A timely novel
Published on Apr 29, 2009 at 4:05 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under science fiction.
I am a big science fiction fan. A couple of months ago, I was visiting a bookstore just down the road from where I live. I ran across an interesting book that I got around to reading a couple weeks ago. The book was called The Patron Saint of Plagues by Barth Anderson. The book is set in the not-too-distant future, in a world where the geopolitics are somewhat altered from what they are today. In this future world, Mexico has risen in prominence and technological advances and the United States has faded somewhat. The two nations are at war with one another. But, those are merely plot devices. The real story is that someone walks into a hospital in Mexico City (called another name in the book) with what appears to be a routine illness. Only, it turns out that the patient’s illness is a new variant of a virus that has been around for a long time. The patient dies, and the hospital staff become infected and they also die. Eventually, thousands die in Mexico. A relatively few people elsewhere in the world get sick after traveling from Mexico, bringing the plague with them. The specter of a pandemic looms over everyone. Despite being at war with the United States, Mexico works to bring a top CDC scientist to help fight the disease. I won’t spoil the book for you, but it has some interesting plot twists and turns. It was a fascinating read. I finished it just a couple weeks ago.
Then, over the last week, the news hit about the H1N1 virus. The media are calling this the “Swine Flu” even though, from what I’ve heard, pigs don’t seem to be getting it. Rather, the virus has elements of swine flu, avian flu, and a couple of different forms of human flu. It is more non-swine flu than it is swine flu! Still, there has been a near panic induced over it by the media. This reminds me of the swine flu panic from the 1970’s. It seems rather overblown. But, at this point, I will let the epidemiologists handle blogging about the reaction to this outbreak.
What struck me as ironic, though, is that this is eerily similar to the idea behind the opening scenes of the book that I recently read. So, if anyone wants to read a novel about a plague originating near Mexico City while listening to the real world news about a plague originating near Mexico City, then you might want to pick up a copy of the book.
-Astroprof
Jackie M. on May 2, 2009 at 10:53 am: 1
The author actually has been keeping up with the latest outbreak in an useful (and largely non-panicky) way on his blog.