The Hot Zone by Richard Preston goes into an account of how the Ebola virus was first discovered around the late 1960s as well as how it infiltrated the United States. While many may be too young to remember the Ebola scare at that time, the resurfacing of the Ebola Zaire strain in 2014–2016 in West Africa may offer a more fresh insight for those who are unfamiliar with this deadly killer. The novel is marketed as non-fiction but one that is much more thrilling and scarier than fiction. I’d tend to agree. The details that the author gives in the beginning on how Ebola works on our bodies are something that will literally creep out anyone. Essentially, Ebola liquifies a human person inside out, turning us literally into a human bag of soup.

The narrative is told through the interviews the author has conducted with a few key players within the US Army Medical Research Institute branch, located in Fort Detrick, Maryland. It will shuffle between what they believe to be patient zero of the Marburg virus, the Ebola Zaire and Ebola Sudan strains in Africa, and the incredible scare down at Reston, Virginia. To realize that there are scientists out there handling these hot viruses is nothing short of amazing. The author goes through great details on how a level four hot agent is handled in a highly sealed-off area. The idea that a simple cut or scratch on your body can lead to a gruesome death from a cell-destroying virus with no known cure or vaccine is wild.

The Hot Zone is a highly entertaining, if not frightening, read. Ebola is one of the most deadly viruses out there, and yet we still can’t determine its true origin. The fact that we have progressed so far in regard to technology in our modern world and still can’t solve this puzzle truly defines how amazing and scary nature can be. Are these types of viruses something that even artificial intelligence won’t be able to solve in the near future? 7 proteins. That’s all it takes to wipe out the entire human race. Imagine if Ebola one day is able to jump through hosts like Covid could through the air. That would truly be a human extinction-level event.