The Cobra Event

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Summary: Knowing it is fiction allows me to sleep at night
Review: Knowing it is fiction allows me to sleep at night, but knowing that Preston's story is so closely based on fact scares the hell out of me. The idea that a radical terrorist who believes that humans are a blight on the Earth could somehow obtain a bioweapon like Cobra is dripping with believability. There ARE people like that in the world. There are undoubtedly bioweapons not dissimilar to Cobra. For all we know this could already have happened, or may happen tomorrow or be happening as we read this. I read the book over a weekend, I had a very difficult time putting it down. When I did put it down, it was to reflect upon events in the book and wonder. I have always believed that the best fiction is fiction that is based on the truth and real events. I just wonder how long it will be before Prestons story will be considered "prophetic". Like the FBI guy said in the book, "you will see this during your career". My guess is sooner or later, it will happen much like Preston describes. I can only hope that there are people like Alice Austin and Will Hopkins to bail us out. Excellent read. Don't miss it.

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Summary: Scarier than the Hot Zone!
Review: Preston's Hot Zone caught my attention while I was in the Army in Europe. Months later I ended up moving to Reston, VA., 2 miles from the monkey house! I saw Cobra Event at a bookstore and I grabbed it to look at it before buying it (I knew I was going to buy it). I read 50 pages before I could make it to the register! Enough said, it did not last me a night! Pedro A. Vera-Perez

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Summary: The book was very interesting although it had some gore.
Review: Richard Preston's books are very well written. I love the way that he describes what's happening, so I always have mental pictures. In the Cobra Event, I was discusted by the amount of gore that he had described all to well. This made it hard to start reading again. All in all I thought the book was based on a wonderful acount of what could have happened. I was pulled into another of his books Hot Zone also which described the Ebola virus. Erika, 16

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Summary: An exciting book
Review: The Cobra Event was an exciting, engrossing novel. If you enjoyed The Hot Zone, then Cobra Event won't let you down. It has a lot of similar stuff: grotesque, in-depth descriptions of autopsies; gory details of viral amplification process; and real-life, jaw dropping, eye-opening information. It's scary reading books like these ... because you know that it might not be fiction one day. I highly recommend this book.

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Summary: It's the things that actually happen that we fear most
Review: As someone who has studied virology and microbiology in depth, I loved this book. Dr. Austen, although somewhat dry at times, is exactly what a scientist searching for a missing link should be: thorough, meticulous, cautious, and generally scared out of her wits. I especially liked the irony of and extremism of Archimedes: his realization that human consumption is a plague, yet his self-righteous superiority over the 'human' race cannot escape the fact that he himself is also human, and susceptible to the same biological vulernability and consumptionism. I have also read the HOT ZONE, and I find that I like Preston's mode of nonfiction entwined with fiction in the COBRA EVENT. I liked the flow of it, not to mention that people who are not versed in virology find it easy to read and benefit from the author's handy explanations/definitions. I would not recommend this book to anyone under 15 or so, unless they're studying biology and can handle a fair amount of graphic death scenes without nightmares. For everyone else who doesn't understand what the big deal is with Americans in the UN trying to inspect Iraq, or for anyone who says it 'can't happen here' (both Lassa and Hanta viruses have had outbreaks here in the US in the past 15 years), read this book. Forewarned is forearmed.... Bravo Mr. Preston... Bravo!

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Summary: View it -- in PIP mode
Review: To the extent that you can comprehend the real dangers of the world, with scientists creating extremely deadly and contagious bioweapons, this book is very scary. It is horrifying. But as a book, the Cobra Event is pretty weak. The book/movie script starts off well but resolves itself with improbable events and the standard action movie cliches. The story is obviously written to be made in to a Hollywood movie and that means that it can't have an intelligent or realistic resolution to the suspenseful situation because Hollywood makes this type of movie for a 15 to 23 year old. (No offense kids). I would not recommend reading the Cobra Event. I also wouldn't recommend going to the see it in a movie theatre (unless you are 15-23 years old). Instead wait for the video and then watch it at home. If you have Picture-In-Picture on your TV you can switch to PIP mode for the last half of the movie and put the Cobra Event in the little box in the lower left hand corner while you have something realistic, like The Three Stooges, playing on the main screen.

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Summary: This one will keep you up all night
Review: Richard Preston's Cobra Event will keep you up all night reading and then long afterwards as you ponder the significance of what you have read. A timely novel about genetically engineered germ warfare, Cobra Event is a fast-paced read. Mr. Preston inserts chapters about the world history regarding biological warfare, giving the reader much needed background and enhancing the story. Perhaps the main characters could have been "fleshed out" more fully, but any reader who criticizes Mr. Preston's storytelling ability is missing the point. This book is a wakeup call to the civilized world about the stand the world's governments have and are taking on biological warfare. Heed Mr. Preston's words and ignore the few shortcomings of a less than perfectly written novel.

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Summary: Promising premise -- faulty execution
Review: Certainly not the worst book of this genre that I have read, but I am sad to write that the promising premise gave way to pedantic, ill-defined, stereo-typed characters and several loose plot threads that would most definitely have been worth exploring. For example, much menacing mileage could have been extracted from further encounters with the maniacal "Concern" -- this plot point was left out to dry like a dangling, sun-dried, wind-blown sheet. Most annoying were the definitions of bioweapon production and forensics "industry terminology". Most readers who are intrigued by this type of subject matter do not need the "gloss" definitions included within the body of the text. Perhaps one more round of editing and tweaking could have provided the book with the dangerous undercurrent that it lacked.

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Summary: Hypochondriacs should not read this (It made me sick)
Review: I was so tense reading it that I chewed up the inside of my mouth (which is one of the symptoms). So I had to take a break and put it down half way through when heads started to explode. The author got pretty heavy on the gore by then, (and light on the character developement). The US/Iran plot part was fun to read.

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Summary: Great on Background, Good on plot, Short on Characters
Review: I enjoyed "The Cobra Event" very much but would of prefered to see it in a "mockumentry" form, that is, a fictional documentry, like writing 10 or 20 years down the road after a Bio-Terrorist event. Like Mr. Preston said in the "To the reader" in the hot zone: "...If you ask a person, "What were you thinking?" you may get an answer that is reicher and more revealing of the human condidtion than ANY STREAM OF THOUGHTS A NOVELIST COULD EVENT..." I enjoyed the book but a tip for Mr. Preston: Stick to what your at the top of your game: non-fiction