Now this is the way to write a technical non-fiction book. It is a thriller, it is interesting, it is educational, and it is very, very frightening. Every human being that can read should buy this book and read it through. Great job, Mr Preston!

The author of the international bestseller 'The Hot Zone' returns to familiar ground; this time he is out to scare us with smallpox. We get to know the history of the disease, man's desperate but eventually successful battle against the lethal disease, and also man's attempt to recreate the illness in a more potent form to be used as a weapon in bioterrorism.

Engaging in its authentic scares and highly informative, this book tells us a story which is joyously uplifting in its account of humanity's proudest moments as it succeeded after years of tireless labour in ridding the world of a menace that had plagued mankind from time immemorial. But the story is also depressingly alarming when we learn of the evil that lurks in the heart of men: the doctors eradicated the world of smallpox but could not uproot the virus from the hearts of people who recreated a much lethal version of the disease for biowarfare.

OK. I'm a nurse and I read all things medical. Whether nonfiction or fiction, I buy them, read them, think about them. Yeah, this was scary about the smallpox, but my gosh, the author hopped aroudn describing mundane details when he should have been focused on the big picture.
Who has smallpox now? I think someone knows or can conjecture. Very scary.
I do belive a bio weapon is going to be deployed in the not too distant future --it is probably sadly inevitable. But I did like the book despite the fact that it needed some tight editing.

Although smallpox was eradicated in nature, Preston explains the very real threat of this vicious virus. Preston explains how smallpox could be used as a bioweapon, and the reality behind its "limited storage" at the CDC and in Siberia. He explains how this virus may be in the hands of other countries or terrorists groups. This book is easy to read and again, Preston does such a good job of taking science, and real life events and making them into a "can't put it down" narration. If you enjoy this book, I would highly recommend Ken Alibek's "Biohazard" book. Since he was the brains behind the Soviet Union's bioweapon research/production he gives an explanation to what was going on at that time and the threat that is still out there. Both great reads!

Preston makes the subject understandable, readable and enormously terrifying. He brings to popular literature the grotesque reality of the achievements of the Soviet bio-weapon work, long ignored by most of the academic community. While the Soviets are not considered a threat the lessons of their massive research effort are too widely known to not be a potential foundation for current efforts.

The author does a great job in describing the process of taking an already deadly threat and engineering it into an even more dangerous threat using commonly available technology and knowledge. Forget the massive arrays of centrifuges needed for production of weapons grade nuclear materials. This is stuff that can be done in something not much more sophisticated that the typical meth lab once the bio-engineering is completed.

In addition to the threat of the disease, its impact on the population would be catastrophic. The problem of containment in a mobile, self centered population almost guarantees that geographic quarantine of an exposed population will not work. Our personal resources and attitudes would be a great friend of the epidemic.

Without protection for health workers and those who are needed to deliver food and other essentials a total breakdown of civil order is almost assured.

There are no easy answers but what is clear is that wishing the threat will go away and ignoring the need to research better options for handling it when it comes will be judged harshly when those who survive write the history of this era.

Highly readable and unforgettable. In an election year it should be one of the topics up for discussion rather than the daily drivel.

The book reads like a detective novel, engrossing, addictive, don't pick it up unless you have the time to finish it.
On the surface the book is about two diseases: smallpox and anthrax. The structure is a bit odd and confusing, the anthrax in the senate office building and postal service forms brackets, the first and last chapter, while the extended discussion of smallpox forms the center. The book has a little bit of biology that shouldn't confuse anyone, but curiously the book is also about scientists. He has obviously talked to lots of them, is very sympathetic to their goals and desires, and tries to present not just scientists as nerd working in a lab but a human being with children and the usual mix of things that make us human. But this narrative of science, then scientists as human beings has a much more important task, it is his concern that science, in particular genetic science, finds a way to govern itself, to become responsible to the human community for what it does. Simply put, it is the author's desire for scientists to look at the consequences both potential and actual and act in a humane and responsible way to minimize the risks of their work and the research they do.

The narrative is exciting, the human angle both sympathetic and a glimpse into what drives and motivates these bright and dedicated people, but the theme of the community of scholars responsible to the world for what they do, is crucial if his predictions will not become reality. If smallpox is used as a weapon, the human race is going back to a hunter gatherer, dispersed, low population density way of living. Millions if not billions will die in a matter of years, and it will not be a natural thing, but a human caused one that can only be described as mass murder. This is the big overarching principle take home message of this excellent book. Those who know about these things, must become part of the political/social quest for a way to control scientific research. We can find the energy to sacrifice millions of lives for war, now we have to learn how to sacrifice just as much, maybe even more for peace. It's not just a pipe dream, a pie in the sky by and by, but if our culture is to survive in anything likes its current configuration and at the population densities we now have, a binding solution much be found to the issues of genetic manipulation of living creatures in order to produce biological weapons. This book, especially the last chapter (read at least the last handful of pages first) is a decent moving introduction to the essentialness and immediacy of these issues.

This book is one of the best i have read in a while. Richard Preston really puts you in the midst of all of the action and makes you scared to death. The true stories of this book are truly amazing and have such detail. The Demon in the Freezer is truly an amazing book and i definately recommend it.

I purchased this book because I really liked "The Hot Zone." This one in particular definitely made me think of the WHO in a different light. It's amazing how something real, but not visible to the naked eye, can be so frightening...

In the amazing wake of "The Hot Zone" comes "The Demon in the Freezer."

Astounding, Shocking, Horrifying; but also the work of a true wordsmith. The highest praise I can heap on this book is that I have packed it with my copy of "The Hot Zone" and sent them to Mr. Preston with a letter expressing my hope that he will return them to me in the same package with the enclosed prepaid label, autographed.

Thanks for the nightmares, Mr. Preston.

Certainly a page turner and written in a style that is easily digested by the layman. I found it to be a bit "loose" in comparison to the Hot Zone. Towards the end of the book chapters on smallpox and anthrax are intertwined but leaves the reader with a great deal of dissatisfaction.

Certainly any reader would like to explore this subject more thoroughly and there are plenty of unanswered questions that need to be answered and an updated book in a couple of years time would be appreciated.

What happens when the world is eradicated of a hugely destructive disease and scientists decided to keep some vials of it stored for research purposes? What happens when some of those scientists worked for the former Soviet Union and nobody really documented what happened to the vials after the breakup of said Soviet Union? What happens if this is real and not fiction?

If you're not freaking out by now, then Richard Preston will do a much better job of getting you there. Like his previous non-fiction thrill ride "The Hot Zone," Preston delivers a horrifying look at what can happen when procedures and documentation go by the wayside and a deadly disease is possibly exposed to the masses.

"The Demon in the Freezer" is a chilly story about the eradication of smallpox and how and why there are still samples of it existing in our world. You can't help but feel vulnerable after reading this book and and you can't help but wonder why in the world anybody needs to keep smallpox in storage.

Preston has an amazing talent for keeping the scientific jargon in layman's terms and keeping the reader on the edge of their seat as they wonder whether or not it could all happen to them. A page-turner at its core, you'll have a hard time putting it down, particularly at night with the prospect of sure-to-come nightmares about an outbreak of smallpox.

Preston again managed to break down complicated material and make it interesting and informative.

I had a smallpox vaccination as a child, just like all of my peers. We were all innoculated because it was part of the scheduled childhood immunizations then, and I always wondered if there was smallpox, could there be a worse kind, maybe Large Pox? This book was informative as to what actually happens to a person who contracts smallpox, and should make us all thankful that it isn't the natural threat today that it was in the past. Truth is much scarier than fiction, and this book forces us to consider what could happen if smallpox was unleashed deliberately. If that happened, it would indeed be the "Large Pox" of my childhood imagination...So if you want a book to read before bed, one that comforts, one that has a definitive and positive ending, this isn't it. If you want a wake up call of how tentative our grasp on our lives and our health is, how we all live with the illusion of protection... and maybe lose a little sleep in the process - this is the book for you.

Few writers have the talent to parlay a non-fiction work about viruses into a mass-market paperback, but Richard Preston has done it twice. "The Demon in the Freezer" focuses on many scary aspects of smallpox, and delights in the details of our demise should we encounter our old foe. For us today, reading about the skin completely separating from the body due to a halo of pus is both repulsive and fascinating; but the world once had an everyday vocabulary for these symptoms. With little natural immunity left around the globe and the smallpox shot the most dangerous immunization you can take, "The Demon in the Freezer" points to a nasty vulnerability.

Preston talks with Ken Alibek, mastermind of the Russian bio-warfare program, and author of another excellent work "Biohazard." Also covered in detail are the anthrax attacks and the investigation of scientist Steven Hatfill.

I was so excited to find this book after reading Richard Preston's other novel, The Hot Zone. I found this book to be written extremely inconsistently. While reading this book it seems as though Preston is changing from writing to a mature, educated audience to writing for an audience of five year-olds. He takes the time out to describe each new character in a bland way. His descriptions of these people consist solely of their hair and eye colors, stature, and way of speaking. WE DON'T CARE! I wish he had spent more time on the actual story instead of digressing. He also added random sections including one accusing Iraq of harboring weapons grade smallpox without proof. I was thoroughly disappointed in this novel! The only reason why I finished it was because I was too far into it to stop when I realized how much I truly hated it! If you liked The Hot Zone, don't read this, it's awful.

In his frighting followup to his bestselling effort The Hot Zone, Richard Preston writes a chilling and honest examination of the history and the efforts to eradicate the smallpox virus.What makes this book work is the authors unflinching portrayal of the effects of the smallpox virus, it's resiliancy and the possible consequences of what could happen in the future if we are not careful or if the virus could fall into the wrong hands. Although not quite as chilling as The Hot Zone this is still a very effective bio-terror thriller.

I didn't know much about small pox until I read this book. It is frightening at what terrorists may potentialy do the the world with a bio weapon. We are all lulled into a false sense of security thinking that it isn't out there but it is. I was amazed at the detail that the author shares with the reader and even for the laymen it is a great read!

I read this book thinking that it would have more information about the anthrax attacks after 9/11. Unfortunately, the book dealt more with smallpox and how it has affected civilization. The book was interesting, but I was disappointed. The subject matter initially focuses on anthrax but digresses greatly in my opinion.

Richard Preston does an amazing job of really conveying the seriousness of the idea of a smallpox bioterrorism attack, something that very few ever give thought to. And on a personal level, never have I ever had a better understanding of the true purpose of viruses as an epidemic in our environment and society. Viruses are just another part of nature designed to control a species that is overunning it's environment. This is exactly the thing we are doing to ours, and as Preston explains, its only a matter of time before the world is brought to its knees... whether it be nature or a fellow man at the hand of the horrific destruction. I've never liked reading, I've never read a book on my own, but for the first time in my life I couldn't put this down.

This book grabs you and will not let you go. A true page turner. Once you start, you will not want to stop until you are done with the book.

After reading the Hot Zone by Richard Preston I looked forward to getting my hands on Demon in the Freezer. While the book was not bad (it kept me interested enough to read it all the way through anyway), it wasn't as interesting to me as the Hot Zone was. This is peculiar because I generally find smallpox related stories to be fascinating, and there are a lot of good books available on smallpox. Perhaps I started this book with expectations that were too high, based on Preston's excellent work in writing the Hot Zone. Demon in the Freezer is not bad, but nothing really special either. I'd recommend it to those who like the genre and have run out of other titles to check out, but don't expect it to keep you on the edge of your seat.

This book is downright frightening in its examination of the hubris of our world leaders. Having eradicated a deadly killer by unified action in the 1970's, the US and Soviet governments insisted upon keeping smallpox samples for scientific study. Today, much of what the Soviets had is unaccounted for and both governments clearly created weaponized virus strains that, if released among the population, would unleash an epidemic of Biblical proportions.
Although written a couple of years ago, this book is still highly relevant in light of the current terrorist threat. Also, if you want to learn about how a Bird Flu Pandemic would be handled, this book provides an excellent description of vaccination and quarantine procedures. In addition to all this, the book is a riveting read!

'The Demon in the Freezer' is sort of a hodgepodge of nonfiction. Part of it concerns great detail on smallpox and its erradication, and another part delves into bio-terrorism (with the use of smallpox and anthrax). Surprisingly, the lesson on smallpox was very good (well-written and well-researched). Yet the bio-terrorism bit was disappointing. It felt as though the author was just glossing over the subject. At times he even pushed somewhat into the realm of editorializing on geo-political matters. Not a good move.

So read the book to learn more about smallpox; it is well worth the effort. But about midway through you'll find the author branching out into bio-terrorism. Consider that a signal to find another book.

Second books normally fail in the eyes of the reader....but this book was just as good as the first! In this story Richard Preston takes you into the battle with Small Pox. Inside the irradication and the drama with the WHO in either keeping or destorying the Small Pox stash. If the Hot Zone left you feeling scared about Ebola.....you will be even ten times more terrified about Small Pox. This was a great way to follow up his first hit! I couldn't wait to turn the page to see what the scientist would encounter next. Defentially a must read! I highly reccomend this book and his first...the Hot Zone.

The book was in excellent condition, but it took a very long time to receive it. I ordered 3 other books the same day from the same region and received them 3 weeks earlier than when I received this book.

This is an excellent, though frightening, account of the history and future of the smallpox virus. It reads like a bio-terror novel, but is all the more frightening because it is non-fiction.

Very, Very, Very good! This was recommend in a Teacher Education Seminar that I attend this summer as the one to read for a good "Biology" summer reading.

Everyone should take the time to check this one out. The story just grabs you and I couldn't put it down until finished.

Great research and very informational.

After it's read, you will realize, your just one good "sniff" away from turning into a "Blister".

My Grandfather born in 1891 had smallpox as a child, in fact all of his siblings did. (6) Total. All survived, all were scared but all lived. He as 1/2 Choctaw but being exposed to the farm animals in a rural setting must haved allowed the family genes to cope with the disease.

A friend told me about this book, and I read it and ranked it 9 out of 10 (10 being a perfect book). I ranked it so high because the character descriptions by the author, Richard Preston, are great, and because the subject matter is fascinating and of great importance. There is some information pertinent to the Iraq War in the book. Demon, although about anthrax and smallpox, is as good as any recent novel I have read.

This book was very well written and though it was a little slower to read than the Cobra Event and the Hot Zone it still had the ability to scare. I was amazed at how little information we were told about the anthrax attacks and about the strength and accessibility of biological weapons. This book definately opens your eyes to a whole new world. I'd read it again any time.

Just like "The Hot Zone", also written by Preston, I can not say enough good things about this informative, easy to read, and exciting novel. A non-fiction so scary that it will have you opening public doors with your sleeve for days.

Richard Preston gives an excellent factual account of the events surrounding the anthrax attacks of 2001 in this book. He had access to insiders at the time of writing. These same insiders will not discuss the subject today. In this sense "Demon in the Freezer" provides an invaluable account of these events.

I really liked the book. As a fan of Richard Preston's books, I very much so enjoyed The Demon in the Freezer. Although it wasn't on the same level as The Hot Zone, I still found myself unable to put it down until the very end.
If you have read The Hot Zone and enjoyed that, you will most likely enjoy this book as well. I highly recommend it to anyone. And if you like this book I also suggest The Cobra Event.

The Demon in the Freezer is the informative and interesting tale of the eradication of smallpox. The book describes the techniques used to rid the world of this horrible disease and its eventual location in just two high security freezers worldwide. The reader is introduced to some of the most brilliant minds in science and reads about their reactions as their worst fears come true. It is revealed that smallpox, "the demon", may be present in more than two locations and if it were to be "set loose", its consequences would be devastating.
While The Demon is an informative book full of science and medical discovery, it includes too much unneeded description to be extraordinarily thrilling. Do we really need to know what color sweater Karl Heinz Richter was wearing on the 16th of January, 1970? Will that really add to our knowledge of bioweapons and scientific triumphs? No.
This book was meant to be a doomsday type of thriller. It was meant to make the reader think more about what is really going on around them. In reading this book, I did gain a great deal of knowledge about smallpox and other occurances in that area of science. However, I'm not necessarily more concerned with the prospects of it "getting loose" and killing everyone any more than I was before. I would suggest this book for anyone interested in the topics of medical science and biological weapons, however, this book is not necessarily for everyone.

Those of us who are old enough remember getting a shot in the arm when we were kids, a shot that made a huge sore that hurt like hell and left us with a quarter-sized scar that has stuck with us for life. These were our smallpox vaccinations, and for most of us, this was just another vaccination in a series of vaccinations we had to get because our parents made us. We later learned that entire American Indian populations had been wiped out by smallpox once the Europeans had introduced it to the new world. Smallpox hadn't existed in the Western Hemisphere before-Indians had no natural resistance to it-so they suffered horribly from the disease. This is what we were taught, but we were left with the impression that smallpox was really of little concern to us. We weren't taught that smallpox had been a devastating scourge of mankind for thousands of years, and that for many, contracting smallpox meant a slow, painful death.

Richard Preston has written another great biological who-done-it in the same swift, hard-hitting style of The Hot Zone. The Demon in the Freezer is constructed like a suspense novel; it reads very well, and the story moves along at a good clip while exposing or documenting the bio-warfare research surrounding smallpox. Anthrax and Ebola even make an appearance, their own stories prove to be disconcertingly woven within the smallpox saga.

In contrast to the Bio-weaponeers are the Eradicators, those teams of docs and biologists who stamped out smallpox in the 1970s. Their monumental work is all but forgotten by the lay public, and they never received any awards or prizes for their work. I think that one of Preston's main motivations for writing this book was probably to provide some recognition for the courage and determination of the Smallpox Eradication Teams. Their work has saved 2 million lives a year since the 1970s-they should at least have a lot of children named after them out there in the world.

Bacteria and viruses, bioengineering, weaponized strains, terrorists-this is really scary stuff, but I choose not to be afraid. If I ever come across one of these bio-weapons guys though, I'm going to [...].

Demon in the Freezer is a chilling but important glimpse into the world of bioweapons. In the third book of his Dark Biology trilogy, Preston examines the histories of and threats presented by Anthrax and Smallpox. He writes in a style similar to that of the Hot Zone, breaking chapters into short vignettes that feature the people who work with these dangerous viruses.

Preston specifically examines the Anthrax attacks following September 11th and the possibility of smallpox being used as a biological weapon. He also traces the history of the eradication of smallpox and examines which countries might possess rogue samples of the virus. His writing remains detached, without falling into the trap of him presenting an apocalyptical world view. Instead Preston allows his interview subjects to voice their concern for him.

Like the Hot Zone, this book reads like a suspense novel and is made even more frightening because it is real. This is a great, entirely readable non-fiction thriller.

Demon in the Freezer is an interesting book about the history of smallpox and other ills of mankind. It does a good job of describing current biocontainment technology and other designs for biological weapons and the history of the U.S. - U.S.S.R. conflict that brought some of these weapons into being. Demon in the Freezer does fall a bit short in having a lot of characters (I began to lose track of them) and also tries unsuccessfully to be a "doomsday" kind of book. I finished reading this pleased with the amount that I had learned about smallpox, biocontainment, etc., but don't especially worry more about a smallpox epidemic than before. Demon in the Freezer paints of picture of a smallpox outbreak being so random and uncontrollable it is like worrying about being hit by an asteroid. There would be nothing that you could do so why worry? Other than that flaw, Demon in the Freezer is a good interesting factual book and I recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.

As a fan of medical mysteries, adventures, and horrors, I find none as terrifying as those based on fact. Richard Preston came through again with one of the most fascinating and thought provoking books I have read in a long time. I was not sure what to expect, as I had bought the book some time ago. When it started with a revisit of 9/11 and the anthrax scare, I was fairly disappointed, as I was looking for something along the lines of Ebola or the other hemmoragic fevers. However, the book quickly did a history of the team charged with erradicating smallpox, their trials, triumphs, and I was just blown away. Call me odd for being fascinated by smallpox, and other books of this sort, but when one realizes that these diseases occurred, real people died, and real people sought and sometimes found a cure, nothing can make for more interesting reading. I recommend all Preston and Preston/Child collaborations as 'intelligent' reading.

Great book by Richard Preston. The information contained is fascinating, frightening and informative. A great book - and a quick read.

This is the sort of book that you just cannot put down. I started reading it on a long car ride home from Portland and was hooked immediately.

After telling a co-worker that I had enjoyed Preston's â??THE HOT ZONEâ?? she recommended this book as a follow-up. While I did enjoy it, I found the chapters about Anthrax boring in comparisson to the terror of smallpox and the fascinating story of its eradication.

â??THE HOT ZONEâ?? and Laurie Garrett's â??THE COMING PLAGUEâ?? (which I am currently in the middle of) are better, but this is an enjoyable read that is full of facts ot keep biology/pathology buffs hooked but not bogged down with technical jargon.

The Demon in the Freezer is the third of Richard Preston's "Black Biology" books. It was his second non-fiction story involving bioterrorism and viruses. Although I have to admit that the Hot Zone was indeed a better book, I applaud Preston for his tremendous effort in writing The Demon in the Freezer. The book has a profusion of information regarding poxviruses and various sub-strains of this sub-microscopic killer. The book effectively intertwined biology, ethics, history, and war. The Demon in the Freezer, in a nutshell, is an interesting piece of work that should be read by all those who are uneducated in the field of global politics regarding bio-warfare.

A fascinating treatise on smallpox, including its history and recent emergence as the virus of choice for bioterrorists.

Smallpox came into existance only as human population densities swelled. In the late 18th century, Edward Jenner made history by performing the first successful smallpox vaccination. In the centuries that followed, humanity waged war against smallpox, and it was ostensibly eradicated from nature in the late seventies. It seems that mankind was too enamored with smallpox to destroy it completely, however, and it lives on in freezers around the world.

"The Hot Zone", by the same author, made me paranoid about the ebola virus. Having finished this book, I know now that ebola is child's play compared to smallpox.

"Demon" is full of loads of details about the biomedical industry, including a survey of modern practices, tools, techniques, and prominent players. The book is all the more terrifying given its non-fiction status.

A must read for anybody interested in infectious diseases, smallpox, or bioweapons programs.

If you think what you've heard on the news about smallpox is scary, you don't want to listen to this audiobook. Richard Preston provides a very detailed description of the varieties of smallpox & anthrax - its symptoms, disfigurements, and various paths to death-in highly graphic language. Preston argues that, to believe that smallbox is not held elsewhere is nonsense. A lot of time is spent on the the anthrax attacks of 2001. He believes that smallpox, which has killed more people than any other infectious disease, is the greatest biological threat facing humanity. Preston relates the history of smallpox from 1000 B.C. to the outbreaks in the 1970s. He goes into great detail about the World Health Organization's campaign to eradicate it and the lost opportunity to destroy it forever. His final chapter introduces the idea of genetically modified smallpox that might be resistant not only to vaccines, but also to acquired immunity. The author draws readers into his narrative by humanizing his facts; researchers, WHO workers, and smallpox victims relay parts of this vivid and alarming story. This isn't something that you want to listen to on a full stomach.

When I was a kid, I read everything that Steven King had to offer, and I thought that "It" was terrifying. Mr. Preston's book convinced me that nothing in fiction can ever be as scary as smallpox or the possibility that someone is working in a laboratory trying to weaponize it so that it can be used against a civillian population.

Make no mistake, although smallpox officially exists only in two freezers (one in Russia, the other at the CDC in Atlanta), Mr. Preston details the very real probability that the virus exists in many labs ranging from Korea to the Middle East. I shudder to think that it would be possible to infect a volunteer with the virus who could then bring it to Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, or any other city in the United States.

This book served as a wake-up call for me on a threat that is far greater than anything I could have imagined. It may be more frightening than the thought of a terrorist with a nuclear weapon. I hope that the CIA and FBI will do just about anything to make sure that this threat is not realized.

This book jumps between the Anthrax events of 2001 and the history of Smallpox eradication. While enlightening, the two different topics caused some confusion. It never really got to the end of the case of the Anthrax events, but the Smallpox history was interesting and frightening. If the author had just stuck to one topic, it would have been far more concise and educated. The book takes us into some of his experiences after 9/11 and the Anthrax scare. I lstened to this on Audio CD in my car.

It seems that the vast majority of books written on this subject are at the fourth grade level. This book is slightly better, but still needs work. The information within, however, is very fine.

Richard Preston describes the nightmare of smallpox: the effects of the disease, the enormous efforts made by literally hundreds of thousands of people between 1965 and 1979 to eradicate the disease (the only human disease eradicated so far) and the potential use of the remaining virus stocks as biological weapons. And in between one gets information on anthrax as well. Reading this book raises the hairs on the back of your neck: it is so easy to make a supervirus and it was so stupid not to destroy the remaining stocks of virus when they were kept in refrigerators in only 2 laboratories (one is the USA and 1 in the USSR) in the seventies. An extremely important story told in a roller coaster fashion that grabs you and does not let go.

With the ideas and Mystery Surrounding 9/11 at bay, this book would seem boring. Yet with all the mystery of what the government has hidden from us over time and the scares in our world's history the book grips for everyone. You cannot imaging a world like is explained at first, yet you come to realize the the world they are describing is your own and it will give you chills. Amazing plot, and it keeps you reading till the very end.

Not everyone will want to read this book. I choose to ignore most news shows about nuclear or bio-terrorism so that I can sleep better. Others seek to improve their understanding the threats we all face. For those who are selective about the information they choose to absorb, this is a well-researched, well-told history of the effort to fight smallpox and bioterrorism.

Preston tells the story of several individuals who have dedicated their lives in different ways to the fight against smallpox and bio-terrorism. Preston is very good at describing the incredibly dangerous missions that these people have chosen for themselves, and the diverse set of motives and beliefs that compel them.

One example is the hippie who interprets a Pakistani mystic's garbled chant as a command to join the world-wide smallpox irradication effort. Another is the gripping story of a single woman just out of college who thinks the researchers who work in the "blue suits" are insane, only to find herself in a Level 4 unit working with Ebola and smallpox a few weeks later.

The other aspect of the book that is as interesting in the way it is told, as it is frightening is the almost unlimited potential for bioterrorists to make even more virulent strains of these diseases. Today, everyone is aware of the threat of bioterrorism, but Preston succeeds in explaining just how dangerous the threat is.

Because the Fall 2001 anthrax attacks occured as the book was being written, it seems Preston felt obligated to weave these events into the book. As a result, the story is at times slightly disjointed, but overall, I think the anthrax angle added more than it detracted to the book.

Bioterrorism. Biowarfare. This book makes you want to crawl into a pressurized suit and stay there. Richard Preston opens eyes and spins heads in this excellent book.

We certainly are in deep trouble if smallbox is used as a weapon. Preston takes you to the edge and leaves you alone with your fears. Scary stuff.

This book should scare the hell out of you. If everything had gone perfectly after the official eradication of smallpox in 1979, the last two stashes of the virus at the CDC and in Russia would have been destroyed long ago. However, scientific curiosity, threats of bioterrorism, and most importantly, the irresponsibility of the Russian political and scientific establishments have prevented the destruction of the deadly virus.

Preston recounts the courageous and well-organized international smallpox eradication effort of the 60's and 70's in the first part of the book and introduces us to the characters who transformed the dream of ridding the planet of the horrible disease into a reality. The meat of the book, however, deals with one of the most pressing issues of our time, bioterrorism. Although the smallpox virus was to be kept only at the CDC and in a Russian institute after eradication, ample evidence exists that the Russians continued experimenting with the virus as a potential weapon and distributed it to several different research centers. If that's not scary enough, imagine the possibility of the virus getting into the wrong hands after the post-Communist degeneration of the Russian political and scientific establishments. Preston suggests that the virus quite possibly exists outside of the CDC and Russia bioterrorist research facilities, and it is potentially being reengineered into an even deadlier form. Any reasonably intelligent scientist with a small budget could easily experiment with the virus using techniques published in manuals available to everyone.

The threat of bioterrorism is very real as the anthrax attacks of 2001 have shown us. Not only was the anthrax easily spread through the mail, but it was of professional grade. Preston describes the potential destruction the smallpox virus could wreak on all of us if bioterrorists figured out a way to deliver it surrepitiously. Smallpox is far deadlier than anthrax and very contagious.

This book is similar to Hot Zone in style in that Preston attempts to humanize all his characters although at times, he can get a bit melodramatic. That being my only criticism, this book deserves to be read as a solemn reminder of the danger that still lurks both within and outside our borders.