Getting Started

After reading the first eighteen pages of my book, I have learned a lot already! Richard Preston started off his book with an introduction about his "adventures in nonfiction writing". He goes through and explains his methods of getting his characters 'just right'. He also introduces the Ebola virus, which is a extremely dangerous virus that kills up to 95 percent of people who become infected with it. Preston also makes a lot of references to his previous novel "The Hot Zone". It's a good thing I read it last year! The effects of the Ebola virus is what gets me. I think the thing that disgusts me the most is the black vomit that it causes. It is said that it looks like coffee grounds. I am now at the part where Preston has 'snuck' into the Level 4 to experience what it is like. The commander originally said no to him because they can never predict how someone is going to react to a circumstance like that. I understand this, it is a real risk! What if someone freaked out in there in and messed up, unintentionally allowing the virus to spread?! That is pretty scary because all the viruses in Level 4 do not have cures. I can't wait to keep reading and find out how Preston's experience in Level 4 goes!!!

Why I Chose This Book

This book seems really interesting to me. It's about "self-cannibals". Self-cannibals suffer from a genetic condition, a change in one single letter in the human DNA, that forces them to chew off their own flesh! It's intriguing because the book implies that this self-cannibalism disease may lurk in all of us. Preston also addresses the search for the unknown host of the Ebola Virus, an organism somewhere in the African rain forest. Lastly, this book is about Russian brothers who built a supercomputer in their apartment from mail-order parts in an attempt to find hidden order in the number pi--and in the mysterious Unicorn Tapestries, one of the great works of Medieval art.