Rating: 
Summary: Have your intelligence insulted for the price of this book!
Review: This book is billed as a chilling scientific thriller. It turns out to be so terribly written and so devoid of interesting scientific insight that it is even easy to forget about the gruesome descriptions of death that it contains.
In paragraph after paragraph after paragraph, the author repeats a point and then closes with an oversimplified sentence that again repeats the very same point. I now know what it is like to be a 3rd grade schoolchild being addressed by an adult.
Allow me to demonstrate with some quotes from the book.
"As Ebola sweeps through you... your body becomes a city under siege, with its gates thrown open and hostile armies pouring in, making camp in the public squares and setting everything on fire... You can't fight off Ebola the way you fight off a cold."
Really? I can't fight off Ebola like I can fight off a cold? As if it wasn't already patently obvious before I picked up the book, didn't the author make that clear with his overwrought and overextended siege metaphor?
In this next excerpt, the author is kind enough to share his firm scientific grasp of mathematics with his readers.
"He had counted twenty-nine deaths out of a shipment of a hundred monkeys. That is, nearly a third of the monkeys had died." That's the tricky math part. I hope he had an independent party check his calculations.
This is the kind of beat-the-reader-over-the-head-with-the-obvious kind of sentence that made it impossible for me to enjoy this book. I only finished the book to see if the author could continue topping himself with his inane paragraph-closing sentences. The author is the King of the Obvious, the Emperor of the Already Said. Do yourself a favor and read something else.
Rating: 
Summary: A race to the start leaves you hanging
Review: An 8 because this book has the most thrilling opening of any book that I have read. If his subject matter had allowed Preston to sustain the pace of his opening chapter, then this book would have left me totally exhausted. As it was, I found myself hung out to dry by an anti-climactic second half. At the end of the book, the author credits his editor for structure over content. Oooops! As an account of a truly horrifying natural occurence the book is a must. However, in the form in which it was written i.e. a novel, it fails
Rating:
Summary: Easily the worst book I have ever read.
Review: I have never read such mindless drivel. If anyone has ever actually read this, they know that it is all gore with little depth. I could not relate at all to any of the characters. There were a few areas of suspense, but the entire lack of a climax was enough to turn me off. Which brings me to the worst part of this book. The ending is the most uninterseting, suspensless, and useless I have ever read. Avoid this book like the ebola
Rating: 
Summary: Chilling, Frightning, Real
Review: This book is so real, it's scary. I have read this book many times and it still gives me the chills. I'm going into 10th grade now, and I think that Richard Preston did a WONDERFUL job in making this book very comprehendable. I also found it very helpful that he put maps in his book. I recommend this book to everyone. I not only give this book a "10" rating, but I give it to Richard Preston too. After reading this book, I've decided that I want to become an epidemiologist when I grow up, hoping that someday, I can help put an end to these awful diseases
Rating:
Summary: Preston horrifies us all with this true tale of a new plague
Review: Richard Preston once again brings his eye for detail and his knowledge of experience into his new chilling tale of disease, and death. A group of monkeys are brought to America to be used in lab testing. Unbeknownst to the public, the millitary is engaged in a ceaseless war against an invisible foe... the EBOLA virus
Rating:
Summary: A Hot read!
Review: The cover was what attracted me to Richard Preston's chillingly true story. But like they say, there's more to a book than it's cover. Once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. What I find scary is that something as deadly as the Ebola virus could enter the country within 10 miles of the country's capital. The only disappointing element was Preston's lack of characterization. I thought he could go a little further with the character's opinions. However, his description of the virus' effects was terrifyingly graphic.
Overall, this is one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read
Rating:
Summary: This cannot be real ! Can it ?
Review: Move aside Michael Crichton ! Richard Preston is the man ! This bio-thriller is perhap one of the best book I came across, I read this book a long time ago (when it was released) and I still see horror and smell the fear. The Hot Zone made Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain looked silly. Not recommended for the faint hearted ! Going on a safari ? Think again
Rating:
Summary: This one frightening book...because it's true.
Review: This book is truly one of the most frightening things I have ever read, from taking the reader from an outbreaks of the Ebola Virus in Zaire and the Sudan, to the outbreak in Reston, Virginia it grabs the reader and doesn't let go. Be forewarned this book is not for the faint of heart, due to it's very graphic explanations. Mr. Preston reasearched his subject very carefully, and the book does read like a novel, but do not let that fool you this story is unbelievebly real and extremely terrifying, since no one in the medical community knows how to stop this virus
Rating:
Summary: The best book I've ever read!!
Review: The Hot Zone tells you how it is. None of those weak stomach desciptions
Rating:
Summary: It's in our midst! Terrifying true!
Review: This book shows just what happens when a lethal virus is unleashed, especially in what we consider a safe country.
It brings to reality that something this deadly can exist in our own backyards and there is absolutly nothing we can do about it!
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