Virus

First paragraph:

In winter, the dark creeps up on you. I've hardly finished my dinner and the sky right now is black. There is no electricity any more, so I navigate at night with candles. The flames throw shadows that assume peculiar and familiar shapes. All the animals are dead, even the squirrels and rabbits. Come to think of it, I have not even heard a cricket. Through the cracks in my windows and chimney flue, there is only the howling wind, and underneath that, barely discernable screams.

There are lots of stories about viruses killing people and the great fight to save the world from the infection. Virus by Sarah Langan is nothing like any of those stories. Virus is an intensely personal story told by the people at the centre of the infection and the virus is different, the symptoms are different, the victims become different.

Sarah Langan is up there with Chris Simms, another writer who makes the people real while producing a fresh new story. The originality of Virus is close to 9 out of 10. The descriptions of the main characters are great. I found there were just s few too many people to be interested in them all.

Reading the book is easy as every chapter is a beautifully crafted story by itself. There are 46 chapters and everyone feels complete. After the first chapters get past the tedium of introducing all the characters, you get to the scary where the characters you like are in danger.

You have a school full of kids, families, a small town with many likeable people. The book is set in America but could be anywhere there is a residential area near a forest and a little bit of industry. There are no clocks ticking and people in white coats predicting doom in 48 hours. Virus shows you the way you would see it happen when it happens.

Will a virus outbreak really happen the way it happens in the book? We are loosing immunity to common contagions because our modern medicine makes them rare. Money hungry researchers are creating the right environment to mutate currently harmless bacteria and viruses with many researchers placing human DNA into other species, which creates a pathway for their viruses to move into us. The researchers have already tried human DNA in fish so even your worst nightmares are possible.

Sarah creates a truly entertaining nightmare in Virus.

Virus

Read Virus then look for other books by Sarah Langan.