Rating: 
Summary: The Book that Frightened a President
Review: Richard Preston's novel Cobra Event reads just like his nonfiction books on biological nasties, the Hot Zone and Demon in the Freezer--making it one of the most frightening things you will ever read, particularly if you've read either of those books as the similarities make the Cobra Event seem more like a nonfictional account than a novel.The novel's story centers around a terrorist's creation and usage of "brain pox," a deadly disease derived from smallpox that infects victims' brains like encephalitis--combining the rapid and easy spread of the former with the deadly neurological effects of the latter in a horrifying biological weapon. The characters and events laid out are so plausible that one must frequently remind oneself that the novel is indeed fictional, particularly in the historical and pseudo-historical accounts serving as background for the main story. Preston creates a believable team of investigators who must track down the terrorist behind the attacks--named by the FBI "the Cobra Event" due to their method of delivery. Although the motivations and character of the terrorist himself are somewhat flatter, overall the story could easily be featured not in a novel but on newspaper front pages. Former President Clinton read the book and reportedly was both so fascinated and frightened that he began taking seriously the threats of biological terrorism not only from large, well-funded state labs like those of the former Soviet Union and North Koreans but also the lone, rogue terrorist, a very real threat considering the relative simplicity of creating terrible biological weapons as was demonstrated so recently by the anthrax attacks after 9/11. Read this novel--it is a fast-paced page turner that will drive you to burn the midnight oil in finishing it--but one that will also leave you terrified as to the very real possibility of biological terrorism.
Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic Plot - Preston needs a ghost writer
Review: Excellent plot, believable and terrifying, but the lack of writing skills was too intrusive for me. No character development, and the dialog was stilted, and the descriptions and the asides were irritating, and the sentence structure was juvenile, AND... Actually reminded me of my children's writings in high school. Usually a good plot can overcome poor writing, but I could not continue past the first 200 pages. I hope Preston gets a ghost writer. His fertile imagination is wonderful, and I would enjoy his stories, as long as a skilled individual wrote the book.
Rating: 
Summary: SCARY AND TIMELY
Review: Wow, I was out of breath the whole time I read this. Great story, great research, so timely and shocking. Will really make you think about the possibilities that might face us in these terrorism days!
Rating:
Summary: Poignantly Frightening Reading In This Time
Review: Richard Preston takes us on the nightmare ride that the entire human race will have to encounter in the very near future, for as we can see it really is a struggle for the rightious to convince the global community that there really are individuals out there that are capiable of destroying the human race and not care in the slightest bit for their actions. And it only takes a freely avaiable to the public virus, an averagly intellegent person with a grudge and a well thought out plan to do it. The start begins with a young school girl who suddenly takes ill and in a short time dies in a rather violently spectacular fashion. Accross town a homeless man also dies in the same spectacular fashion.
A quick jump back in time shows a past that America has every right to be ashamed of - the testing of biological weapons that are so deadly even Richard Nixon himself band their use. Naturally the Russians who have a "fishing trawler" working near the test site obtains a sample of what will eventually become the most potant and deadly virus ever made. It soon ends up in Iraq and Saddam's hands... However the Centre of Disease Control sends one of it's investigators to see if there is a connection to these horrible deaths. It is the job of Alice Austen to get to the bottom of this outbreak, and soon she and a handful of others discover and uncover the smoking gun that will leave the future of mankind as well as the animal kingdom on the cliff-edge of oblivion. Along the way they will discover how dangerous and potent this virus can be. Chilling is really not the word to describe it, Heart Stoppingly Frightening is, because it is real. The book it's self is an easy read and flows well even if you have to put it down to take a breath (and you'll be alot more scared about doing that after). Five scary stars.
Rating:
Summary: Cobra Kicks A@$
Review: This is one of the best books ive ever read in my life. I was up a 11:00 reading what happens at the end for 3 hours! I wish this book never ends. Especally this one part where this one terrorist with a gun was chasing after them in the pitch black, 150 feet underground in a space suit when your air is running low. It is verry interesting and I am looking foward to reading Prestons new book the Deamon In the Freezer. It also makes CDC look like hero central. ...
Rating:
Summary: Good, but his nonfiction is better
Review: I loved Richard Prestons 2 nonfiction books, THE HOT ZONE (which I stayed up all night and read, could not put down) and THE DEMON IN THE FREEZER. Preston did, however, weave some reality (UNSCOM among others)into the narrative, but when I know this is made up, it just does not have the power to grab you and make you stay up all night. I just think when it comes to this kind of thing, truth is scarier than fiction.
Rating:
Summary: A very frightening book
Review: I finished The Cobra Event last night. I don't think I'll be sleeping well for a while. This is a very scary book - not because the writing is so suspensful (though it is in places) but because so many of the facts are verifiable. This could happen. The Cobra Event describes a bio-terrorism attack by a lone idealist and the attempts by the CDC and FBI to stop him. The biology and the science in this book are unassailable. The political environment has changed a bit since the book was written, but that just changes a few of the peripheral players. It does not invalidate the core premise. Bio-weapons work, they're deadly and they're available. In the middle of the book, the villian muses about the Black Death and the arguments that the plague had a strong role in ending the stagnation of the Middle Ages and in sparking the Renaissance. I learned that historical tidbit years ago. It is a very disturbing thought. That someone might try to duplicate that tragedy deliberately is even more disturbing - and unfortunately very believable. My only complaint is that the chase scene at the end of the book seemed a bit over-dramatic. Too many things went well for the heros. I don't believe real criminal investigations are either so fast or so smooth. Overall, this is an excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: Oh yeah!
Review: In New York City in the late '90s, a 17-year-old girl heads off to her private school even though she has a cold. By art class her nose is gushing mucus and she's severely disoriented. Within seconds, it seems, she's in convulsions and, most bizarrely, can't stop biting herself. All the reader can do is hope she'll die quickly, but Kate Moran's body still has a few more disgusting turns to undergo, and Richard Preston--a Jacobean master of ceremonies par excellence--takes us through them in bizarre and bloody detail. Clearly, whatever Kate had was a head cold with a scientific vengeance. Preston's heroine, Alice Austen, a doctor with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, realizes--in the first of several gripping autopsy scenes--that the girl's nervous system had been virtually destroyed. So far, only one other person is known to have died in the same way, but he was a homeless man. Austen must connect the two cases, seemingly linked only by the subway, before the media gets hold of them and drums up a paranoia-fest--and before the virus's creator can kill again. ***** The Cobra Event is itself a paranoia-fest, a provocative thriller that makes you wonder exactly how much bioterrorism is taking place in the real world. Preston, best known for his terrifying chronicle of the Ebola virus, The Hot Zone, and other impeccably researched nonfictions, is not content to create fast-paced nightmarish scenes. His novel is instead a complex morality tale anchored in uncomfortable fact. Preston is keen to convey the "invisible history" of bioweapons engineering and, equally, to show the unsung heroism of his scientific detectives (along with that of the nurses and technicians who literally sacrifice their lives for medicine). Like their creator, these characters are not without a sense of humor. One calls the manmade virus "the ultimate head cold." Readers will never forget literally dozens of scenes and will never again see the subway, rodents, autopsy knives, and--above all--runny noses in the same light.
Rating:
Summary: Throwing Rocks at a Worm Hole
Review: At the friends of the library sale where you can fill up a grocery bag full of hardbacks for 5 bucks, one doesn't have time amid crazed shoppers to consider the intricacies of story line before purchase, which is how "The Cobra Event" wound up in my bag. I thought it was a spy novel, which it kind of is. My reading of this came amid tensions with Iraq; so the scenes of bioterrorism in Iraq with mobile units loaded onto trucks was particularly interesting. The explanation of how the French built a hugh bioreactor facility in Iraq and consider Iraq as a cash cow helped give me background to the nuances of current international diplomacy. (The French oppose war with Iraq. My congressman wants to rename French fries to freedom fries.) The weakest part of the novel is the characterization. Characters don't feel like real people. Dr. Alice Austin is quintessential bravery; she plunges on despite chilling risks. While her attraction for Hopkins contains a hint of romance, we never really feel her personality, other than as a scientist absorbed in the biological mystery. The impulsive Mark Littleberry is a great character. His impulsive raid in Iraq which happens early in the plot is one of the story's highlights. It is loosely tied into the conclusion with the Iraqi scientist appearing a week later in New Jersey; but we never get a sense of consequences or of the authorities being able to crush the terrorism-for-profit Swiss firm. Tom Cope, the unsub, is also a fairly flat character with more enmity than common sense. The plot of how he generates the brainpox virus is absorbing. For me, the beginning of the story was the best part as Alice plays part detective searching out the clues as to why Kate Moran and the harmonica man contracted such a deadly disease. I enjoyed the research upon which the book is based. For one unfamiliar with the subject, it was a convincing eye opener. The death sequences with people gouging out their eyes, eating their lips and slitting their own throats was more gruesome than I care to read. The continual onslaught with no comic relief was like throwing rocks at a worm hole where there is no bottom to hear it land. All in all, this is a quick read. It's a novel that makes you think. It remains timely and topical in 2003. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: A Factual Novel
Review: Richard Preston here does an exemplary job of weaving historical and modern facts into a well written novel. He obviously knows his facts when writing about viruses and hot zones, etc.. Besides being an interesting novel in it's own right, Preston has a lot to say here about epidemiology, forensics, and how autopsies are done. There are descriptions of gruesome, drawn out deaths in this book, and some of this is just sick, sick, sick, but it will keep you turning the pages, fascinating nevertheless. Much of this novel concerns itself with the science of forensics, it is interesting how scientists can gleam information out of what at first glance may seem to be very little evidence, and alone this would make the book worth reading. I took one star off of my rating as the novel seemed to me to start very slowly and it was really only the last one third of it that it got intense, but overall a good solid read.
| 
