Over a week ago I published on Steemit a review of the historical book entitled “The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History. 
WARNING: There are spoilers, but I’ve tried to minimize them to preserve the reading experience.
Short Version:
The Hot Zone is a terrifying true account of how a strain of the Ebola Virus ended up in a facility in the suburbs of Washington D.C. The virus was not contained and no one knew what the “mystery disease” was for a long time. Those facts alone startled me. The story of how the virus got there and how experts, soldiers and scientists just a drive away, hopped in vehicles and scrambled to contain it. Amid all this is a visceral account of what Ebola can do to the human body. There are parts of the book that are tough to read. Not because they are badly written, but because it might haunt you in your dreams, or turn you into a germaphobe. But I regard it as a must-read for anyone interested in Ebola, plagues or the potential for future real-world outbreaks of disease.
Long Version:
The Hot Zone starts off with a memorable (as in haunting) visceral account of what Ebola does to the human body. That chapter by itself might haunt me forever alongside some scenes from The Walking Dead.
It tracks the history of Ebola and leads us to a real-world outbreak inside a live animal storage facility in Reston, Virginia. It introduces you to a cast of real people, soldiers and scientists, working for the U.S. Army who specialize in researching dangerous pathogens.
They have no idea that a real outbreak of Ebola is happening at a facility just a car ride away. When they stumble onto that fact, the race is on to assemble a team, contain the facility and neutralize the outbreak.
Much of this book reads like a novel. There are scenes with these characters. There are parts that feel like fiction. The fact that it isn’t is all the more horrifying. The book has a few surprising twists and turns and all the tension you’d expect in a thriller novel about a deadly virus.
I was stunned throughout this book by the constant reminder that this was real. This actually happened and I had never heard of it. The difference between a tiny outbreak in Reston and how this could have become something that affected me where I lived (in Virginia, USA) in my actual life, left me a little shaken.
The writing is visceral and descriptive. The depictions of what Ebola does to the body will make your stomach turn and might haunt your dreams for a while. The descriptions of how they (humanely) put down a lot of monkeys who were dangerous carriers of the virus is painful to read. You might be afraid of public places for a few days. The Hot Zone basically needs a side-effects label just like the medications in your home.
The book also explores the probable origins of Ebola (still a mystery, but with some tantalizing evidence and clues that I’d never heard of). It covers topics of containment, quarantine, those creepy looking biosuits and everything associated with actively battling a lethal virus.
The book is also notable for several surprises in conjunction with the nature of that particular strain of Ebola virus that hit the facility at Reston. I won’t spoil the details. But it wasn’t your regular Ebola.
My biggest critique of The Hot Zone is its length. At over 500 pages it’s not a quick read. I think there are sections of the book that could be their own book and feel a little like a side-topic from the main events at Reston. I’m a fast reader, so I zipped through the book in a few days. But if you are a “Chapter a night” kind of reader, it might take you a while to get through this one.
This is also not a good book to read on vacation or when you are trying to relax and unwind right before bed. It’s an exciting, viscerally gross, creepy read and you should brace yourself for those kinds of reactions to it.
After I read The Hot Zone, I wanted to talk about it with everybody. Naturally I found a squeamish audience in most cases. A lot of people want to turn a blind eye to this danger, this kind of threat. For those who want to break out of a field of ignorance and fully understand Ebola and the threat of an outbreak by exotic diseases, this is the book for you. Or if you rate the threat low, but still want to know about this actual Ebola outbreak that happened in a building in actual USA in 1989, I strongly recommend The Hot Zone.