secondly, I had the feeling the book was too short, but given how little is truly know about Ebola I can't say where I think they could have added any more detail then was presented.
The Hot Zone is excellent and well worth reading, but don't expect to feel good about it afterward.
