Science Resources RSS Feeds
|
 |
 |
 |
| View Larger Image | Final Epidemic | Hardcoverby Earl Merkel (Author)
| List Price: | $18.95 | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Hardcover | | Publisher: | Elmtree Press | | Page Count: | 396 Pages | | Publication Date: | October 15, 2007 | | Sales Rank: | 2,151,037nd |
|
EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Causes: Unknown At first, they thought it was a cold or maybe the flu. Then people started dropping where they stood. Symptoms: Unthinkable It could kill in hours. There was no known cure, no vaccine, and the only antidote could kill millions. Diagnosis: Unstoppable. New York, Chicago and Florida are quarantined. International travel is halted. A Japanese doomsday cult commits mass suicide, its final mission accomplished. Physician Carol Mayer was the first person to alert the Center for Disease Control, but now, as the epidemic grows, she has one last hope for finding a vaccine. His name is Beck Casey, a former CIA expert on biological warfare. And the best potential sources for stopping this plague are the worst enemies from his past. Final Epidemic has begun. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 17 reviews)
|
Uninspired Plot Twisted Into a Clichéd Convoluted Tale by Woodlandtrails  1 Stars
July 10, 2009
Final Epidemic
Warning-detailed and book ending information below
Final Epidemic involves an uninspired plot in which long dead Spanish flu victims are dug up in Siberia and a lung sample taken to make a genetically altered Spanish flu for bio-terrorist purposes. A Japanese cult, Aum, which released the Tokyo subway nerve gas released this altered flu in Ft Walton Beach Florida and Russia and later their surrogate releases it in New York City to "trigger a worldwide religious uprising". How this altered Spanish Flu would lead to a religious uprising was never explained. And why start with Florida and Russia when there are larger more concentrated world population centers was never explained either. Predictably, the Aum recruits clichéd unintelligent hillbilly American militia members named Cappie, Orin and Dickee with girlfriends named Lubella to help them.
Predictably, Florida is quarantined and predictably 2 teens escape one of who is the daughter of a U.S. Center of Disease Control official named Beck who is a not a medical doctor but has a doctorate in history/sociology. Inexplicably, this fake doctor Beck is the lead character tracking the virus/bio terrorists. Beck was once tortured and has sympathy for anyone being tortured by a clichéd Russian spy who is running around Russia and the U.S. torturing/killing bio-terrorists for information on this virus. His antics are sanctioned by both the U.S. and Russia and he is allowed to return to Russia when the medical crisis is over.
The president has 3 choices:
1) Release of a VIX close cousin flu developed by the U.S. years earlier that triggers an immune response against the bioterrorist Spanish flu and will stop the spread because VIX infected people cannot get the altered Spanish and VIX will help those already infected. However, VIX kills around 5% of the population (three hundred million people) due to compromised immune system such as the very sick, very young and very old.
2) Release a newly found vaccine that cannot help those already infected but will prevent infections. However, it still kills about thirty million people because the same risks apply to immune compromised populations and allows the already infected to die.
3) Release both
A predictably clichéd U.S. president hypocritically wrings his hands in horror at the thought his U.S. government tinkered with the Spanish Flu years earlier to even have the VIX in stockpile to release and yet he condones a Russian spy torturing/killing U.S. citizens and non citizens alike.
Even more lackluster is that Beck goes back to his wearisome ex wife and perfect daughter and the sequel will be them getting another divorce. YAWN!
| |
Super thriller! by dandysmom (washington, dc United States)  5 Stars
June 04, 2004
Could not put it down; great read. Lets hsve more from this author.
| |
What a sleeper! 1 Stars
May 21, 2004
I am a medical thriller fiend. This is the worst book I've ever read. What a complete waste of time and money. Very poor writing. Not an attention grabber by any stretch of the imagination.
| |
Long and drawn out. by A. Vegan (Ontario Canada)  2 Stars
August 27, 2003
Talk about information overload.. this book could have been half its length. The plot is great; people start experiencing flu-like symptoms but unlike the flu they convulse, bleed out and die. Beck Casey, the central character, is called on by the President to help deal with the unprecedented emergency. The virus, much like the Spanish Flu, has hit Florida and Moscow. Russian President Putin orders the gassing of people in his affected area. The death toll will be in the hundreds of thousands. I read so many positive reviews for this book so I was pretty disappointed when I read it.
| |
A Well Written Nightmare! by Kevin Tipple (Plano, Texas) 5 Stars
August 12, 2003
It begins with a pounding headache, joint pain, and a runny nose. The typical summer cold in appearance and it is highly contagious. For some, the symptoms escalate rapidly and within hours they are dead. For others, the agony goes on as the coughing slowly worsens and the vomiting begins. The lungs begin to shred and the victims begin to drown in their own bodily fluids.Instead of a summer cold, a bioweapon has been unleashed into Florida and Russia by a doomsday cult in Japan. When their cult leader is sentenced to death for the 1995 Sarin gas attack the cult pronounces sentence on the world. The virus, a modified version of the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed millions is released. The cult commits ritualistic suicide condemning humanity to its fate.As civilized society begins to crack at the seams, the President summons Beck Casey, now a professor from his self imposed exile. During his work with the CIA, Beck wrote the book on biological warfare and its implications on society. Beck has bad memories from his CIA work and for justifiable reasons is less than thrilled to be dealing with the CIA, let alone having to go back to Russia. Regardless of his feelings, his mission is to find a vaccine, a serum, anything left behind by the cultists that might save humanity from its fate.This book is very well written and as enjoyable as any fictionalized novel on the subject could possible be. Before the terror attacks of nearly two years ago, I looked at such books as nothing more than escapist literature much like killer asteroids from space, rogue comets, and the like. Doomsday scenarios that I wasn't likely to ever see or worry about. Just nothing more than a fun read as people tried to survive. Then the attacks happened and the son of my best friend who just happened to be a little late for work that day was still on a ferry as the first plane struck. Others were not so lucky and lives were lost. While I may live half a country away, I haven't forgotten and won't. For me, such books aren't escapist fun reads anymore as they have become all too real.That certainly is not intended, or to be taken as, a criticism of the author or his book. The story is well written with numerous subplots and multiple characters. The novel is very well paced and incredibly realistic. Taken for what is, it is good stuff and for those so inclined, I highly recommend this book. My comment is solely a reflection of how my personal reading tastes have changed and is something I was not really aware of until reading this novel.
| |
SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| Isolation Ward
by Joshua Spanogle (Author)
Straight out of today’s hospitals and labs–and tomorrow’s headlines–comes a frightening, scalpel-sharp thriller from medical insider Joshua Spanogle. In an astounding debut, Spanogle takes us on an all-too-real race against time…as a young doctor enters the dark side of scientific research, desperate to stop a terrifying epidemic before it is too late….
In Baltimore’s St. Raphael’s Hospital, three newly admitted patients are among society’s most helpless citizens:...
| 
| The Deadliest Strain
by Jan Coffey (Author)
What can stand between America and a plague that devours human bodies from the inside out?Cases of sudden, unexplained deaths—marked by rapid decomposition—are cropping up across the U.S. Their cause: a supermicrobe that causes flesh-eating disease so aggressive that victims die within an hour and infect dozens more. Suspecting bioterrorists at work, Homeland Security is willing to bend any rule to find the source of the deadly infection, even if it means resurrecting a "dead"...
| 
| Pandemic
by Daniel Kalla (Author)
Genesis of a Plague
Right now, in a remote corner of rural China, a farmer and his family are sharing their water supply with their livestock: chickens, ducks, pigs, sheep. They share the same waste-disposal system, too.
Bird viruses meet their human counterparts in the bloodstreams of the swine, where they mix and mutate before spreading back into the human population. And a new flu is born....
Dr. Noah Haldane, of the World Health Organization, knows that humanity is...
| 
| Cold Plague
by Daniel Kalla (Author)
Pristine water possessing natural healing powers is found miles under Antarctic ice by a group of scientists who stand to make billions from its sale. While people around the world line up to buy the therapeutic water, new cases of mad cow disease explode in rural France. Dr. Noah Haldane and his World Health Organization team are urgently summoned.
Noah recognizes the deadliness of a prion, a microscopic protein that kills with the speed and ferocity of a virus, and Noah suspects...
| 
| Microbe
by Bill Clem (Author)
In 1947, the U.S. Army left behind a secret when they closed Ft. Miles, Delaware. A threat so deadly, they buried it 1000 feet down in the Atlantic Ocean. Now, sixty years later, an oil rig drilling off the coast of Delaware has hit something. Within hours, crew members are dying from a mysterious illness that kills unmercifully. On the opposite coast, Justin Flannigan, an estranged epidemiologist is visited by the director of the CDC who convinces him to come to Delaware to...
|
|
|
|
