Richard Preston: The Cobra Event
Mass market paperback
Ballantine Books, NY 1998
0-345-40997-3
James Dashner: The Scorch Trials
Trade paperback
Delacorte Press (Random House)
978-0-385-73876-7
Sorting through books last week at Le Grande Church of Libris (you're welcome for the pidgin), Richard Preston's The Cobra Event moved across my table. I know Richard Preston... not 'know' as in "Hey Rich, going to Stone Soup next week?" , but know as "Ah, Richard Preston, the guy who wrote that book The Hot Zone that I took camping that one year, and really, really shouldn't have been out in the woods without proper and constant hand-washing facilities with." (I was talking to myself, so it is perfectly fine to end a sentence with 'with')
The Hot Zone, about Ebola Virus, is a book that is not exactly beach-reading but darn if it doesn't cause some enlightenment of a very particular strain. (Thank you, thank you, I'll be here every Wednesday and Friday.) Richard Preston made such an impact on me with The Hot Zone, the option of reading a book of fiction written by him tickled my neurons.
Ten minutes later, I saw The Scorch Trials by James Dashner sitting on a shelf in the office. The Scorch Trials is the second book in The Maze Runner series. Nobody remembered why it was sitting there, so it got volunteered for weekend reading. I spent Friday evening to Saturday evening with them both, and am happy to say I came out of the ordeal un-infected.
I could say the fact that they are both centered around highly contageous pathogens and were random grabs was synchronistic, but I admit to having an interest in world-changing events so it's not so coincedental as one would think that two books I grab randomly end up sharing a topic.
The Cobra Event was so detailed and researched and well written (granted a couple of editing slips, one of which caused a story hole) it kept me glued to its pages until the wee hours of the morn, shifting from one part of the house to another with a paperback stuck to my left hand. Some parts were very hard to read, simply because I have 'delicate sensibilities', so I tend to blanch at hard violence and very visually stimulating descriptions. I feel like Mr. Preston took me by the hand and walked me through an autopsy with his language and writing ability. Thanks for the memories, Mr. Preston. I have to go wash my hands...again.
The Scorch Trials, the film version of which I just watched a couple of weeks ago, was so far from the film in content that I was amazed the Hollywood version was allowed to share the name. I hope James Dashner made a bundle from the sterilized film because any author whose work is sliced and diced like that deserves compensation for the sacrifice of their ideas (you're welcome for the autopsy reference). I read The Scorch Trials rather quickly. The language was definitely aimed at younger readers, filled with science fiction and action that pulled the reader along on a mad dash through a bleak futuristic Mad Max world driven by mysterious fascist puppeteers, or some system that resembles fascism. It is a mysterious group so you don't know if it has a dictator or not. You don't know what their motivations are though you seem to learn a bit here and there about the nature of the Trials through dream sequences that resemble memory.
It looks like there were a lot of holes in The Scorch Trials simply because there are a lot of questions or seemingly impossible events, but that is the fun of science fiction: you get to suspend your belief and just take the events as they unfold. The best part of this story is how often seemingly impossible things pop up and are just dealt with in a "this, too, shall pass" manner. The reader gets a sense of "there is only now", with survival being the only priority. I am able to suspend my belief when it comes to matters of science fiction, I am not when it comes to basic facts of survival, like how hard it is to cross 100 miles of desert on foot in two weeks, or people who have torn off their own noses surviving without horrible bacterial infections because their wounds have gone untreated. I hope in the next two books in the series Mr. Dashner collects all of his loose strands and is able to pull it together without it feeling like a book version of that unfortunate television series from a few years ago called "Lost" who 'lost' this viewer because the continuity was slapdash.
I will find out because, though it had many holes and unrealistic biology, I will be ordering the rest of the series. It was a good read. It was fun, it was interesting, filled with intrigue and action. Just because I can find fault in something doesn't mean I don't like it. I'm married, I'm all about concession.
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