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The Cobra Event
''The Cobra Event'' is a 1998 thriller novel by Richard Preston describing an attempted bioterrorism attack on the United States. The perpetrator of the attack has genetically engineered a virus, called "Cobra", that fuses the incurable and highly contagious common cold with one of the world's most virulent diseases, smallpox. The disease that results from the virus, called brainpox in the novel, has symptoms that mimic those of Lesch–Nyhan syndrome and the common cold. The book is divided between descriptions of the virus and the government's attempt to stop the imminent threat posed by it. Plot summary The book is divided into six sections. The first section, called "Trial", starts with a teenaged girl named Kate Moran who dies violently one day in school. The next section, titled "1969", describes tests done in the 1960s by the U.S. government involving weaponized viruses. The third section, "Diagnosis", describes the autopsy of Kate Moran and introduces the key characters ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Preston
Richard Preston (born August 5, 1954) is a writer for ''The New Yorker'' and bestselling author who has written books about infectious disease, bioterrorism, redwoods and other subjects, as well as fiction. Biography Preston was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He graduated Wellesley High School in Massachusetts in 1972 and attended Pomona College in Claremont, California. He earned a Ph.D. in English from Princeton University in 1983. His 1992 ''New Yorker'' article "Crisis in the Hot Zone" was expanded into his breakout book, ''The Hot Zone'' (1994). It is classified as a "non-fiction thriller" about ebolaviruses. He learned of ebola through such contacts as U.S. Army researchers Drs. C.J. Peters and Nancy Jaax. His fascination began during a visit to Africa where he was an eyewitness to epidemics. The book served as the (very loose) basis of the Hollywood movie ''Outbreak'' (1995) about military machinations surrounding a fictional "Motaba virus". Preston's novel '' The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |