Welcome to Wil Mara for The Gemini Virus Blog Tour!!! Wil is here for a guest post and to giveaway 3 printed copies of The Gemini Virus (released October 2nd)!!
Hello everyone, and thank you for having me on your site. I’d like to give you some basic information about my new novel, The Gemini Virus, which released on October 2nd. Gemini is a story about a new virus that strikes the human race with unprecedented force, burning through the population and racking up the body count while the very best minds from the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, and countless other healthcare outlets try—futilely—to stop it. The story unfolds from several vantage points, each offering the reader a unique perspective on the crisis.
The first, from the very heart of it, is that of Michael Beck and Cara Porter. Beck is a gifted and accomplished epidemiologist who works for the CDC, and Porter is his rising-star assistant. Both have personal demons that add to their challenges, but they are wholly dedicated to finding a way to stop the pathogen in its tracks. This dimension of the story also provides a realistic look at how epidemiologists go about their job of backtracking diseases and then using both a quantitative and qualitative approach to finding answers. As such, it gives readers a behind-the-scenes view of this fascinating profession.
The second angle is that of an ordinary suburban family of four—husband and wife, and their young son and daughter. I thought these characters would provide a clear emotional conduit through which most readers could make their connection. Specifically, I set these poor people right in the center of the outbreak’s public activity, stripping away the traditional safety buffers most of us enjoy during such tragedies, e.g., television, newspapers, the Internet, office chatter, and so on. The Jensens will force you to experience the devastation in your own town, your own street, and your own home. They also force you to ask, “Would I do what they did in this situation?”—even when events take a turn for the ugly.
Then there’s the geopolitical angle to Gemini, most notably from the perspective of 1) President Obama and his staff, and 2) the leader of a dying terrorist organization (dying because they were too violent in their past strategies even for ‘traditional’ radical organizations to continue supporting them). The latter sees the outbreak as an opportunity to bring his cause back to prominence. There are some twists and turns to this dimension alone that, I guarantee, will keep the reader guessing until the very last page. Also, this is a highly topical facet of Gemini, as I worked with themes and ideas that rest uneasily along the edges of the American collective conscience.
Let me take a moment also to make a point about the technical aspects of the story. With all the books in my disaster series (which began in 2005 with Wave, now available in both paperback in eBook by the same publisher responsible for Gemini), I want to make sure every scenario is seamlessly credible. I want to install and apply all the established facts, then work fictional details around them. To that end, even though Gemini is a novel and thus a work of fiction, there is nothing in the story that can’t really happen. To make sure of this, I was assisted by several of the best minds in modern virology, including Dr. Marty Hewlett (Professor Emeritus, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Arizona, and the co-author of Basic Virology) and Dr. Elinor Levy (Immunologist, Associate Professor of Microbiology, Boston University School of Medicine, and author of The New Killer Diseases). These wonderful people made sure all the details were solid and correct. Even the more graphic scenes—and there are quite a few—are based on actual case histories. The symptoms, the suffering…all pulled from real life. So hey, while you’re reading, don’t get all comfortable thinking “No worries—it’s just fiction.” Today it is, yes. But tomorrow—maybe not.
Thanks for taking the time to read over my guest post, and thank you again for having me. I hope you enjoy every horrifying page of The Gemini Virus.
And please make sure you wash your hands when you’re done.
Book Synopsis:
Bob Easton thinks he has a cold. Before he dies in agony, four days later, he infects dozens of people. Local health agencies become quickly overwhelmed by the sick and dying and beg the CDC for help. Dr. Michael Beck and Cara Porter, a member of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, race to identify the deadly bug. They can’t cure it until they know what it is.
Dennis and Andi Jensen and their children are terrified. Schools and offices close. Fresh food disappears from store shelves. Three of their children’s friends die. Their neighbors are dying or running away, fleeing the unstoppable infection. Desperate, the Jensens join the exodus, making a nightmarish journey to their isolated mountain cabin along empty roads, through abandoned towns, past looted shopping malls.
The superbug—and the panic—quickly spreads beyond America’s borders. On a packed plane, someone coughs—and at their destination, the pilots are told, “you can’t land here.” US military bases are quarantined. Yet the virus continues to spread. Some believe the plague is man-made. Others see it as a sign of the end times.
In the lab, Cara Porter makes a potentially fatal mistake. In the mountains, Andi Jensen tells her husband that she doesn’t feel well.
The world is running out of time.
THANKS WIL!! AND NOW, THE AWESOME FOLKS AT TOR BOOKS HAVE GIVEN US THREE COPIES OF THE GEMINI VIRUS TO GIVE AWAY!!!
ENTER YOUR INFO BELOW.
OPEN TO USA/CANADA RESIDENTS ONLY.
WINNERS WILL BE CHOSEN ON
FRIDAY OCT 12TH @ 5PM
- Winners will be notified by email & have 48 hrs to respond. If there is no response, then another winner will be selected.
- Only one entry per person will be accepted.
- Open to U.S. residents only, unless stated otherwise in the specific giveaway.
- Personal information given by the applicant in the giveaway will never be shared. All information is deleted once the giveaway ends.