Resurrecting giant viruses

I remember reviewing a book some time ago, a somewhat fanciful book, that stated that the cause of the pandemic collapse was global warming's melting of the ice caps, and thus releasing all the stored up frozen baddies. I was a bit dubious.

 

Well, the authoress may have been overly simplifying, but apparently there is some legitimate concern.

 

Giant virus revived from deep freeze in Siberian tundra

Geoffrey Mohan, Los Angeles Times, 3 March 2014 (hat tip: MR)

A 30,000-year-old giant virus has been revived from the frozen Siberian tundra, sparking concern that increased mining and oil drilling in rapidly warming northern latitudes could disturb dormant microbial life that could one day prove harmful to man.

The latest find, described online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, appears to belong to a new family of mega-viruses that infect only amoeba. But its revival in a laboratory stands as “a proof of principle that we could eventually resurrect active infectious viruses from different periods,” said the study’s lead author, microbiologist Jean-Michel Claverie of Aix-Marseille University in France.

“We know that those non-dangerous viruses are alive there, which probably is telling us that the dangerous kind that may infect humans and animals -- that we think were eradicated from the surface of Earth -- are actually still present and eventually viable, in the ground,” Claverie said.

With climate change making northern reaches more accessible, the chance of disturbing dormant human pathogens increases, the researchers concluded. Average surface temperatures in the area that contained the virus have increased more steeply than in more temperate latitudes, the researchers noted.

“People will go there; they will settle there, and they will start mining and drilling,” Claverie said. “Human activities are going to perturb layers that have been dormant for 3 million years and may contain viruses.”

It should be noted that most pathogens can't just jump around from species to species with ease, so it is not necessarily humans at risk.  But most of our food supply comes from relatives of grass, and we no how a disease that wipes them out would turn out.

Lucifer's Hammer: A Review

Jerry Pournelle, and Larry Niven's Lucifer's Hammer is an apocalyptic novel set mostly within the Los Angeles, California area during the lead up and aftermath of a rather large meteor strike on earth. I read it when it first came out in paperback, and refamiliarized myself with it this time with an audio book.

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are both very famous within the science fiction genre.  This novel is probably their most successful crossover into a more mainstream style of novel.  That a science fiction novel written and reflecting the libertarian/conservative beliefs of its authors can make it onto a NPR fan-poll of the top 100 Science Fiction Novels of All Time, is telling of the story's punch.

There is a humorous shot at boring survivalist types early in the story.  The humor is in that Jerry Pournelle was very interested in survivalism.  Along with being the editor of a survivalist magazine(see here), he wrote the introduction to Mel Tappan's "Tappan on Survival" (pdf).

As to a broad outline of the story, I do like a summation by Bart Leahy:

Lucifer’s Hammer is probably the first novel to describe realistically the effects of a comet striking the planet Earth. Rather than a hero story, like the movies Armageddon and Deep Impact, Lucifer’s Hammer is more like a 1970s disaster film, such as The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, or the awful Meteor. In a disaster film, the story begins by introducing a large, star-studded cast of characters, often with varying degrees of likeability or ethics, and then threatens them with death from natural forces. Some characters live; some die; the survivors usually learn some underlying lesson; and life goes on.

Note that this also describes a lot of features about a cozy catastrophe, by its narrower definition, which might be summed up as "sorry for all the dead bodies, but we needed to sweep clean up that messy world to build our own cute little utopia".  If you add in the fact that most of the post apocalyptic folks who "matter" at the worlds end are middle class to wealthy, the coziness goes a bit into overdrive at times.

There are many items within this novel that can be seen in later survivalist works: meteors became popular for a while, the defensive berm shows up from time to time (American Apocalypse and One Second After to note just two), even the dangerous boy scouts (Daybreak Zero).

 

So a wealthy amateur astronomer, Timmothy Hamner, spots a large comet heading in from deep space.  As it gets closer there is a slow realization that it is going to pass awfully close to earth after it makes its swing around the sun. The odds are lottery-sized large against the chance for a direct strike: but still.    The crazies jump in, and the powers that be go into denial mode. Much of the novel is spent in the early set up.  As with the disaster movies of the day, the cast is large, and much time is spent with all sorts of mini love affairs.  This is the 1970s in Los Angeles, and there is a lot of sleeping around: light on the detail but described.  Very few of the main characters are particularly appealing, and only become heroic when compared to the cannibalistic, nihilistic, militaristic religious cult that rises up to become a threat.

There have been objections to the novels methodology:

 

The novel shares the time periods obsession with a rising up of the black underclass, and even though most of them would have drowned in Los Angeles, blacks are greatly over represented among the bad guys.  The religious are generally portrayed as ineffective and ignored, or as wide eyed lunatics leading cannibals.  Taking in the very loose morals of the good guys, and the make up of the bad guys, you do have to sort of wonder about the authors' world view. 

Harvey's emergence as the next ruler of the valley community is based on his winning Maureen's hand.  And Maureen knows the role that she plays in guaranteeing this new authority...She acknowledges her role unhappily, but does not challenge it.  It is [] important that the women choose their subordinate role just as the black members of the new Brotherhood Army have chosen their membership.  It seems as though Niven and Pournelle want not simply to present a world where equality based on race and/or sex are dismissed as luxuries; it also seems as if they want to acknowledge the readers' potential discomfort and thus explain the subordination (and extinction) as chosen.  Given this, the essential racial genocide of the novel is passed over as a rational protection of the only legitimate community in the novel.  Niven and Pournell are not asking their readers to acquiesce to direct racism, the reader simply has to acquiesce to the rational decision to eradicate cannibals intent on total destruction.

[B]odily security is based on destroying the primary threats to that insecurity: hunger and then the New Brotherhood Army.  But of course this means that security requires the eradication of most and the enslavement of the rest of the remaining black men and women. This happens in the novel as a simple matter of course.  And the reader is not likely to protest- they are cannibals; and in postapocalyptic fiction cannibalism is the sign of total inhumanity, and thus an inability to enter into a contract.  As Maureen notes, "it made so much sense" (536). Claire P. Curtis, Postapocalyptic Fiction and the Social Contract: We'll Not Go Home Again, p 63-64.

It should be noted that both Harvey and Maureen are multi-cheating partners with comparatively little activity within the novel that would justify their ascension to power.  It is a little odd that so many survivalist/prepper folk love this book, as well as One Second After, as both books involve the small authoritarian state communalizing everyone's stockpiles for the greater good.  Arguably you are allowed to stay outside the system, but it is fairly obvious how things would work in the long run if you don't play ball.  This is not a libertarian contractual society of like-minded preppers on their homestead.

 

Of course for those looking for an apocalyptic action yarn, or for those who agree with this neo-Hobbesian world view,  it doesn't really matter. 

But is the criticism completely fair?  One problem is that the criticism misses the final point of the novel.  The novel does not end with the defense of the stronghold.  The stronghold is safe, and yet in a very tense moment, they elect to go continue on and go on the attack to rescue the very precariously located nuclear power plant.  The book, in a slightly ham fisted way, is trying to make the point that unless we embrace the technological possibilities of nuclear power, the space program, et cetera, we are doomed to fall back on a minimalist life style:  a life style that involves slavery, and poor choices for women, and outnumbered minorities.  It is arguable that any of its polemics are effective, but it is not fair to simply ignore one of the major points of the novel.

And yes, the pro-technology polemics get stale.  But unless you are offended by a lack of appropriate multi culturalism, or Hollywood style sexcapades, it all is a very wonderful apocalyptic romp.  The authors have a tons of interesting speculation on what happens in a collapse.  Shoot, they even worry a bit about how the cannibals would go about recruiting, and how they would  get enough to eat if most of the people they run into are turned into recruits - versus food.  So while, I wouldn't say that it is a perfectly delivered novel, and the setup is a bit long winded, it still does a better job of delivering a large frame (versus the man in a cave, or on the road alone) viewpoint for an apocalyptic disaster than most any other novel out there.  Unlike a lot of todays popular scenarios (plagues and zombies in particular) it does not shirk from dealing with all those hungry people:  they just don't go away and die peacefully.  That it sets up any opponents to the author's favored polemics as selfish, or foolish, strawmen is rather unfortunate.

 

So did I/ do I like it.  At the time I first read it, I doubt I even noticed the social aspects of the book, and while I am more ambivalent now, the action adventure aspects of the story play out interestingly enough to make it a fun read.  It is a bit long, with some amazingly long setups that go just about nowhere.  It is the strength of the reasonably logical combat scenes with the cannibals that make the book.  The cannibals are not strawmen when it comes to combat.  They are better than the amateurish stronghold folks. Except for a little bit of incaution, they would have won the day.

 

We now come to our two descriptive (not qualitative) ratings: 1 to 7 with 4 the mid-point and 7 high. Realism does not include the cause of the collapse or apocalypse, but is otherwise an assessment of how close to today's world is the setting. Could you imagine your friends, or families living through the situation. Readability is not literary merits, but literally how quick and painless of a read.

Is it realistic?  It suffers some from being both a bit dated culturally and socially.  Nobody is building nuclear power plants in California, and the manned space program is mostly dead.  But the portrayal of the possibilities within a collapsing society are realistic.  You may not like that blacks are over represented in the cannibal ranks, but it is hard to argue against the general idea of rogue military units, and cannibals in general.  The book pays a lot of attention to issues of supply, and is somewhat realistic in that many of the preparations (remember people know the comet is coming) pretty much bite the dust in the chaos that ensues.  It is a seven.

Readability is tougher.  It is not overly sophisticated or metaphorical in its delivery.  But there are a lot of story threads to keep up with, and a lot of them don't really go anywhere much.  This makes for a slow, sometimes meandering read.  I put it in the middle: a four.

 

A Neccessary End: A Review

F. Paul Wilson and Sarah Pinboroughs' A Necessary Evil is pretty much along the lines of most pandemic apocalypses set in England, except that it is an auto immune reaction to biting flies that is killing everyone off.

Sarah Pinborough is a prolific horror writer.  F. Paul Wilson he is well known for both his horror writing and his science fiction.  His most famous current works are the Repairman Jack series.

 

The title comes from a line in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar...

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.

...which is given to us in the front piece of the novel: thus setting the stage.

 

The official story blurb goes:

It spreads like a plague but it’s not a disease. Medical science is helpless against the deadly autoimmune reaction caused by the bite of the swarming African flies. Billions are dead, more are dying. Across the world, governments are falling, civilization is crumbling, and everywhere those still alive fear the death carried in the skies.

The death comes a few days after the bite, with the victim drifting off into a peaceful sleep.  I presume the idea for the disease was taken from the African Sleeping Sickness that is transmitted through the bite of the tsetse fly .

 

The story follows a newspaper reporter and his wife as he is returning from Africa on a pandemic inspired fact finding mission. The wife, prior to the outbreak, has already been diagnosed with cancer.  There is a lot of tension between the two as, his wife has turned to religion to find solace and purpose in her life.

 

The novel has elements of horror to it.  But I didn't find the biting flies to be all that particularly creepy.  The crazies who would help the flies jump oceans by transporting them to new locations as part of God's work were a little creepy, but since the flies seemed to need no help, somewhat superfluous.  Unlike many writers of non-supernatural apocalypses, the nature of religion is not ignored here.  But for the most part, the religious seem to come across as idiots.   One of the side effects of the disease is that people see a light coming toward them as they slowly drift off into death, and there is much discussion of this illusory effect.

 

A plague of deadly biting flies, that only come out in the day time, would certainly kill a lot of people.  But how it is that so many people are so incompetent at protecting themselves, is a bit odd.  I thought the story was going to take the route of society collapsing because of the secondary effect of everyone hiding out in the day so that the economy crashed, and it did seem to be going there. But the flies were faster, much faster.  So you don't get much in the way survivalist type action.

 

So did I like it?  It was all right.  It read very quickly, and the story line moved forward most of the time.  But by the end, a lot of the activities and adventures just seemed like a waste of time.  I guess the point was to illustrate the differing reactions (show not tell so to speak) of folks as everything came unraveled, but I don't think the choice of the reporter and his wife worked very well.  They were both sort of annoying, and ineffectual, and didn't strike me as particularly good conduits for lessons on the philosophy of reality.  I would give it a qualified recommendation.

 

We now come to our two descriptive (not qualitative) ratings: 1 to 7 with 4 the mid-point and 7 high. Realism does not include the cause of the collapse or apocalypse, but is otherwise an assessment of how close to today's world is the setting. Could you imagine your friends, or families living through the situation. Readability is not literary merits, but literally how quick and painless of a read.

 

It is set in the modern world.  As with most pandemic style novels, the die off is way to fast.  But beyond that it is hard to fault its realism.  It is intended to be an updated Lovecraft: science fiction-horror within a contemporary setting, and succeeds at that level.  It is a seven.

 

It is an easy read.  Not quite a page turner, and the naval gazing does slow up the story a little bit, so we will call it a six.

Tribes: A Review

John S. Wilson's Tribes is an apocalyptic survival story set along the hilly slopes of Western Missouri, north of Kansas City outside the small town of Tracy, Missouri.  A small gated subdivision pools its resources to try and survive the economic collapse of the United States.  It is part of the Joshua (Joshua, Traveler) series of apocalyptic novels, but has its own storyline.

I am not sure who the couple and child are supposed to be, they don't match the main characters in the book.  Maybe it is the suicidal mom, and her family.

We have done an author biography on our two previous reviews of this series (see links above), so I won't keep repeating the same information here. 

The action takes place in Greenwood Estates "a small gated community snugly nestled out of the way on a hill north of the city.  Twenty-two houses, a tennis court, a "community room" with both a pool and card table, a private security guard and one duck pond."

Although the author has worked at  a lot of different jobs in his life, I doubt he has been a successful real estate developer.  You don't get too many middle class developments with full stone and iron walls around them.  Shoot the fence would cost as much as the homes in such a small community. But realistic or not, that is where the action is. 

The location of the novel, near Tracy, Missouri,  is based on the mention of refugees coming from North Kansas City High School, someone getting to their place having to break a barricade where I-29 crosses the One-Hundred and Two River (which it does just north of Platte City), and the presence of Missouri National Guardsmen.  If I had to guess, I would say they are in a little cul de sac development on either Rt 273 or 321 leaving to the north from Tracy, Mo.  Nine miles north of Platte City.

 

The author is oddly sloppy in his tactics.  He goes into all these details about how they build a safe house in the middle of the community (o.k.) and then they cut back the woods from the upper slope overlooking the stone wall to 100 yards.  Hmmm, one of the big problems with perimeter walls is not from people firing at you from the front, but people shooting at you from the back side.  This knowledge goes back to before Vauban (1833-1707).  Cutting back the woods on the uphill back or side of the property pretty much means that someone has a pretty could clear shot on the front gate, or at the very least can command one stretch of wall. And once the bad guys have a stretch of wall, now they are firing away into your compound.  The solution to this, was abatis and barbed wire. The action gets to be a little like in F-troop when the Indians attack the fort, except that some superficial nobody usually bites the dust so they can all have a good cry. FWIW, I when I have done miniature skirmish level simulations, I have found the backyard defense if combined with some entanglements to slow up pursuit seems to work the best: houses and other strong points (like walls) are too easy for a better armed or numbered foe to focus on.



Shoot em in the back (from here)

The novel is a much simpler, and readable version of David Crawford's Lights Out.  You have the community pulling together, and common defense criteria being established.  The survivalists within the community decide to share with the other folks, so the tiny community has an amazing one-years worth of food on hand.  The folks seem a bit wooden to me at times, but I have to admit, modern passively entertained folks who have lost their method of livelihood, or just retired, are not always the most interesting folks anyway.  So maybe the wooden characterization is realistic.

 

The story only covers the summer after the collapse.  So the action involves some adventures outside of the compound, and some fighting involving attacks on the compound.  They are variously plausible, but certainly entertaining.  There is only one competent soldier type with them, but you would not expect a lot of competence at this stage of the game.  Even most of the soldiers are going to be amateurs at this style of warfare.

 

So did I like it?  It was fun. It was painless.  I don't think it was as well thought out as the two earlier books of his that I reviewed, but at least the author makes an attempt at some logical thinking through of the situation.  This one gets a little closer to the prepper-fantasy world were a bunch of average Joe become competent military types, but it is not too obnoxiously triumphant.  The author doesn't waste time ranting and raving about politics. So if you like the genre, and its many close cousins (zombie-fare for one), you would probably like it well enough.

 

We now come to our two descriptive (not qualitative) ratings: 1 to 7 with 4 the mid-point and 7 high. Realism does not include the cause of the collapse or apocalypse, but is otherwise an assessment of how close to today's world is the setting. Could you imagine your friends, or families living through the situation. Readability is not literary merits, but literally how quick and painless of a read.

 

It is about a near term collapse within the context of the modern world.  The some what unlikely situation with the one-years worth of food, the lack of concern about what would be huge ammunition expenditure, and the convenient fort-like nature of the community takes a little bit away from the edge.  I will call it a six.

It is a very readable story.  A little slower to get going than his earlier works, I will also say it is a six.