Product Description

Imagine a killer with the infectiousness of the common cold and power of the Black Death. Imagine something so deadly that it wipes out 90 per cent of those it touches. Imagine an organism against which there is no defence. But you don't need to imagine. Such a killer exists: it is a virus and its name is Ebola. "The Hot Zone" tells what happens when the unthinkable becomes reality: when a deadly virus, from the rain forests of Africa, crosses continents and infects a monkey house ten miles from the White House. Ebola is that reality. It has the power to decimate the world's population. Try not to panic. It will be back. There is nothing you can do...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #149406 in Books
• Published on: 1995-08-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 383 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The dramatic and chilling story of an Ebola virus outbreak in a suburban Washington, D.C. laboratory, with descriptions of frightening historical epidemics of rare and lethal viruses. More hair-raising than anything Hollywood could think of, because it's all true.

From the Back Cover
Imagine a killer with the infectiousness of the common cold and power of the Black Death. Imagine something so deadly that it wipes out 90% of those it touches. Imagine an organism against which there is no defence. But you don't need to imagine. Such a killer exists: it is a virus and its name is Ebola.

The Hot Zone tells what happens when the unthinkable becomes reality: when a deadly virus, from the rain forests of Africa, crosses continents and infects a monkey house ten miles from the White House.

Ebola is that reality. It has the power to decimate the world's population. Try not to panic. It will be back. There is nothing you can do...

About the Author
Richard Preston
Richard Preston was born in 1954 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and received a Ph.D from Princeton University. He is the author of The Hot Zone (about lethal viruses); American Steel (about the Nucor Corporation's project to build a revolutionary steel mill); and First Light (about astronomy and astronomists) which won the American Institute of Physics award in science writing. An asteroid has been named 'Preston' in honour of First Light. Preston is a lump of rock the size of lower Manhattan. It is likely to some day collide with Mars or the Earth. Richard Preston is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, and has won numerous awards, including the AAAS-Westinghouse Award and the McDermott Award in the Arts from MIT.

Customer Reviews

freaky
when a world threatening disease strikes and if you go anywhere near an infected area you will catch it, What can u do? This fast-paced book tells you how easily the world could end if this disease was to strike again. i would recomend this book to everyone!!!

I stopped breathing!
After reading The Cobra Event I HAD to get this one too...and I wasn't disappointed. A real-life horror book that i got so involved in that i had to stop and take a deep breath. I didn't realise i had stopped breathing. The description of how Ebola is contracted through to the devastating effects is has on the human body as it breaks it down, is something very scary in itself. To KNOW that this is not fiction makes it all the more scary. You will not be able to put this book down!

NON-FICTION MEDICAL THRILLER...
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!