The Blood Artists: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Chuck Hogan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
"Clean human blood was a precious commodity as the first decade of the twenty-first century drew to a close. An onslaught of viral and bacterial disease had depleted the reliable source pool, and patients around the world were dying, stuck on long lists waiting for transfusions of unpolluted blood. Lucrative black markets had sprung up in every major population center, from New York to Beijing to Cairo, where illicit blood traded at fifteen to twenty times its weight in gold. Like many medical scientists of the day, Peter and I had dedicated ourselves to the great challenge of developing a safe, synthetic, human blood substitute..."

That's the gripping premise of Chuck Hogan's The Blood Artists. Doctors Stephen Pearse and Peter Maryk, working for the Bureau of Disease Control (the much tougher, FBI-like successor to the Center for Disease Control), track a killer virus out of Africa that makes Ebola look like a slight case of indigestion. This nasty bug seems to have both intelligence and an agenda, and when it acquires a human host it might just be too much for the world to handle. As he did in his first thriller, The Standoff, Hogan humanizes complicated concepts and creates characters with lots of energy.

From Publishers Weekly
In his 1995 debut novel, The Standoff, Hogan proved himself expert at the political-action thriller. One wonders why, then, he has followed up with a speculative medical thriller?much less one that takes place nearly 20 years from now, that features such improbabilities as a virus that "has taken human form" and that unfolds via a narrative that shuttles awkwardly between first-person and third. The blood artists are Centers for Disease Control virologists Peter Maryk and Stephen Pearse (the opening narrator), who, in 2010, are working to develop a blood substitute enhanced by elements from Maryk's freakishly inviolable immune system. Together, they travel to Africa to investigate an unknown virus that devastates a remote outpost until Maryk, who's as coldhearted as Pearse is warm, orders a blanket bombing of the area. The story then jumps to 2016, as the pair receive a Nobel for the blood substitute. Their triumph is short-lived, however. The virus resurfaces in South Carolina, infecting Pearse. With his colleague dying, Maryk takes center stage as the third-person narration (interrupted by Pearse's fevered reflections) traces his struggle against the virus, which, having survived Africa due to an error by Pearse, is being deliberately spread by "a man colonized by an iatrogenic mutation of an immunopathic retrovirus. A humanized virus vector posed to infect the world." That man-virus is also posed to murder a woman whose blood may prove key to saving humanity from viral extinction. There's much to admire here: full-blooded (so to speak) characters, resonant prose, a scattering of crackling action sequences and an abiding and affecting sense of melancholy. The lack of a properly sympathetic hero, though, and muddled structure and plotting, place what should have been a robust thriller into the intensive care ward. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (March 18, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688156223
• ISBN-13: 978-0688156220
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #843,227 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EEK!! TERRIFYING, TOTALLY GROSS, CAN'T-PUT-IT-DOWN STORY!!, November 7, 2001

By	Carla J. Schultz "kayceygirl" (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Blood Artists: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

Well, I wasn't sure at first I was going to like this novel. Hogan's use of first person during the first few chapters is not my favorite writing style but I stuck with it and VOILA!!! What a TERRIFYING, TOTALLY GROSS, CAN'T-PUT-IT-DOWN story this turned out to be. This makes you cringe at Humankind's defenselessness!

First there are Drs. Stephen Pearse and Peter Maryk, "The Blood Artists." Together, they are a whole person, acting with both commitment and conscience. When they separate and go their own way for a few years, neither can act as complete and dedicated (and honorable) scientists, one possessing the charm and goodness (Pearse), the other (Maryk), possessing the determination and devotion to the "virus".

Then there are the survivors of the devastagin "Plainville" virus that wiped out the entire town, except MILKMAID, LANCET and BLOSSOM. Though they survived, their lives are hopelessly and completely changed forever.

Finally, we meet Oren Ridgeway a.k.a. "Patient Zero". But really he is never Ridgeway in the story, only "Zero", as is totally and evily fitting.

In spite of the complicated story and the plethora of "Main Characters", author Hogan does a fine job of weaving the plot and the lives of the characters into a story that you can actually care about. In the end, I actually hoped for a sequel!!! Perhaps Hogan will grant us that someday for after all, "Plainville" isn't really dead....

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Breathtaking Thriller, May 22, 2000

By	Zepherous - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Blood Artists: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

Blood Artists isn't the most realistic story ever written and the author tends to over describe at times but all that aside, it is one of the most engaging books that I have ever read. Peter Mayrk is what makes this novel a great success. His physicality and personality make you love him and sometimes despise him at the same time. If you enjoy a good medical sci-fi thriller then you will love Blood Artists. By all means pick up a copy and read it today.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Probably the best bug book, August 18, 1999

By A Customer

A nasty plot twist (the virus, Plainville, possesses a human host, resulting in a virus with intelligence). It is the ultimate expression of what viruses "set out" to do--turn hosts into virus. Who cares whether it's even remotely probable? (Retroviruses usually cause chronic diseases like AIDS and lymphoma, not acute, annihilating plagues as in this book.) The characters aren't the most profound, but who's looking for Shakespeare here? I certainly wasn't, and the book gave me several sleepless nights. If you want a technically competent book, read the Coming Plague. The Blood Artists is strictly for fun.