The End of October by Lawrence Wright
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Scary, very scary, especially considering the eerie closeness of this fictional account of a pandemic to the current pandemic the world is experiencing. Wright was amazingly prescient in his predictions, not 100%, by any means--it's a novel & has to have a little more action/suspense--but amazingly close in many ways to our current worldwide conditions under the COVID-19 (novel cornoavirus) pandemic. Saying the novel's plot/setting is very believable would be an understatement. Yes, scientists have been predicting something like this for years now...and of the need for better preparations. And now we're in the middle of a pandemic with huge issues due to poor planning & preparations worldwide. And no vaccine in sight, well, at least for months & months.

This was a very well-written, well-paced story, primarily following a scientist from the CDC who stumbles onto the initial outbreak in Indonesia of a terrible disease that becomes a pandemic. He ends up going to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, where the annual Hajj is taking place with millions of Muslims from around the world--including one from Indonesia who carried the virus with him. Thought that was a very interesting twist to get the pandemic rolling & panic & fear breaking out (those 2+ million hajjis didn't like being stuck in tent camps for who knows how long). The protagonist, Henry, gets stuck there, as the country closes down travel in/out. He ends up getting out in a very interesting manner, which ends up becoming a large part of the on-going story of the conflicts unfolding around the world, having huge impacts on various countries' economics & politics.

Borrowed this from the library (it's hot right now & hard to get)--read on my Kindle. Everything I've ready by Wright has been so well done; looking forward to reading more of his writings soon.


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