Helpful Score: 2
Hot on the trail of having just finished another technothriller, I picked up Carriers. This is a reread for me. I first picked it up in high school, having read The Hot Zone (about Ebola), and the fact that the back of this book promises to be about a plague more deadly and infectious than Ebola, well ... I'm sure you can see where my high school mind was going with this.
So, then, what prompted the reread? I was making additional space on my bookshelf and one of the paperbacks had to go. After looking over the books I've decided to keep as a permanent collection, I decided that the one I'd be the least devastated to part with (though I'm still distraught) was Carriers, but I wouldn't let it go without a reread.
This is a technothriller to the max. It has epidemiological deliciousness spread throughout moments of sheer terror caused by animals behaving as they will and humans' almost infinite ability to throw up a huge wall of denial when met with a scary problem. In this case, the scary problem was a malarial mutation which is just likely enough to be believable. This book follows two different protagonists and provides two different view points, switching when necessary. I really like that in a novel, though I recognize that some of you may not, which is why you are getting the warning.
That said, this novel is a hot mess of characters, story lines, and subplots that mostly get resolved. If you don't like a book that makes you track details, then this is not the book for you. Also, there are clinical descriptions of the symptoms of this horrific virus. If you have a problem discussing bodily fluids and orifices around the dinner table, you may want to read this with an airsickness bag beside you.
So, then, what prompted the reread? I was making additional space on my bookshelf and one of the paperbacks had to go. After looking over the books I've decided to keep as a permanent collection, I decided that the one I'd be the least devastated to part with (though I'm still distraught) was Carriers, but I wouldn't let it go without a reread.
This is a technothriller to the max. It has epidemiological deliciousness spread throughout moments of sheer terror caused by animals behaving as they will and humans' almost infinite ability to throw up a huge wall of denial when met with a scary problem. In this case, the scary problem was a malarial mutation which is just likely enough to be believable. This book follows two different protagonists and provides two different view points, switching when necessary. I really like that in a novel, though I recognize that some of you may not, which is why you are getting the warning.
That said, this novel is a hot mess of characters, story lines, and subplots that mostly get resolved. If you don't like a book that makes you track details, then this is not the book for you. Also, there are clinical descriptions of the symptoms of this horrific virus. If you have a problem discussing bodily fluids and orifices around the dinner table, you may want to read this with an airsickness bag beside you.
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