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I fully expect that only me and Oyce actually want to do this, but just in case anyone else is interested and wants to read along, we're doing an informal pandemic book club.
We're going to start with The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
by John M. Barry. It's fairly long/dense, so we'll read and post in sections. After that, we'll read some other pandemic books (mentioned in the first link).
No strict timeline, no actual rules. Basically we're just interested in learning more about pandemics. If you want to read other pandemic books, go for it and please link me. If you want to rec other pandemic books, please do!
We're going to start with The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
by John M. Barry. It's fairly long/dense, so we'll read and post in sections. After that, we'll read some other pandemic books (mentioned in the first link).No strict timeline, no actual rules. Basically we're just interested in learning more about pandemics. If you want to read other pandemic books, go for it and please link me. If you want to rec other pandemic books, please do!
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I'd love someone who isn't me to throw themselves on the grenade of finding out whether Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern (1983) is a good pandemic book or . . . not.
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Her depiction of a pandemic in a mostly-premodern society with poor understanding of epidemiology isn't terrible. Some of the science is not terrible. You can tell she's in the middle of starting to flail about the darker implications of her initial worldbuilding re dragons, sex, sexuality, etc.
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That's nice to know. I read it in fifth or seventh grade when the race-against-time element of the pandemic and the vaccine was gripping and all of the sexual weirdness in all the books went over my head.
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There's the usual political fantasy element in Pern where most of the highest ranks of society are basically well-intentioned people who are competent and consult each other to brilliantly solve the crisis, while pressuring the few bad apples among them, and all characters are conveniently obviously good or bad on first introduction. I suspect the appeal of this is variable. I thought it was marginally subtler in this one than, say, Dragonseye or Dragonquest, but that's not really saying much.
One thing that may not have stuck with you if you read it a long time ago is that it's definitely an emphatic tragedy based on Moreta's personal life, not just the epidemic? There are a lot of painful hints strung throughout of who she would have been, what she would have done with her life, if she had lived; copious references to the Interval, to her having only recently become senior Weyrwoman, to her influencing Orlith towards a man she actually likes at her next mating flight (which never happens), etc. I mention this because I suspect it may be upsetting to read right now for some people.
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For a rec, I more recently read Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 And How It Changed the World and thought it was extremely good.
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https://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/2364492.html
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It was an excellent book, though. The first part is an in-depth look at what the medical field was like in the mid-to-late 19th century, and how the research and study side of medicine gained traction. It was fascinating and I felt like I learned a ton - my favorite kind of book. I'll go back to it eventually!
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If you're looking for something about the Black Plague, I have 2 bookshelves full of stuff on it thanks to writing research, and my favorite by far is John Kelly's The Great Mortality.
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I read "The Ghost Map" a couple of years ago, which is about the guy who figured out the link between the cholera outbreak and the Broad Street Pump, and also about the history of sanitation in the city of London. (Or, you know, its lack. Holy shit, its lack.) That book was great, FYI.
I pulled "Doomesday Book" (by Connie Willis) off the shelf the other week but haven't re-read it yet.
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Another book on the 1918 influenza pandemic.
It was *wild*. Very vivid. I read it twenty years ago when there was no current resonance, and some of those stories are with me to this day. I suspect it would be unlike any other books on the 1918 pandemic.
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Re: Another book on the 1918 influenza pandemic.
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Re: Another book on the 1918 influenza pandemic.