Reviews for The Eye of the Virus

The average rating for The Eye of the Virus based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-03-13 00:00:00 Wm Essex March 14, 2016 The Eye of the Virus Kindle edition By Theresa McPhail Copyright © 2014 This novel is written in small segments, of what is going on in a given segment of the world, where there is some activity on the virus, its spread, medical implication, research concerning the virus, political, social and economic consequences of the virus. Compromises through government, science, medicine. The style comes off a bit unusual. Most of the book is written in the third person, from a narrator's point of view. A few segments are written in first person, which reveal just who - or what - this narrator is: The Virus Itself. The virus is anthropomorphized as to have thoughts and goals and a plan. Of course, viruses cannot do this, but in some ways act as though they do. The way this virus sprouts up, seemingly out of nowhere from a small village in remote Vietnam, and quickly becomes a global pandemic bringing all cities, small communities, air travel, and even ship transport to its knees is quite realistic in the modern world. Hospitals are overfilled, and problems come up with people needing other sorts of care - including rides to a hospital. There is only a small amount of outright panic - leading to mass violence, but not where or in the setting where I would expect it to be. There is a surprise scientific twist in this too, in the latter quarter of the book, changing the assumptions, and thus the validity of much of the research up until that point. The characters are all quite well developed. There is love, hate, fear, trust, distrust, passion, jealousy - and loss. How each character feels is well developed. In the end, there is a surprising turn of one of the scientists involved, and of a major character, which is not what you expect even in the paragraph preceding this climax. It was so surprising, I had to re-read it. There's an epilogue. Yes, indeed, life goes on even after a major world catastrophe. …And, viruses go on. It promises to always be with us, as part of us.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-03-12 00:00:00 John Eagle Enjoyed greatly this extremely well written novel on the mayhem that the age old mercurial influenza virus can inflict on the human race globally. Part fact and part fiction, the book began aptly with patient zero Harry in ground zero Asia, the hot bed of all emerging pathogens. Bringing realism into the story and capturing the readers imagination would be the brilliant portrayal of the various characters from a nice cross section of society representing, the medical profession, avaricious pharmaceutical companies, jet setting travellers, the lay person, press and WHO and people in their lives from USA to UK to HK and China. Deeply satisfying that the very avaricious pharmaceutical man peddling an ineffective drug to the world would himself succumb to the very virus he claimed he could combat with the drug.