The Cobra Event (Hardcover)

by Richard Preston (Author) "KATE MORAN was an only child..." (more)
Key Phrases: bot tox, cobra boxes, decon room, New York, Frank Masaccio, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
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.

From School Library Journal
YA?What happens when one crazed scientist takes it upon himself to develop and release a new biological weapon that will "thin out" the human race? A doctor working for the Centers for Disease Control first notices some strange evidence in a young girl's death. Soon other bodies are arriving at the morgue in similar condition. The police, the FBI, and national medical and science personnel become involved in trying to get to the bottom of the deadly disease that is attacking New York City. Though the details in this novel are fictional, they are based on the history of biological weapons and the advanced genetic engineering and biotechnology that is available today. Despite the use of potentially confusing technical terms, the story line is easy to follow and fast paced. Sections of the narrative that sideline into history and worldwide political events are not crucial to the plot and may be skipped over. Realistically rendered characters hold center stage. The symptoms described in this story are frightening, and often presented in morbidly graphic detail. Fans of the horror genre are bound to enjoy this one.?Anita Short, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 337 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (October 27, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679457143
• ISBN-13: 978-0679457145
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (321 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #538,967 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Book that Frightened a President, April 22, 2003

By	John Nolley II (Fairfax, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cobra Event (Mass Market Paperback)

Richard Preston's novel Cobra Event reads just like his nonfiction books on biological nasties, the Hot Zone and Demon in the Freezer--making it one of the most frightening things you will ever read, particularly if you've read either of those books as the similarities make the Cobra Event seem more like a nonfictional account than a novel.

The novel's story centers around a terrorist's creation and usage of "brain pox," a deadly disease derived from smallpox that infects victims' brains like encephalitis--combining the rapid and easy spread of the former with the deadly neurological effects of the latter in a horrifying biological weapon.

The characters and events laid out are so plausible that one must frequently remind oneself that the novel is indeed fictional, particularly in the historical and pseudo-historical accounts serving as background for the main story. Preston creates a believable team of investigators who must track down the terrorist behind the attacks--named by the FBI "the Cobra Event" due to their method of delivery. Although the motivations and character of the terrorist himself are somewhat flatter, overall the story could easily be featured not in a novel but on newspaper front pages.

Former President Clinton read the book and reportedly was both so fascinated and frightened that he began taking seriously the threats of biological terrorism not only from large, well-funded state labs like those of the former Soviet Union and North Koreans but also the lone, rogue terrorist, a very real threat considering the relative simplicity of creating terrible biological weapons as was demonstrated so recently by the anthrax attacks after 9/11.

Read this novel--it is a fast-paced page turner that will drive you to burn the midnight oil in finishing it--but one that will also leave you terrified as to the very real possibility of biological terrorism.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good research; awful writing, October 19, 1999

By A Customer

As all the magazine reviews have said, there's a lot of valuable research and privileged information in this book. But what may not be clear, except in the quotation from (of all places) "Entertainment Weekly", is that the writing is quite bad -- as if a very bright scholar or journalist had taken a night-school course in writing an "airport thriller", then talked a friend into publishing it without bringing in a co-writer or a good editor. (An editor is credited, if that's the right word here; I would have withdrawn my name if I were her.)

The plot is a little about forensics and epidemiology, new and interesting to most readers, and a whole lot about silly chases through tunnels and shafts, more like the script for a video game than a silly TV movie. What's missing, despite a few tries, is any insight into the only interesting character -- who is, as usual, the Bad Guy, not the Lovely Doctor or the Brave Agent. Worse, by making him a lone madman with a fixed address, rather than a resourceful and rational group, the entire plot becomes "Catch the Serial Murderer", his weapon almost irrelevant, rather than "Defeat Bio-Terrorism", without which there's no reason to publish or read this particular piece of fiction. The bookstores are already full of cops-versus-psycho novels.

At the sentence level, Preston's style is full of incorrect syntax, idiom, and semantics; mangled metaphors; pointless brand-names and jargon; jarring shifts between action and exposition -- sometimes within a single paragraph. It's like a poor imitation of the clumsily didactic novels of James Michener or Leon Uris.

Perhaps there's something infectious about bio-terrorism as the theme of a bad novel. Tom Clancy's "Rainbow Six" has a very similar theme; the Big Bad Guy and his gang have the same technology and the same motivation (pruning, not profit or political change) -- and it's Clancy's most pointless and poorly-written novel.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing..., July 15, 2002

By	P. GUPTA (Anchorage, KY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Cobra Event : A Novel (Audio Cassette)

After reading the book, I seriously reconsidered how safe it is to shake hands with unknown people, or be in a crowded place in a big city or even be in a big city. As recent events have shown, there are mad people all around who want to fight against the establishment, never-mind how many lives it costs - the more the better.

This book contains a very graphic explanation of the after-effects of the Cobra virus. Though fiction, this book is known to have inspired some of America's bioweapon use/response policy, especially vis-a-vis Iraq. Along with Miller's "Germs: Biological Weapons...", this is a great read to understand the impact that bio-terrorism could have in an already scared world.

The poor climax of this work of fiction is the reason for my not giving it full points.