The Cobra Event by Richard Preston

The Cobra Event begins with a 17 year old normal teenage girl named Kate Moran living in New York City in the late 1990's. This is just another day for her, however with a slight discomfort considering she wakes up feeling a little sick after having broken into bad dreams the night before. Pretty normal, right? As she sets off to school and makes her way onto art class, Kate begins to feel even worse. Soon enough, Kate is ready to throw up as clear mucus is sliding down her lips. She makes her way in the girl's bathroom where she falls to the ground and begins to have abnormal seizures. Her spine isn't able to hold her any longer, and at the same time, she's screaming, biting and chewing of her lips, bleeding intensely... After experiencing this violent death, Kate Moran wasn't the only case.

The next scenario explains the methods of biological weapons which are described as "strategic weapons that can be used to destroy an army or a city, or a nation." (Page 26) Prior to that, in the island of Johnston Atoll, experiments using monkeys and the agent known as the Utah cocktail were held to see the effects on the monkeys. Mark Littleberry, a major character throughout the novel, saw the effects and realized that those who were infected died, every single one of them, there was absolutely no way for them to survive after they had been infected. This shows how powerful viral diseases are.

Later in the novel, Dr. Alice Austen from the Centers for Disease Control (C.D.C) in Georgia was sent to New York City in order to perform further experiments on the victims of the violent death cases. There she does the autopsy of Kate Moran. Or in other words an examination and dissection of a body after death, in order to find the cause of the death and how it affected the body. During the autopsy, Dr. Austen inspects strange findings on Kate’s body. She notices that her mouth was compact with blood and she had blood blisters on it as well as on her nose, her eyes were inflated and had a blue-gray color with a hint of golden yellow, her kidneys also had an abnormal color of golden-yellow instead of dark reddish-brown, and her brain had turned silver, and was swollen, smooth and flattened. All these attributions, including many more allowed Austen to make a diagnosis where she still begins to notice very strange things throughout the brain, and led her to the conclusion of a virus infection of the brain where something had destroyed her central nervous system. In addition, Dr. Austen’s findings were similar to the pervious case, which helped realize that something was spreading.

As the three hey characters in the book, Dr. Alice Austen, Mark Littleberry, and Will Hopkins are introduced, they sent out to figure out what really is going on. Through a number of events, the resulting virus is known as The Cobra. This deadly viral illness attacks the human brain, after starting out small, much like a common cold, until it begins to severely damage the nervous system. The catch is that a man named Thomas Cope, or Tome Cope was behind it. He was a molecular biologist which was actually hired for research on a particular aspect of the virus. He was making threats to the population of New York City. In an intense search for this man, through the dark subways of New York, he was found. In the end, The Cobra virus had affected 32 cases, including Tom Cope, himself.

Science is what made this book come to life. Beginning with the symptoms, complications, and violent affects of this frightening virus, science is behind all of it. The major characters are doctors researching and experimenting on the cause of this awful disease. There has been many out brakes of different harmful diseases in past time, in real life, and this book shows just how difficult it can be trying to manage it. The unfortunate victims of this novel undergo an abnormal look on scientific and biological reasoning to the human body. They experience uncontrollable science-related virus causing outcomes. The virus in the novel is what the book centers its plot on. It’s what enters and destroys the human body, all built by science. It interferes with the brain and the nervous system, which allow us to completely function in life. It’s all been created by science. The technology used to lead the autopsies, in order to fit events like these, the pathologists and their experiments, the virus attacking the human body, the outbreak n society, and so forth.

This book honestly scared me a little. Even though its fiction, it is very real and highly likely to happen, considering it has happened before. Well, not the exact virus and events, but it has happened. The scenarios, some major ones being Kate Moran’s death, the findings during the autopsy, the autopsy itself, the biological weapons, and the man who was behind it are all reasonable and seem very real. Kate’s death was very abnormal, but it was because of the virus, the findings in the autopsy and the autopsy itself are also very believable and real, the biological weapons seem a little far-fetched and how the United States was planning on army methods like this, but at the same time it’s completely acceptable when talking about the intense ways and plans of army ideas. The fact that one man that was behind it is also likely, even though it’s strange he was able to manage such a deadly virus, but in the end he was killed by it, therefore it makes complete sense. Basically, everything lines up after the other and all the puzzle pieces fit together .Beginning the story with suspense and building it up to results and explanations, ending it with the final conclusion and realization. If this was reality, it would probably happen the way it did in the book. I’m not quite sure if it would happen in one city and have only 32 reported cases, but it’s very understanding and possible. Great book all in all.