Customer Reviews

Pandemic

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This thriller is about today's issues. Dr. Noah Haldane is the head guy at the WHO and he has seen his share of scary epidemics. He firmly believes that we have yet to see the "big one". On the government side is Gwen. She is convinced that the next wave of the epidemic will be brought in as a killing tool by terrorits.

As it turns out - they are both right.

Together our two main characters fly, basically, all over the map trying to track a new strain of the flu. Think Smallpox, SARS and Spanish Flu and you have a good idea of the potency of this new potential epidemic. In a bid against time, they try desperately to put the pieces together to avoid a worlwide contamination.

This is a fantastic debut thriller from a Canadian author who happens to be a doctor.

The writing is fresh without too much details to unimportant things. The characters are likeable and it is refreshing to see that both characters are smart. While the Noah Haldane was more flushed out than the Gwen character, we do get a good feel for both of these people.

The pace can be a little slow at times and if you are expecting action every page - you will be disappointed. However, the story builds into a logical, strong plot.

The author, I think, forgot that he was writing for an average layperson. Some of his technical terms need to be rephrased as I got a little confused on the medical terms (especially in the early part of the book - when we are still trying to absorb character names, etc.) Also, the pace could be a tad faster. While the length of the book was fine, it did occassionally drag just a little bit. Still, these minor complaints do not in any way overshadow the quality of this book.

Other than that, the cast of characters (including Clayton) were wonderful and I give this a 4 star rating for a first time author.

BUY IT.

Daniel Kalla's "Pandemic" is an entertaining, informative and frightening thriller that undoubtedly ought to be taken seriously as an uncomfortably plausible scenario in real-life. But, as a fictional thriller, frankly, it simply isn't innovative enough to make the cut as a first-rate thriller. Good quality, yes, but not with that dynamite rock-em, sock-em, non-stop page-flipping urgency that separates the men from the boys in the thriller section of the library!

The villain of the piece is the ARCS virus (Acute Respiratory Collapse Syndrome), a disease with the lethal virulence of small pox or Spanish Flu but a contagion that spreads with the speed and ease of the common cold! The one (and I would suggest only) truly innovative twist in the novel is in the opening chapter. Kalla posits an ultra-right wing fundamentalist group of Islamic terrorists that purposely infect themselves, in effect weaponizing the virus and using themselves as carriers! Biological suicide bombers, as it were! The notion of using a dastardly right-wing fundamentalist Islamic jihad confronting a right-wing militarist US government whose simplest solution might be to carpet bomb the Middle East and turn the burning sands into a glassy parking lot is getting to be a decidedly tired plot device.

But - make no mistake - Kalla is a skilled writer who has a marked ability to convey the science behind his plot in an informative, interesting fashion. And the logistical details of the World Health Organization and Atlanta's Centre for Disease Control's rapid and overwhelming response to the release of such a viral pathogen are quite breath-taking and humbling. Hats off to these organizations and kudos to Kalla's ability to tell us their story.

Four stars for the science and the real-world details of the response to a frightening pandemic scenario. Two stars for the thriller. We'll average it out at three stars and call it a story worth taking the time to read!

Paul Weiss

This novel is very close to a medical version of a John Grisham book. The plot is timely, the concept believable, and there is just enough of a hook left at the end of each chapter to pull the reader through the novel. What the author has going for him, is that he has experience in working in the medical community. His descriptions of what needs to be done in the face of a 'pandemic' ring true.

Did the book follow a formulaic plot? Of course it did. Will the book sell well? Of course it will? And will we be seeing Tom Hanks and Rene Zellwiger as co-leads in the movie adaptation? Well, that has yet to be seen. But from the style the book is written in, it does have Hollywood written all over it.

Nevertheless, this is the author's first novel. And for someone who is not an author by trade, but rather an ER doctor at a hospital in Toronto, Canada, he has written a very cohesive and exciting book. For anyone interested in a 'what if' scenario, especially one involving bio-terrorism, then this is the novel for you.

I picked this book up off of the shelf at my local library, as I thought that it looked interesting enough and I hadn't read a book in quite a while. As it turned out, this was an excellent read.

Even though the author is a first time novelist (and this can be seen in a number of places), he captures the reader's attention very well. There is a lot of medical / viral terminology, but I did not find that I got lost or confused. The novel starts out a bit slow, but definitely picks up as it goes along. The situations leading up to the climax are quite realistic and very possible in today's world.

Overall, an interesting novel and a great effort for a first time novelist who happens to be an ER doctor from Canada.

I love to read thrillers, but not particularly medical thrillers. That's probably because as a neurosurgeon I have spent my entire medical career dealing with more than enough spine-chilling medical challenges. However, PANDEMIC's prolog totally hooked me. Rather than rehashing the tired plots of an evil HMO or serial killers lurking within the darkened, gurney littered halls of Podunk General Hospital, Kalla presents a timely and very plausible bioterrorism scenario. Particularly timely in view of the recent bird flu outbreaks in Asia. Like many readers, I enjoy learning something from a book, but the problem with some medical thrillers is feeling I'm being lectured to. (I get my fill of that during CME courses.) Not so with PANDEMIC. Kalla presents interesting tidbits about epidemiology and viruses seamlessly during very real dialog between very real characters.

I rate PANDEMIC an enthusiastic three thumbs up and eagerly look forward to snapping up Kalla's next novel.

Allen Wyler (Seattle, WA)

Kalla rarely misses a beat in this fast paced thriller, which, due to current events, seems scarily prescient. The author, however, gives the tale a scary spin, positing that the human race has as much to fear from terrorism as it does from a mutated flu strain.

Opening with a disconcerting scene that would make a gritty and effective framing sequence to a Bond movie, Kalla uses the familiar "race against time" as the backbone for this fast paced, arresting novel. His heroes, Dr. Noah Haldane of the World Health Organization and Dr. Gwen Savard, Director of Counter-Bioterrorism, Dept. of Homeland Security, are perfect protagonists, simultaneously searching for the cause and cure for outbreaks of a deadly avian virus which strikes in Hong Kong, England and Canada. Thinking that the outbreaks are natural in origin, Haldane and Savard soon discover they are dealing with a mad religious zealot intent on bringing down America and its allies.

A doctor himself, Kalla effortlessly blends fact and fiction into a worthy thriller, one which will likely result in many sleepless nights for those who read it, both during and after that process. Frightening because of its "ripped from today's headlines" storyline, Pandemic also educates its readers about the origins of various flus and the sometimes extreme measures which must be taken to forestall their spread. If knowledge is power, Pandemic is a powerful book.

Let's make things simple: read Pandemic if you've ever shivered while reading non-fiction books like The Hot Zone, by Richard Preston, or Flu, by Gina Kolota or Germ by Judith Miller, et al. Or, if you've ever thrilled to books like Stephen King's The Stand or George R. Stewart's Earth Abides. But read it mostly because it's good story well told, a cautionary tale from which you'll probably glean some useful information about a deadly phenomenon that will likely continue to make front-page news for years to come.

Couldn't put this book down once I started reading it. I received it as a gift and now I'm turning my friends onto it. It combines today's newspaper headlines about international terrorism with the best aspects of medical thrillers. Just as importantly, it contains very compelling characters.

Worried about what all the news about avian flu and a possible pandemic might imply? Read Dr. Dan Kalla's new medical thriller, PANDEMIC, for one possible answer. Dr. Kalla expertly interweaves medical knowledge and the real life history of the last great influenza pandemic in 1919 with the all too-real possibility of terrorists engineering a new pandemic. His main characters Dr. Noah Haldane and Dr. Gwen Savard spring to life and engage the reader with both their personal and professional conflicts. Even the terrorists who plan to spread a disease that may well condemn many of their own people as well as the "infidel" populace, are three-dimensional with well-thought out motivations and rationales that make the reader think. The action is interspersed with thoughtful descriptions and explanations so that even those without medical knowledge can follow the plot effortlessly. For a fast-paced, high tension read that will make you think twice about the stranger coughing beside you, read PANDEMIC.

CJ Lyons

I read Pandemic in one sitting on a flight from the US to China. Pandemic is a book that once you pick it up you will not be able to put it down. Pandemic is educational, intelligent and most importantly rings amazingly true with a story line that could play out for real. I would give Pandemic my highest recommendation.

I finally gave up two weeks into trying to read this one. It just never caught my attention. I wanted to keep going since the reviews were good and I've found Kalla's other books very readable. This one just felt overly dragged out and uninteresting.