Preston's history about the ebola virus reads like science fiction, and that makes it frightening. Very accessible, very interesting, very gripping, very timely with the current news. I enjoyed it a lot. ( )

worth a reread after ebola outbreaks in West Africa in 2014-15 ( )

Zona caliente es uno de los thrillers ms escalofriantes de los ltimos tiempos salvo por un detalle: todo lo que aqu se cuenta sucedi en verdad. La 'zona caliente' es el recinto de mxima seguridad y aislamiento donde los especialistas del Ejrcito de los Estados Unidos manipulan los virus ms mortferos que se conocen. No hace mucho, en las afueras de Washington, slo una operacin militar secreta pudo detener la propagacin de un filovirus asesino entre centenares de monos de laboratorio.Este libro extraordinario revela la seria amenaza que - como lo demostr el vrus Ebola - se cierne sobre el mundo actual. Zona caliente es un testimonio sensacional que demuestra como la realidad puede superar a la mejor ficcin.

This may be the scariest book I've ever read. Seriously.

By comparison, it makes [b:House of Leaves|24800|House of Leaves|Mark Z. Danielewski|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1403889034s/24800.jpg|856555] read like a fairy tale. Because this book is actually true, the hypotheses within could actually happen. It doesn't take much imagination to envision the consequences of a contagious killer virus.

Preston enumerates the initial case of Ebola and then traces forward to an outbreak of it in a monkey research facility in Reston, Virginia. Part horror, part medical mystery, and all true, The Hot Zone makes you realize how vulnerable the human race really could be. Imagine an illness that kills like the black plague and spreads like the flu. What happens if a virus like that gets out in the population?

This book definitely is written with dramatic flair, and perhaps at points is a little over the top, but that is what makes it such a fantastic and accessible read.
( )

Wow, what a fantastic book. Maybe because of recent events, maybe because of the writing style, but all things being equal this was one that I read in about 2 days. It was really that gripping.

Stephen King wrote one of the book blurbs on the back and he may have said it best: "The first chapter of "The Hot Zone" is one of the most horrifying things I've read in my whole life . . . and then it gets worse." And really, he's not kidding. Richard Preston details the journey that Charles Monet makes from his home in Western Kenya where he was one of the managers of a sugar factory. A Frenchman by birth, he decided one Christmas week to explore Kitum Cave, an innocent enough adventure. Then he goes home, totally unknowing that he was carrying a very quick and lethal virus called Ebola. What makes the chapter that ends in his death so horrifying, as King writes, is the great amount of suffering he endured, his physical changes, and how quickly he succumbed to it. Preston writes this chapter like a good mystery, providing minute details on the physical suffering Monet endured drawn from victims of Ebola. He speculates on the mental anguish Monet must have suffered, not knowing what was wrong with him but knowing he was horribly sick.

As the Ebola virus is explored, starting with the Marburg strain and moving into the Reston strain that is the bulk of this story, Preston expands his storytelling abilities. He describes in a matter-of-fact manner the use of monkeys in medical research; the horror is in their capture from the wild and their imprisonment into cages to face certain death one way or another. The numbers are staggering. And whether or not their use is justified, theirs is a story that needs to be told.

In late 1989, a shipment of macaques from the Philippines came to a clearing house of research monkeys in Reston, VA, outside of Washington, DC. They were not injected with any virus, as they were destined to various simian research facilities throughout the US. However, a few succumbed to an illness whose virus had the same look under the microscope as the Ebola virus. And through a series of events, the humans who were caring for the monkeys or performing the necropsies carried this virus into the greater DC area by interacting with others over the Thanksgiving weekend. The only reason there was no mass outbreak was that this particular strain of Ebola does not jump from monkeys to humans. The Ebola vaccination was only licensed in November, 2019, ironically enough.

Having emerged from the COVID protocols and lockdown and masks, knowing what words like "super spreader event" mean, and finding out just how quickly a virus can jump from one person to another without either party knowing, adds another layer of realism to events from 30 years ago. It is extremely detailed and well-written and absolutely horrifying. ( )