mlicc1701 's review for:

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston

3.0

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This book was a gateway drug to the world of virology for me and thus is very close to my heart. As a fourteen year old, it gave me both nightmares for a month and a vocabulary for what I wanted to be when I grew up. That being said, it's one of the weaker pieces of science writing I've seen since I've revisited it many years later. It's both stylistically weak and heavily sensationalized to the point of being flat out inaccurate at times. Additionally, the scientific information is woefully out of date and no revised version has been published as far as I know. It's an excellent introduction to the topic, particularly regarding the history of the first outbreak, but it's not to be trusted as a reliable source of information. It's also not a book for the squeamish, but I think that goes without saying.