"overlong essay"
Mr. Regis clearly has a perspective -- that virus are not as much a threat to public safety as the media has hyped them to be, and that the CDC is a overblown bureaucracy. Great, but it's not a book -- it's an essay. There is no interesting scientific information on Viruses -- it feels like a compilation of unedited notes left over from magazine articles. The reader does terrible 'accent voices' for the quotes -- this is annoying.
"great information, boring reading"
This is a topic that I am greatly interested in, but the reading of this book is very dull. Even though the information is interesting, the reading lacks inflection and storytelling -- the reader pounds on and on and after I while I found myself tuning out. I quality reader would have made this book worthwhile.
"Epic Story"
I have read many of the reviews and it seems that you will not like this book if a happy ending is essential to you. For me, happy endings are nice, but I dont need them to enjoy the story. I agree that you will enjoy this book more if you have read the Silmarillion-- oh darn, another great book to read... Personally, I prefer these tragic epics to the Ring & Hobbit series -- they are dense and complex and the characters stay with you -- these stories are facinating. The narration is a bit mello dramatic and the music is terrible, but it didnt bother me too much. This is a great winter book to read by the fire.