Customer Reviews

Pandemic

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This novel is a compelling and over the edge thriller, Daniel Kalla has written a real page turner one hard to put down.

The story opens in a remote corner of China; where a new and deadly flu is spreading amongst the population of Gansu Province. WHO immediately sends a team headed by Dr Noah Haldane to investigate. They soon discover that this new virus is far deadlier than SARS and is being spread intentionally with devastating effects...WHO struggles to contain the outbreak but the virus has already spread to Hong Kong, London and America....

The author has injected a frightening dose of reality into this tale of biological terrorism; it is scary to think, could this really happen, how safe are we? Kalla has skilfully interwoven tidbits about epidemiology and viruses into the dialog of a large cast of characters, heightening the tension to this fast paced thriller.

This is one book that will make you think twice about the stranger coughing beside you....

After having spent about six months forcing myself to finish reading a book called "Church Of Dead Girls", the phone book may have been a good read, but I still think "Pandemic" was a super read. This is my first review of any book, so that should tell you how much I really liked the book and the author's style. It was very well paced and interesting. I disagree with the other reviews that mention that this book showed places where it was a first time novel. It did not feel that way to me. I never looked at the back of the jacket to see the bio of the author until I was over halfway through the book. I usually save that until the end (with unfamiliar authors) so as not to derive any pre-conceived notions about the aurthor. When I discovered that the author was an ER Doctor in Canada (Go Canada!!), I thought to myself that he may have missed his true calling. The man can write! Of course the book had some predictable apsects to it, but it kept me turning the page. Now I think I'll go leave a much less than awesome review of "Church of Dead Girls".

This was a great debut novel for Daniel Kalla. It was a page turner from the word GO! The plot follows Dr. Noah Haldane of the W.H.O (World Health Organization) who is attempting to locate and isolate the carriers of a brand new and extremely deadly form of the SARS disease, called ARCS - Acute Respiratory Collapse Syndrome. The disease starts out as an isolated incident a small northern province of China, but falls into the hands of a terrorist group bent on spreading this remarkably contagious, flu-like illness. The sickness, while first mimicking a bad flu, quickly renders the victim incapacitated while literally liquefying their internal organs via an uncontrollably fever. They rapidly degenerate into bleeding, oozing corpses making it all the more difficult to effectively produce a vaccine or cure.

Although the plot moves along at a rather steady pace, it winds up being rather predictable. Also, the reasoning behind the terrorism is never fully explained, or reasoned, but is none the less plausible. This novel plays off the fear that has steadily become a major part in modern day society: the fear of a world wide disease wiping out millions. There are actually parts of this book that were so creepy, that it had me washing my hands every few minutes! It's a good read, and I recommend it to those of you who aren't already borderline hypochondriacs.

I had begun reading this book after reading Ludlums "Hades Factor". Seems to me the author must have also read Ludlums book as well, similar storyline and even the main character Noah Haldane shares a surname with a character in Ludlums book (how's that for convenient!). Overall it was slow paced and I would recommend "The Hades Factor" by far as more interesting and readable, unless of course, your having trouble sleeping.

This novel is very close to a medical version of a John Grisham book. The plot is timely, the concept believable, and there is just enough of a hook left at the end of each chapter to pull the reader through the novel. What the author has going for him, is that he has experience in working in the medical community. His descriptions of what needs to be done in the face of a 'pandemic' ring true.

Did the book follow a formulaic plot? Of course it did. Will the book sell well? Of course it will? And will we be seeing Tom Hanks and Rene Zellwiger as co-leads in the movie adaptation? Well, that has yet to be seen. But from the style the book is written in, it does have Hollywood written all over it.

Nevertheless, this is the author's first novel. And for someone who is not an author by trade, but rather an ER doctor at a hospital in Toronto, Canada, he has written a very cohesive and exciting book. For anyone interested in a 'what if' scenario, especially one involving bio-terrorism, then this is the novel for you.

I picked this book up off of the shelf at my local library, as I thought that it looked interesting enough and I hadn't read a book in quite a while. As it turned out, this was an excellent read.

Even though the author is a first time novelist (and this can be seen in a number of places), he captures the reader's attention very well. There is a lot of medical / viral terminology, but I did not find that I got lost or confused. The novel starts out a bit slow, but definitely picks up as it goes along. The situations leading up to the climax are quite realistic and very possible in today's world.

Overall, an interesting novel and a great effort for a first time novelist who happens to be an ER doctor from Canada.