The Cobra Event | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Preston
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  315 reviews
Sales Rank: 10561
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.1 x 1
ISBN: 0345409973
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780345409973
ASIN: 0345409973
Publication Date: August 29, 1998
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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.
Product Description
"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. . . .
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| Customer Reviews: Read 310 more reviews...
 Not gory, not scary August 4, 2008
Despite what others will have you think, this book is neither terribly gory nor scary. The reviewers who thought so are either all terribly wussy, or are used to the tamest fiction imaginable.
I'll agree that the *idea* of a virus that could make you eat yourself is frightening. I was expecting it to be better written and much more visceral, based on the reviews. Not impressed.
 Okay Book June 20, 2008
There was some good parts but it seemed to take forever to get into the story. Just when i was getting into the book then another dry spell would be in the next chapter. There is alot of medical terminology that I would get lost in at times and then become uninterested, but over all an okay book if you are willing to wait until at least 1/2 through for it to start picking up.
 Outstanding! Almost Michael Crichton! June 5, 2008
I loved this book for two reasons. The first being the riveting plot. This book dares you to put it down (and then try to sleep at night). The ride, the details, the pacing. This book is a cut above.
My second reason is a bit of thumbing my nose at the publishing industry. This book revels in having NOTHING that the publishing industry demands today. Everything MUST be character driven! Aaaack, that one drives me crazy. Pages and pages of introspection while the story stands still. Preston does nothing of this! His characters are not the focus of the story, and they aren't terribly well developed. Ironically, this makes them much more believable than the standard novel character. I somehow don't think that Richard Preston has sheets and sheets of character outlines with details such as how Tom Cope likes his corn flakes! Preston does more telling than showing, and I wish to thank him for it! All these books filled with contrived ways of getting information across to the reader and past an editor who is just dying to mark something as "telling" rather than "showing." No navel gazing! Thank you Mr. Preston for delivering a book where the story doesn't have to go on pause for twenty pages of introspection every chapter! "Why am I here, does she feel the same way about me as I feel about her?" Baah!
Richard Preston puts the "thrill" in "thriller"!
Edge of My Seat! May 18, 2008
This was the first book I picked up after several years of not reading. Wow, amazing story! I couldn't put it down and I always put them down unfortunately.
I love this book, I've recommended to several people over the years.
Why isnt this a movie yet??, that question baffles me.
The characters were amazing, the story was believable and very real. Story telling at its highest point, you'll stay up all night reading!
Highly recommended!!
Refreshing and Educational May 16, 2008
Before reading this book, bioterrorism seemed like a distant threat from the past. However, Preston's novel makes a very strong story that is further rooted by scientific facts. By combining elements of horror with this story, it helps a reader understand the overlooked aspects of terrorism, and in this novel, it highlights how easily anybody can create or have access to very dangerous biological agents, and that the dispersal of such weapons can be done easily and covertly.
A quick premise: Several people living in New York City have had unusual deaths, consisting of unnatural seizures, self-cannibalism and a meltdown of the nervous system. After a brief investigation, the FBI sends in a team of experts in the field of bioweapons and other operatives to find the unknown terrorist who goes by the name Archimedes.
The entire story is delivered in a way that balances the action smoothly against several chapters that deliver raw facts and fundamentals of bioweapons development, geneology, and terrorism. While these chapters may be somewhat redundant or droll, they still enforce the story and further personify the "Cobra virus" (the bioweapon used by Archimedes), making it a living, breathing producer of fear rather then some virus procured in a madman's lab. Even though it's still a novel, it behaves more like a nonfiction book that has been given a bit of context.
The writing style employed throughout the novel gives it a much grittier edge then other thrillers similar to this. There's no suspense between chapters, just a non-stop action sequence that is periodically lulled by the few chapters devoted the the explanation of major concepts portrayed in the book (as stated before, bioweapons, genealogy, etc).
With that said, I cannot recommend this highly enough to the casual or devoted reader.
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