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Sunday, April 15, 2007

"Ill Wind" Reissued in Paperback 

My 1995 ecological disaster novel ILL WIND, written with Doug Beason (a retired colonel in the Air Force, former member of the President's Science Office, and Deputy Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory), has just been reprinted in paperback. This novel has been optioned three times to be made into a film or TV miniseries, and the story remains extremely topical. I hope you'll want to read it.

The jacket reads:

A supertanker has crashed off the shores of San Francisco, producing the largest oil spill in history. Desperate to avert an ecological -- and public relations -- disaster, a multinational oil company releases an untested virus to break up the spill. A virus that spreads like wildfire on the wind, destroying anything made of petroleum -- destroying gasoline in automobile tanks, plastic, nylon, the very fabric of modern civilization itself.

Dr. Spencer Lockwood, one of the few scientists to recognize the danger, tries to alert government and industry to the impending danger. But his warnings go unheeded and the devastation mounts. As America descends into savagery, Lockwood forges a courageous band of scientists to carry out a daring plan to restore order. But humanity's last hope may be snuffed out by a ruthless general driven by an insatiable desire for power.

A riveting and inspiring saga of ecological catastrophe and human survival, ILL WIND is all the more frightening because it could actually happen. Anderson and Beason have drawn upon the latest breakthroughs in biotechnology to create a disaster scenario that is terrifying in its plausibility.

"Even without gasoline this novel surges right along to a powerful conclusion about the dangers of reckless biotechnological research and the possibilities of American ingenuity in the midst of chaos and danger." -- National Public Radio

"A high-action bestseller-caliber disaster novel grounded in unsettlingly accurate science ... Anderson and Beason maintain a suspensful breakneck pace that carries us to a thrilling finish." -- Booklist

"A big, near-future disaster novel straddling the border between science fiction and technothriller, likely to appeal to fans of both... Almost un-put-downable." -- Kirkus Reviews

-- KJA