The Cobra Event
by Richard Preston
List Price:
Our Price: $3.88
You Save: $4.11 (51%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Richard PrestonEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-08-29
ISBN: 0345409973
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of The Cobra Event
Book Review: Stellar work...
Summary: 5 Stars
If you've never read any of Richard Preston's other books about biology (The Hot Zone and Demon in the Freezer), you're in for a treat. The three books (Cobra which is fiction, Zone and Demon which aren't) comprise his black-biology trilogy and taken in total or in part, they're scary, fact filled and speak volumes about their topics. Don't think they sound boring. I bet you won't be able to put them down once
you start reading.
The Hot Zone, which was a NYT bestseller for practically ever, is about the emergence of Ebola in Africa. This is the story of the strains of Marburg that killed 210 people this week in Angola.
The other, Demon in the Freezer is a two step story about the amazing eradication of smallpox from Earth and the anthrax terror deliveries post-9/11. If you want to know the stories behind the story, this is a good place to go.
What stands out clearly in the Cobra Event is Preston's absolute authority on the topic of biological warfare. If his facts are true, and no one since had disputed a single one of them (including President Clinton who apparently, after reading Cobra Event, ordered a feasibility study), the Iraq clearly had WMD, biological agents, etc. Preston leaves no room for doubt. What's scary is who else had access. Simply everyone and there's lots of dangerous stuff missing out there.
Now to the story. For the first time, Preston has written a novel. The story certainly engages, although it is the facts that really scare you. I recommend it to any reader who likes facts behind their story.
The story is of a terrorist planning a live laydown of a viral brain pox strain in NYC and thereby killing millions. The book is about what happens.
Anyhow, the book will scare you but it isn't the kind of scare that goes away after you finish it. This is the kind of scare that makes you write your congressman and ask what in hell they're doing to prevent the problem.
If anyone decides to read...share your opinion!
Summary of The Cobra Event
"A PAGE-TURNER . . . THOROUGHLY FRIGHTENING."--Newsweek
"ENORMOUSLY ENTERTAINING."
--The New York Times Book Review
"THIS BOOK SCARED THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF ME. . . . Manages to grab you with the authenticity of its scientific detective work and haunt you with its sheer plausibility."
--Entertainment Weekly
Five days ago, a homeless man on a subway platform died in agony as startled commuters looked on. Yesterday, a teenager started having violent, uncontrollable spasms in art class. Within minutes, she too was dead.
Dr. Alice Austen is a medical pathologist at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. What she knows is that the two deaths are connected. What she fears is that they are only the beginning. . . .
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.
Genre Fiction Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Genre Fiction Books
Children of the Stormby Elizabeth Peters
WmMorrow; Published: 2003-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.49
Price in other shops:
Innocenceby Kathleen Tessaro
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2006-05-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Little Altars Everywhere: A Novelby Rebecca Wells
HarperTorch; Published: 2003-02-25; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.99
Price in other shops:
Breakheart Passby Alistair Maclean
Harpercollinspublishers; Published: 1994-05-01; Paperback; Book
Here Be Dragonsby Sharon Kay Penman
Holt, Rinhart and Winston; Published: 1985-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $356.38
The Killing Groundby JACK HIGGINS
HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS LTD; Published: 2007; Hardcover; Book
Life Expectancyby Dean Koontz
Harpercollins Pb; Published: 2005-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Constant Princessby Philippa Gregory
Touchstone/Simon & Schuster; Published: 2005; Hardcover; Book
Wolf of the Plains (Conqueror, Book 1)by Conn Iggulden
Harper; Published: 2007; Paperback; Book
Saharaby Clive Cussler
Harper Collins Pb; Published: 2005-03-21; Paperback; Book
Similar Books and other products
Killer Germsby Barry Zimmerman, David Zimmerman
McGraw-Hill; Published: 2002-09-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.47
Price in other shops:
Virus Hunter: Thirty Years of Battling Hot Viruses Around the Worldby C. J. Peters, Mark Olshaker
Anchor; Published: 1998-04-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.31
Price in other shops:
The Microbiology Coloring Bookby I. Edward Alcamo, Lawrence M. Elson
Harper Collins; Published: 1997-02-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.95
Price in other shops:
The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balanceby Laurie Garrett
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1995-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.33
Price in other shops:
The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daringby Richard Preston
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2008-02-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.56
Price in other shops:
Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World--Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran Itby Ken Alibek, Stephen Handelman
Delta; Published: 2000-04-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.01
Price in other shops:
The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Storyby Richard Preston
Anchor; Published: 1995-07-20; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.68
Price in other shops:
Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Scienceby Richard Preston
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2009-06-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.05
Price in other shops:
The Demon in the Freezerby Richard Preston
Fawcett; Published: 2003-08-26; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.15
Price in other shops:
The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Storyby Richard Preston
Anchor; Published: 1999-06-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.23
Price in other shops: