Take a photo of a barcode or cover
menakalda 's review for:
The Hot Zone
by Richard Preston
This is the scariest book I have ever read. The author does an incredible job of slowly and effectively introducing the disease Ebola in a way that induces panic and terror. Thank god Ebola isn’t highly contagious. Despite the fear I feel about the events of this book, something the author says at the end fills me with a sort of counterintuitive sense of peace.
“In a sense, the earth is mounting an immune response against the human species. It is beginning to react to the human parasite, the flooding infection of people, the dead spots of concrete all over the planet, the cancerous rot-outs in Europe, Asia, and the United States, thick with replicating primates, the colonies enlarging and spreading and threatening to shock the biosphere with mass extinction… Nature has interesting ways of rebalancing itself. The rainforest has its own defences. The earth’s immune system, so to speak, has recognized the presence of the human species and is starting to kick in. The earth is attempting to ride itself of an infection by a parasite.”
Although it’s counterintuitive to the natural aversion to death, perhaps these viruses are a good thing. They’re certainly not malicious or evil. They protect the flora of our world from further destruction by those they kill. If viruses like Ebola didn’t typically kill the poorest and most vulnerable of humans, one could even accept the carnage they wreak if Nature might be purified in the process.
“In a sense, the earth is mounting an immune response against the human species. It is beginning to react to the human parasite, the flooding infection of people, the dead spots of concrete all over the planet, the cancerous rot-outs in Europe, Asia, and the United States, thick with replicating primates, the colonies enlarging and spreading and threatening to shock the biosphere with mass extinction… Nature has interesting ways of rebalancing itself. The rainforest has its own defences. The earth’s immune system, so to speak, has recognized the presence of the human species and is starting to kick in. The earth is attempting to ride itself of an infection by a parasite.”
Although it’s counterintuitive to the natural aversion to death, perhaps these viruses are a good thing. They’re certainly not malicious or evil. They protect the flora of our world from further destruction by those they kill. If viruses like Ebola didn’t typically kill the poorest and most vulnerable of humans, one could even accept the carnage they wreak if Nature might be purified in the process.