Good Books

[FarmerDave]

Hey everybody! I was wondering if anyone else has read:
Demon In The Freezer, by Richard Preston
Stephen King's Desperation, by Stephen King
or
Any of the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, by Phillip Pullman

If you have I would like your imput, because these are some of my favorite books and I'd like to know what other people thought of them.

 

[Presto]

I read the first two of His Dark Materials...they were really good. I should read them again, it was so long ago.

 

[Pyro]

I read Demon in the Freezer but it has been a while

 

[FarmerDave]

I think that the 3rd one is the best and then the first

 

[Cynic81]

I read the Demon in the Freezer this past september, after reading both The Hot Zone and The Cobra event in Spring/Summer of 2004, respectively.

Suffice to say, Richard Preston is a big part of why I'm going into microbiology/biodefense

 

[Pyro]

Hey Cynic,

Speaking as a microbiologist welcome to the ranks. But also, think looooooooooooong and hard before you commit to any type of biodefense field. I had aspirations of going in to that as well but then I actually talked to a couple guys who had done it. Long story short, if you ever decide to get out of (or are "downsized" out of) the field then our job prospects are seriously crippled as the NDAs and such sort of cripple your ability to pursue other work. The guys I talked to ended up as teachers because the wording of there exit contracts basically forbid them to do any kind of research technique that they had performed while in the biodefense projects. And I am talking real basic things like PCR and cloning and such.

So I say stick with the micro but scrap the biodefense. You'll be happier in the long run and there is still a whole heck of a lot out there to learn