Rating: 
Summary: The truth is terrifying.
Review: A previous reviewer stated that you may not be able to sleep after reading this book. That was my reaction. The author lays out in very clear detail the danger that the world faces with a disease that is not supposed to exist anymore, smallpox. What was a triumph in public health is now a nightmare for all public health officials around the globe. This book should be mandatory reading for all citizens so that they will know the real threat to the world today and stand up against it. Experimentation and bioweapon research on such things as a disease virus goes beyond insanity.
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Summary: Move Over Stephen King & Dean Koontz
Review: Truth is much more terrifying than fiction! Richard Preston has written an excellent book that simultaneously scares the "bejeebers" out of you while enticing you to keep reading!!
Rating: 
Summary: The Subject Requires No Editorial
Review: Richard Preston has written a worthwhile book that I find flawed. I recommend that anyone interested in this topic put this book on their list to read regarding the issues under discussion. I do not feel it is the best or even one of the best books written on the topic for a variety of reasons.Mr. Preston brings the view of a layperson to this subject, and he is a very competent writer to share this level of insight. He is not a scientist. He also wrote a very well received piece of fiction with Bioterrorism as the villain. Taking a complicated medical/scientific/engineered biological series of topics, and communicating them with skill, and without editorial, or a hint of sensationalism, is not an easy task. Mr. Preston's writing does not rise to the level of many of the works that he references in his own book, "The Demon In The Freezer". Even the title is meant to attract attention, and then having the premier writer of horror novels endorse your book on the jacket, does nothing but again tend toward the sensational. Stephen King is one of the most successful writers alive today; his place in the history of fiction writers is assured. It is fine that he likes this man's work, and his endorsement will help his fellow novelist sell this book, the best endorsement, I think not. It is hard to, "dumb down", science, by definition it is nearly impossible. If a reader really wants to understand Smallpox at a level beyond pop writing, be prepared to invest some time, and some of that time requires reading that will bring back none too fond memories of a textbook. There are countless topics Mr. Preston raises, and many of them are vital, and not a few are simply entertainment in the midst of a threat to international health that exceeds that of even thermonuclear weapons. Wavy Gravy is a colorful character, of all the books I have read on Smallpox and other viruses, the CDC, and biohazard facilities, this was the first author who felt he was a key to the story. Steve Jobs had nothing to do with Smallpox, he has nothing to do with Smallpox, and tossing apples at one person's genitalia did not ensure the eradication of Smallpox. Comic relief has no place in this discussion. Mr. Preston's continued exposition of the tests that were still being carried out by the former USSR near the turn of the 21st century, are important, valid, sickening, and demonstrate the world still has all the people necessary to prove that levels of incomprehensible stupidity exist. These tests involved Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, (ICBM), with Multiple Impact Reentry Vehicles, (MIRV). These particular missiles can deposit 10 separate warheads on discrete targets. The soviets refrigerated parts of these missiles as they were designed to carry a variety of bioengineered weapons that are designed to be totally indiscriminate. Thermonuclear weapons have pinpoint accuracy and minimal spread compared to many of these viruses. All of these viruses and bacteria, and spores have a single goal, and that it to live. On that level they are no different than most humans. These complex organisms have been proven to have various levels of intelligence, just as virtually all of the parts that make up the human body possess. These life forms are not out to harm much less kill. They are a part of nature, and in the case of Smallpox a life form we once had the ability to eradicate without exception, or so the world thought. Several defectors from the former USSR and then Russia came to the West in the 1990's from Biopreparat. How irresponsible, how detached from reality were these men? They produced Anthrax and Smallpox by the ton! They produced enough Smallpox to infect every human on the planet 11,000 times EACH. I never cease to be amazed by the thinking of those in power in Russia, and yes I mean Russia, the USSR was dead and buried when these social misfits were not only producing these agents by the ton but attempting to combine it with a variety of other diseases to make it impervious to any vaccine known then, or known know. Their little bugs would have turned and come back and killed them just as surely as they would have killed countless others. Do I prefer that these scientists decided to come live in the USA, yes I am. Do I believe they are persons to be admired, no, are they heroes, no. They cannot undo what they created, and until they can, don't expect anything but a sigh of relief that they are now under constant watch and no longer producing the vile pestilence they found so fascinating. Like the Nazi's this country adopted at the close of World War II that lead the effort at NASA to put an American on the moon, again I am glad they were with us as opposed to working against us. This does not change the fact that Werner Van Braun built his rockets at Penumunde with slave labor, many who were killed or died on a daily basis. And men like Ken Alibek (adopted name) who came here and now enjoy the nation they designed weapons to fire at. I welcome them in so far as they are under our control, and are not filling buildings with tons of their toys. When Ken Alibek speaks with horror of what his toys can do and how he wakes at night with panic attacks, I say this, live a very long life, and sleep very little. For what you helped to create, and what was spread to North Korea, Iran, and other countries, (the Russians say they have no records where the materials went/were sold) ensure that Smallpox will be with us forever.
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Summary: "The way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."
Review: T. S. Eliot's bleak vision of the future doesn't even begin to include the gloomy prognostications revealed in this book. That terrorists will either acquire or develop biological weapons capable of destroying all human life is not just a possibility, it's a probability, as Preston makes abundantly clear in this update on biological weapons development. This book is the ultimate wake-up call. Even if you want to sleep after reading this, you may not be able to. Of the several biological weapons which have been under development in the past twenty-five years, smallpox is by far the most lethal and contagious, and irresponsible scientists have genetically engineered it in the past few years to make vaccination useless against it. Antidotes are unknown because humans are the only hosts for smallpox, and there is no way to run a test study of their efficacy. Preston points out, "It has taken the world twenty years to reach roughly fifty million cases of AIDS. [A single case of smallpox in an unprotected population] can reach that point in ten to twenty weeks." A massive research and development program for weapons grade smallpox and plague, along with the MIRV missiles and warheads to deliver them abroad, continued, unknown and unmonitored, in the Soviet Union for twenty years after smallpox was officially eradicated in 1978. The whereabouts of the twenty tons of "hot," genetically altered smallpox are currently unknown. According to a defecting Russian scientist, even the Soviet researchers do not know where it went, but "they think it went to North Korea." Iran and Iraq are also believed to have "benefited" from this research and to have ongoing, active bioweapons research programs. Preston's focus on the people who are actively fighting potential biological terrorism in this country gives a human face to this frightening prospect, while his descriptions of the individuals who fought for their lives in the world's last cases of smallpox make the horror an all too vivid reality. His analysis of the anthrax outbreak last year, and the delivery systems which make possible such outbreaks of anthrax, Ebola, and plague are enlightening. Forcing the reader to acknowledge the reality of a new kind of war, one more lethal and uncontrollable than ever before in history, Preston illuminates the tenuous nature of human life in the twenty-first century. The tiniest of living organisms are capable of wiping out the entire human population of the world if they get into the hands of a madman. Mary Whipple
Rating:
Summary: Cautionary Tale
Review: Mr. Preston has again tackled a compelling biological subject. This time it is small pox.This is an important book. It brings home the very real possibilities of biological warfare. Mr. Preston has the ability to take a complicated and technical subject and make it fascinating for the layman to read.
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Summary: smallpox, anyone?
Review: i've just read Demon in the Freezer, Scourge (J. Tucker), and Pox Americana (E.A. Fenn). Demon and Scourge cover much the same ground, but Preston knows how to tell a better tale (full disclosure - I'm a huge fan of everything he's written). Some information, such as the extremely high fraction (20% !) of Americans that would not be able to take the smallpox vaccine, is only in Preston's book. He also discusses anthrax at some length, and genetic modification to smallpox to make it a super-weapon, both of which are omitted from the other two books.
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Summary: Frightening
Review: Richard Preston has written a frightening book. Starting and ending with the Anthrax attacks on the United States. Preston has talked to many of the top bioweapons engineers in the world and his research shows in this outstanding book. Full of information from accross the world. The history of Smallpox, the eradication effort by the World Health Organization. The background on Anthrax. Side stories to Ebola. The most dangerous virus's in the world are addressed in this book. The book examines the threat of Smallpox and explains why most people in the know about infectious disease's still consider it the worst the world has ever seen, even worse than plague. The book touches on Biopreparat (for a more in depth look read Biohazard by Ken Alibek) and the Russian stockpiles of Smallpox that they have weaponized and put into missiles to attack other countries. The CDC, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta still holds over 450 different strains of Smallpox. The book goes on to explain how many countries have Smallpox and this is not a little known fact. How genetic engineering could easily make Smallpox harder to contain than it already is. In today's world travel a Smallpox outbreak would mean hundreds of thousands of deaths and it would shut down international trade. it would bring the world to its knees. With 25 million people living within a couple hours travel of one another an outbreak in a third world county could show up in the United States in a few days. And this is not taking into account the possibility of a direct bioweapons attack on the United States. Before it was diagnosed, it would be spread around the world by air travel. This book is well written, reads easily, is full of information and very thought provoking. It was so engrossing that I started ready one night and did not want to put it down. I finished it the next afternoon. For a better understanding of what the world is facing today you should read this book. Smallpox is just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than a nuclear war. Nuclear devastation is confined to the area of the bomb. Smallpox would travel person to person throughout the world. In a word, the information in this book is, frightening.
Rating:
Summary: Demon In the Freezer
Review: I loved this book. I bought it on a Sunday and was done reading it the following Tuesday. I couldn't put it down. If viruses interest you (especially smallpox), then this is the book for you.
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Summary: Variola and Anthrax and Mice, Oh My!
Review: I'm not quite sure why I keep coming back to this dark, rapidly unfolding story. Anybody who has read Germs (or seen the subsequent PBS Frontline loosely based on Germs), will not really learn anything new here. The landscape - sleepless scientists, anxious government officials, lying and corrupt foreign governments - will all be depressingly familiar. What is wonderful about this book is the crisp, compact way Preston tells the story. It draws you in, and you can't stop following it down the increasingly forbidding path. I read it in two days, and when I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about reading it . . My only criticism is that the book does nothing to introduce Preston, explain who he is, or how he is qualified to tell this story. And Preston hardly bothers to talk about his research - who he talked to, when, how long he spent, how he got involved in this sort of thing. It wasn't a problem for me, since I have enough background in the "subject", so I knew who he is and trust him. Still, it's surprising his editors didn't feel a need to frame the story with some kind of preface or introduction. The book just launches into the narrative page 1. The only thing we know about Preston is that he "writes for the New Yorker" and "has an asteroid named after him." Ironically, I got a better sense of who he was from Germs than from his own book. I think I keep reading about bio-terrorism because I need to know that I'm not the only one thinking about it. That may strike some as crazy, but as soon as I finished this book I tried to get as many people as possible to read it. Nobody would. The topic is just too unthinkable and there are many, many people who would just never dare. You have to be a little brave to read a book like this. I can't imagine what it must have been like for Preston to research and write it. Just thinking about the subject leads down too many dark alleys. Hopefully, we will never have to explore any of the more shadowy ones . .
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and timely
Review: I read this book in one day. This is a must read for today's troubled world. I wanted to know how actual the threat of biological warfare was and this book gives one a realistic view. Let's hope civilization never gets to the point of unleashing something as terrible as smallpox.
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