One last grievance I have with “The Hot Zone,” is its verbiage detailing of the events that unfolded at the Reston monkey house. Preston’s use of language is no doubt swoon worthy in much of the novel. His descriptions and characterizations are what make this book truly special in my eyes. However, the Reston incident spans nearly half of the book and though obviously important to the history of Ebola as we know it, Preston drags out moments that could have been summarized in a few short sentences into long repetitive paragraphs. Perhaps within those dense and somewhat dull paragraphs Preston felt there were details that needed to be voiced, but for the most part it made the book tiresome to finish by page 300. It is understandable the initial
