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Phase Six
"Jim Shepard is a fiction writer of peculiar but tantalizing gifts." The New York Times
In a tiny settlement on the west coast of Greenland, 11-year-old Aleq and his best friend, frequent trespassers at a mining site exposed to mountains of long-buried and thawing permafrost, carry what they pick up back into their village, and from there Shepard's harrowing and deeply moving story follows Aleq, one of the few survivors of the initial outbreak, through his identification and radical isolation as the likely index patient. While he shoulders both a crushing guilt for what he may have done and the hopes of a world looking for answers, we also meet two Epidemic Intelligence Service investigators dispatched from the CDC--Jeannine, an epidemiologist and daughter of Algerian immigrants, and Danice, an MD and lab wonk. As they attempt to head off the cataclysm, Jeannine--moving from the Greenland hospital overwhelmed with the first patients to a Level 4 high-security facility in the Rocky Mountains--does what she can to sustain Aleq.
Both a chamber piece of multiple intimate perspectives and a more omniscient glimpse into the megastructures (political, cultural, and biological) that inform such a disaster, the novel reminds us of the crucial bonds that form in the midst of catastrophe, as a child and several hyper-educated adults learn what it means to provide adequate support for those they love. In the process, they celebrate the precious worlds they might lose, and help to shape others that may survive.
In a tiny settlement on the west coast of Greenland, 11-year-old Aleq and his best friend, frequent trespassers at a mining site exposed to mountains of long-buried and thawing permafrost, carry what they pick up back into their village, and from there Shepard's harrowing and deeply moving story follows Aleq, one of the few survivors of the initial outbreak, through his identification and radical isolation as the likely index patient. While he shoulders both a crushing guilt for what he may have done and the hopes of a world looking for answers, we also meet two Epidemic Intelligence Service investigators dispatched from the CDC--Jeannine, an epidemiologist and daughter of Algerian immigrants, and Danice, an MD and lab wonk. As they attempt to head off the cataclysm, Jeannine--moving from the Greenland hospital overwhelmed with the first patients to a Level 4 high-security facility in the Rocky Mountains--does what she can to sustain Aleq.
Both a chamber piece of multiple intimate perspectives and a more omniscient glimpse into the megastructures (political, cultural, and biological) that inform such a disaster, the novel reminds us of the crucial bonds that form in the midst of catastrophe, as a child and several hyper-educated adults learn what it means to provide adequate support for those they love. In the process, they celebrate the precious worlds they might lose, and help to shape others that may survive.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published May 18, 2021
128 people are currently reading
2607 people want to read
About the author
Jim Shepard
81 books302 followersJim Shepard is the author of seven novels, including most recently The Book of Aron, which won the Sophie Brody Medal for Achievement in Jewish Literature from the American Library Association and the PEN/New England Award for fiction, and five story collections, including his new collection, The World To Come. Five of his short stories have been chosen for the Best American Short Stories, two for the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and one for a Pushcart Prize. He teaches at Williams College.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 215 reviews
September 11, 2021
How to Stop Worrying about Covid-19
1. Move to the moon, taking a lifetime's worth of supplies so you never need to return to earth and can live out the rest of your days free from other human beings and their filthy germs. Mars would also be a suitable location.
2. Upload your brain into a computer and connect it to a robotic body. Covid will not be a threat, though you will need to watch out for other types of viruses, trojans, and worms.
3. Down a bottle of sleeping pills and two bottles of vodka. Don't forget the champagne to toast to your afterlife free of viruses.
4. Read a really good novel about another and worse pandemic and start worrying about that becoming a reality instead.
I'd love to do number two and perhaps even number one, but sadly, current technology hasn't caught up with my desires. Number three.... yeh, not quite ready for that, no matter how good the champagne.
And so, tired of worrying incessantly about that damn grey fuzzball with its red spiky spikes, I resorted to number four.
Phase Six is the story of the next pandemic. It begins with two young boys who live in a remote settlement in Greenland. They are the first to be exposed to an ancient life form that is released from melting permafrost, something microscopic that will spread from their tiny village to around the world in a matter of days.
It is horrific. It is terrifying. Covid-19 seems like a harmless cold compared to this.
The plot moves quickly, alternating from the vantage point of various characters. I don't always like when stories are told this way, but it worked well for this novel.
It's a quick read and unputdownable. I was at times full of dread and anxiety, at others clinging to hope. It was interesting to compare the current pandemic with this fictional one - the handling by the WHO and CDC and governments and the various effects it had on different people. The dedication, strength, and courage of the medical workers and scientists are forefront, as we watch them struggle to save lives and to figure out what this new life form is - and how to stop its spread.
If you prefer to think about a fictional pandemic rather than reality, you don't want to miss this book. And if you happen to be really, really super smart and figure out how to do number two in the list above? Please let me be the first to know!
1. Move to the moon, taking a lifetime's worth of supplies so you never need to return to earth and can live out the rest of your days free from other human beings and their filthy germs. Mars would also be a suitable location.
2. Upload your brain into a computer and connect it to a robotic body. Covid will not be a threat, though you will need to watch out for other types of viruses, trojans, and worms.
3. Down a bottle of sleeping pills and two bottles of vodka. Don't forget the champagne to toast to your afterlife free of viruses.
4. Read a really good novel about another and worse pandemic and start worrying about that becoming a reality instead.
I'd love to do number two and perhaps even number one, but sadly, current technology hasn't caught up with my desires. Number three.... yeh, not quite ready for that, no matter how good the champagne.
And so, tired of worrying incessantly about that damn grey fuzzball with its red spiky spikes, I resorted to number four.
Phase Six is the story of the next pandemic. It begins with two young boys who live in a remote settlement in Greenland. They are the first to be exposed to an ancient life form that is released from melting permafrost, something microscopic that will spread from their tiny village to around the world in a matter of days.
It is horrific. It is terrifying. Covid-19 seems like a harmless cold compared to this.
The plot moves quickly, alternating from the vantage point of various characters. I don't always like when stories are told this way, but it worked well for this novel.
It's a quick read and unputdownable. I was at times full of dread and anxiety, at others clinging to hope. It was interesting to compare the current pandemic with this fictional one - the handling by the WHO and CDC and governments and the various effects it had on different people. The dedication, strength, and courage of the medical workers and scientists are forefront, as we watch them struggle to save lives and to figure out what this new life form is - and how to stop its spread.
If you prefer to think about a fictional pandemic rather than reality, you don't want to miss this book. And if you happen to be really, really super smart and figure out how to do number two in the list above? Please let me be the first to know!
June 16, 2021
3.5 Terrifying in its realistic scenario. Covid is in the past, but are we prepared for the next pandemic?
On the west coast of Greenland, in a small village, two young boys are curious about a new mine being dug. Eleven year old Aleq and his friend Malik find a old rock, a rock exposed from the melting permafrost. In such an innocent way a new pandemic is unleashed.
We follow Aleq and two young, newly minted CDC virologists, as they try to find what kind of new virus, bacteria is now killing at faster and faster rates. The gathering of information, the methodology used to try to make sense of what they gathered, the challenge of what finding something that works as a treatment.
As climate change brings about further melting, exposing older illnesses that have long been buried, the world will be more and more exposed to things long hidden. As we are such a connected world, things spread faster and wider. We don't know what's there, nor are we ready for what will be unleashed. Climate change is an even more wide spread recipe for disaster than just climatic events. Who knows what is hidden and where?
ARC by netgalley.
On the west coast of Greenland, in a small village, two young boys are curious about a new mine being dug. Eleven year old Aleq and his friend Malik find a old rock, a rock exposed from the melting permafrost. In such an innocent way a new pandemic is unleashed.
We follow Aleq and two young, newly minted CDC virologists, as they try to find what kind of new virus, bacteria is now killing at faster and faster rates. The gathering of information, the methodology used to try to make sense of what they gathered, the challenge of what finding something that works as a treatment.
As climate change brings about further melting, exposing older illnesses that have long been buried, the world will be more and more exposed to things long hidden. As we are such a connected world, things spread faster and wider. We don't know what's there, nor are we ready for what will be unleashed. Climate change is an even more wide spread recipe for disaster than just climatic events. Who knows what is hidden and where?
ARC by netgalley.
May 11, 2021
Fourteen months into a worldwide pandemic, this may be the last book you want to read.
Jim Shepard’s new novel, “Phase Six,” takes place not too far in the future. He imagines that we learned nothing from covid-19, which feels like a fair assessment of a half-vaccinated nation still bickering about Donald Trump’s chaotic mishandling of the crisis. In Shepard’s terrifying scenario, we’re out of chances. We’ve encroached on the natural world everywhere; we’ve thrown the climate into chaos; and we’ve developed an international travel industry that functions like a giant airborne petri dish. Deadly microbes that took months or years to travel across Europe in an earlier era now scurry around the planet in an afternoon.
The distances and times are abbreviated, and so is the old aphorism: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed — period.
“Phase Six” begins in the little village of Ilimanaq in Greenland, where new mining projects have rapidly expanded, probing ever deeper into the thawing ground. Eleven-year-old Aleq and his friend Malik are playing around one of those mining camps when they spot a deep cavity in the shiny rocks. And so this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper from a long-dead. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
Jim Shepard’s new novel, “Phase Six,” takes place not too far in the future. He imagines that we learned nothing from covid-19, which feels like a fair assessment of a half-vaccinated nation still bickering about Donald Trump’s chaotic mishandling of the crisis. In Shepard’s terrifying scenario, we’re out of chances. We’ve encroached on the natural world everywhere; we’ve thrown the climate into chaos; and we’ve developed an international travel industry that functions like a giant airborne petri dish. Deadly microbes that took months or years to travel across Europe in an earlier era now scurry around the planet in an afternoon.
The distances and times are abbreviated, and so is the old aphorism: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed — period.
“Phase Six” begins in the little village of Ilimanaq in Greenland, where new mining projects have rapidly expanded, probing ever deeper into the thawing ground. Eleven-year-old Aleq and his friend Malik are playing around one of those mining camps when they spot a deep cavity in the shiny rocks. And so this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper from a long-dead. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
July 17, 2025
This is the first post-COVID, "next pandemic" book I've run across, and it is fucking terrifying in it's "you ain't seen nothing yet" believability. I've long believed that as the Greenland and Antarctic icecaps melt and Siberia thaws, there are legions of ancient viruses and bacteria just waiting to be unleashed on a merely-200,000-year-old humanity. And yup, this is pretty much how it's going to go down.
Shepard has a dry, almost scientific style of writing that works well with the story, (although does get a little dense towards the back when he gets into the virological weeds). My only hesitance in giving this the full 5 is with the finale itself, which was — to me at least — rather abrupt and unresolved, to the point that I turned the page expecting another chapter, only to find four pages of (admittedly well-deserved) "acknowledgements" instead; I literally had to then go back and reread the last page and say, "okay, so I guess that was the end."
Shepard has a dry, almost scientific style of writing that works well with the story, (although does get a little dense towards the back when he gets into the virological weeds). My only hesitance in giving this the full 5 is with the finale itself, which was — to me at least — rather abrupt and unresolved, to the point that I turned the page expecting another chapter, only to find four pages of (admittedly well-deserved) "acknowledgements" instead; I literally had to then go back and reread the last page and say, "okay, so I guess that was the end."
February 1, 2021
Greenland is ground zero for an outbreak the makes COVID-19 look like the sniffles. Contracting this virus is a death sentence except for one young boy who is immune. Basically, this novel describes the work of a CDC epidemiologist and an M.D. as they try to figure out how this nastiness works and how to outsmart it. There are several very human moments as well as criticisms of the government’s inability to prepare adequately for the next pandemic, but there are equally as many that read like a textbook for a 101 course. And the ending, much like a current pandemic, leaves much to be desired. I’m guessing this was intentional.
August 18, 2021
This book starts out so great! Then, it totally fizzles. It's odd. I can't fathom how an experienced writer can write a book which falls apart so spectacularly.
4⭐ for the first half. 2⭐ for the second half. Averaged to 3⭐.
4⭐ for the first half. 2⭐ for the second half. Averaged to 3⭐.
Read
July 4, 2021I'm not rating books this year, but if I were, this one would get all the stars.
December 22, 2021
It’s mind-boggling to think that this was a novel completed before the current nightmare of the world. In fact, it certainly doesn’t read like it. What it does read like is something directly ripped out from the news, specifically the news stories with a more personal angle to them.
As such, it’s extremely difficult to read and not at all the sort of book I’d normally read or enjoy. In fact, not sure how anyone can enjoy this book in a precise meaning of that word. It’s wildly disturbing in its realism, in its terrifying modern day meets The Fortitude (tv show, excellent) apocalyptic scenario. So terrifying in practically makes what’s going on right now seem less so. The book is very dire, very depressing, very scary. There are glimpses of genuine relationships/characters/interactions coming through, but most of it is just complete devastation. The writing’s decent enough, but honestly, I’m just not sure who would want to read a book like that, especially now, and why.
Fiction usually offers a certain remove from reality, be it the terrific Fortitude or the ingenious Utopia (The BBC version not the US remake). This one is too close with nothing offsetting the nightmare. It reads quickly, but no, just no.
As such, it’s extremely difficult to read and not at all the sort of book I’d normally read or enjoy. In fact, not sure how anyone can enjoy this book in a precise meaning of that word. It’s wildly disturbing in its realism, in its terrifying modern day meets The Fortitude (tv show, excellent) apocalyptic scenario. So terrifying in practically makes what’s going on right now seem less so. The book is very dire, very depressing, very scary. There are glimpses of genuine relationships/characters/interactions coming through, but most of it is just complete devastation. The writing’s decent enough, but honestly, I’m just not sure who would want to read a book like that, especially now, and why.
Fiction usually offers a certain remove from reality, be it the terrific Fortitude or the ingenious Utopia (The BBC version not the US remake). This one is too close with nothing offsetting the nightmare. It reads quickly, but no, just no.
November 22, 2021
Here’s a novel about the pandemic COVID-19 might have been and could still become. And something much like the nightmarish scenario it portrays could still come about in any one of innumerable other ways, given the endless resourcefulness of our microscopic foes, who are the world’s most populous inhabitants. As I write, many of us are hopeful that today’s pandemic is drawing to a close. Whether or not this proves to be true (and I am skeptical), the future pandemic that emerges tomorrow, or next year, or a decade from now, still represents the most likely dystopian scenario faced by the human race—the climate crisis notwithstanding. In Phase Six, Jim Shepherd drives this point home in his convincing description of an ancient bacterial pathogen that emerges from under the ice of West Greenland and sets off to conquer the Earth.
AN UNLIKELY PLACE FOR A PANDEMIC TO START
Shepherd’s story begins as two pre-adolescent boys in a small Native Greenland village head out onto the ice for adventure. In the vicinity of a new rare-earth mine, Aleq and Malik stumble across a rock unearthed by the miners. In short order, Malik becomes ill with a fever that causes him to sweat. Soon, he begins shaking, more and more violently. He is dead within days. And so, it seems, are all the other eighty people of the village—with a single exception. Aleq, who first touched the rock has somehow come away unscathed. Thus, he becomes the center of attention for the CDC team sent to the town of Ililussat in Greenland, and eventually of the whole world.
A CONVINCING PORTRAYAL OF A FUTURE PANDEMIC
The two CDC investigators are both young women, chosen because at first their bosses expected little from their trip. The methods they use to trace the origin and course of the pathogen follow a path familiar to many of us who have lived with COVID-19. Jeannine Dziri, an epidemiologist, and Danice Torrone, an MD specializing in infectious disease, are both brilliant, resourceful, and hardworking. But their biggest challenge is one of communications. Either Aleq is Patient Zero, or he knows who is. But he’s not talking. He’s clearly in shock. Patiently working with a Danish translator, Jeannine takes on the top-priority job of persuading the boy to tell what he saw, and when. The breakthrough comes only when in desperation she calls in an ex-boyfriend who is a social worker experienced in working with children. Aleq at length provides her and Danice with the clue they need to begin to understand the disease. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the CDC, several of the miners have spread across the world on two weeks of home leave, and the disease has gone global, with millions dying.
A POWERFUL, CHARACTER-DRIVEN STORY
Shepherd is a gifted novelist. In The Book of Aron, he poignantly portrays the life of an adolescent boy in the Warsaw Ghetto. Shepherd is known for the depth of his research, and it shows plainly in Phase Six. His portrayal of the Native lifestyle and culture is compelling. He discusses in easily understandable language the science behind the pandemic that erupts. And he portrays the desperation among the medical staff of a hospital in Rochester, New York, where the disease surfaces early. But he is at his best in conveying the subtle qualities of the principal characters in his story. An eleven-year-old Native Greenland boy and the CDC scientists who befriend him come across as equally human and believable.
THAT CURIOUS TITLE
The title, by the way, holds double meaning. Jeannine Dziri has a “theory of Relationship Phases, with phase 1 being that first buzz of interest, phase 2 that initial excitement about what you had in common, phase 3 the exhilaration at your capacity for merger, phase 4 those aspects of the gift you started to take for granted, phase 5 the initial demonstrations with other people that you didn’t have your partner’s back, and phase 6 when you started thinking, Maybe the problem is me.” Meanwhile, for the World Health Organization, Phase 6 is the highest pandemic level, “designating for anyone who might have missed it by this point that a global pandemic was officially under way.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
American novelist and short story writer Jim Shepherd teaches creative writing and film at Williams College. Born in Connecticut in 1956, he holds degrees from Trinity College and Brown University. His wife, Karen Shepherd, is also a novelist. As of 2021, Shepherd has published eight novels.
AN UNLIKELY PLACE FOR A PANDEMIC TO START
Shepherd’s story begins as two pre-adolescent boys in a small Native Greenland village head out onto the ice for adventure. In the vicinity of a new rare-earth mine, Aleq and Malik stumble across a rock unearthed by the miners. In short order, Malik becomes ill with a fever that causes him to sweat. Soon, he begins shaking, more and more violently. He is dead within days. And so, it seems, are all the other eighty people of the village—with a single exception. Aleq, who first touched the rock has somehow come away unscathed. Thus, he becomes the center of attention for the CDC team sent to the town of Ililussat in Greenland, and eventually of the whole world.
A CONVINCING PORTRAYAL OF A FUTURE PANDEMIC
The two CDC investigators are both young women, chosen because at first their bosses expected little from their trip. The methods they use to trace the origin and course of the pathogen follow a path familiar to many of us who have lived with COVID-19. Jeannine Dziri, an epidemiologist, and Danice Torrone, an MD specializing in infectious disease, are both brilliant, resourceful, and hardworking. But their biggest challenge is one of communications. Either Aleq is Patient Zero, or he knows who is. But he’s not talking. He’s clearly in shock. Patiently working with a Danish translator, Jeannine takes on the top-priority job of persuading the boy to tell what he saw, and when. The breakthrough comes only when in desperation she calls in an ex-boyfriend who is a social worker experienced in working with children. Aleq at length provides her and Danice with the clue they need to begin to understand the disease. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the CDC, several of the miners have spread across the world on two weeks of home leave, and the disease has gone global, with millions dying.
A POWERFUL, CHARACTER-DRIVEN STORY
Shepherd is a gifted novelist. In The Book of Aron, he poignantly portrays the life of an adolescent boy in the Warsaw Ghetto. Shepherd is known for the depth of his research, and it shows plainly in Phase Six. His portrayal of the Native lifestyle and culture is compelling. He discusses in easily understandable language the science behind the pandemic that erupts. And he portrays the desperation among the medical staff of a hospital in Rochester, New York, where the disease surfaces early. But he is at his best in conveying the subtle qualities of the principal characters in his story. An eleven-year-old Native Greenland boy and the CDC scientists who befriend him come across as equally human and believable.
THAT CURIOUS TITLE
The title, by the way, holds double meaning. Jeannine Dziri has a “theory of Relationship Phases, with phase 1 being that first buzz of interest, phase 2 that initial excitement about what you had in common, phase 3 the exhilaration at your capacity for merger, phase 4 those aspects of the gift you started to take for granted, phase 5 the initial demonstrations with other people that you didn’t have your partner’s back, and phase 6 when you started thinking, Maybe the problem is me.” Meanwhile, for the World Health Organization, Phase 6 is the highest pandemic level, “designating for anyone who might have missed it by this point that a global pandemic was officially under way.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
American novelist and short story writer Jim Shepherd teaches creative writing and film at Williams College. Born in Connecticut in 1956, he holds degrees from Trinity College and Brown University. His wife, Karen Shepherd, is also a novelist. As of 2021, Shepherd has published eight novels.
did-not-finish
July 2, 2025bro I'm so depressed
May 1, 2025
It's criminal that Jim Shepard isn't more widely read and applauded for his incredible story telling - in both novels and short fiction.
April 28, 2021
You can tell this book was written pre-COVID with some mentions of the current pandemic thrown in to make the book more relevant. Overall, I liked the plot, but there were a lot of characters and with how short this book is it becomes hard to keep track of them all. I didn't really understand the science at the end of it but I did enjoy Phase Six.
September 10, 2021
I had a love hate relationship with this book.
The human side of it is stunning, I would be rating this 5* if the second half had matched the first, plus a warning to those who detest ambiguous endings this will drive you nuts
A novel set in a post covid world that gives us a frightening reminder that the worst we've seen isn't necessarily the worst we'll ever see, an eclectic group of characters faces the next global disaster and the characterisation is excellent throughout you really engage.
Unfortunately it then meandered into a finale that didn't deliver for this reader the promise of what had lead up to it. The science is also way over convoluted I felt like I needed several degrees in several virology related subjects just to follow along. In truth I didn't understand at least half of it which took away some of the enjoyment for me.
Beautifully written and very scary but just falls short of being a fully formed thing.
The human side of it is stunning, I would be rating this 5* if the second half had matched the first, plus a warning to those who detest ambiguous endings this will drive you nuts
A novel set in a post covid world that gives us a frightening reminder that the worst we've seen isn't necessarily the worst we'll ever see, an eclectic group of characters faces the next global disaster and the characterisation is excellent throughout you really engage.
Unfortunately it then meandered into a finale that didn't deliver for this reader the promise of what had lead up to it. The science is also way over convoluted I felt like I needed several degrees in several virology related subjects just to follow along. In truth I didn't understand at least half of it which took away some of the enjoyment for me.
Beautifully written and very scary but just falls short of being a fully formed thing.
June 3, 2021
A truly chilling fictional account of a global pandemic (is that redundant?) that makes COVID-19 seem like a walk in the park. Mining activities in Greenland release a pathogen eons old from its place deep inside the permafrost. Told in spare prose, unemotionally, we see the pandemic unfolding from the points of view of two scientists sent by the CDC to ground zero, and the 11-year-old Inuit boy who is the only survivor from his village. Credible picture of the international bodies jockeying for position, trying to come up with effective safety protocols and discover what the heck this thing is, a truly lethal microbe that is unlike anything mankind has encountered before. Like I said, very scary. Makes one wonder what is waiting under the melting permafrost as global warming accelerates.
May 3, 2021
It was exciting to revive an ARC of this novel as it had been on my shelf for just a few weeks. The start was engaging and pulled me in, but started to lose me when it shifted focus off patient zero whose story could fill an entire novel on its own. That being said, there was a lot to learn and brought some perspective to all the work behind the scenes when a pandemic strikes. Who are the people who chose to rush in and why? How easy is it for a pandemic to spread? Why are our medical systems so woefully unprepared? Def. worth the read, but not the pace and draw I need from books right now.
July 6, 2021
Considering the continuing evolution of the Covid Pandemic, this bitingly realistic novel of a future pandemic may make many readers uncomfortable. But that is just the point.
All nations need to have and implement more efficient and effective ways to deal with a pandemic. Preparedness needs to be stepped up not unfunded or bounced down on our list of priorities.
The scenario presented in this novel is a world where again there are shortages of vital medical supplies like ventilators and masks. Communication problems between scientists trying to solve the puzzle. And a shortage of containment labs and training on how to deal with such a virulent contagion.
Key characters in this novel are women doctors and scientists and a young boy Aleq. They are all strong and intelligent but all suffer from deep loneliness. Perhaps as the price the women pay for such all consuming professions and for Aleq because of his upbringing and because everyone that he has known has died from the pandemic. Human contact and relationships are important in good health even inside the enhanced restrictions of a pandemic.
Reads like a fast moving detective story and well written and researched.
All nations need to have and implement more efficient and effective ways to deal with a pandemic. Preparedness needs to be stepped up not unfunded or bounced down on our list of priorities.
The scenario presented in this novel is a world where again there are shortages of vital medical supplies like ventilators and masks. Communication problems between scientists trying to solve the puzzle. And a shortage of containment labs and training on how to deal with such a virulent contagion.
Key characters in this novel are women doctors and scientists and a young boy Aleq. They are all strong and intelligent but all suffer from deep loneliness. Perhaps as the price the women pay for such all consuming professions and for Aleq because of his upbringing and because everyone that he has known has died from the pandemic. Human contact and relationships are important in good health even inside the enhanced restrictions of a pandemic.
Reads like a fast moving detective story and well written and researched.
June 3, 2021
Pretty good book but the ending could have been a lot better. A solid 3.5
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
abandoned
July 11, 2021Sometimes you can tell from the first sentences that a book is going to be unreadable: "It had gotten colder overnight, and the gravediggers had had to use a pneumatic drill. Aleq had had to listen to it all morning."
I can't comment on the content, but this book needed a much heavier editing hand.
I can't comment on the content, but this book needed a much heavier editing hand.
September 6, 2021
Starts out with such a strong plot, and then it kind of evaporates.
May 31, 2021
Just as the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to take hold last year, New Yorker staff writer Lawrence Wright’s novel, THE END OF OCTOBER, provided a frighteningly prescient foretaste of some of what the world might be facing. Now, with cases falling and hope rising, Jim Shepard’s disturbing novel, PHASE SIX, arrives to inject a note of realism into the prevailing optimistic atmosphere. The next time --- and it’s almost certain there will be a next time --- could be worse. Much worse.
The pathogen that wreaks havoc in PHASE SIX (the title refers to the World Health Organization’s highest pandemic level) emerges in a tiny fishing settlement in Greenland, where aggressive efforts to mine rare earth deposits --- ironically to support the green economy --- are underway. One of those drilling projects releases “a cluster of molecules that had previously thrived in the respiratory tract of an early variant of the Bering goose and that had been trapped with some throat tissue in the crystalline framework during the Holocene glaciation.” Once 11-year-old Aleq and his best friend Malik inhale some of those spores at the site, and exposed miners depart for airports around the world, the race between disease and humanity is on.
The novel focuses most of its attention on the efforts of two young CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officers --- epidemiologist Jeannine Dziri and Danice Torrone, a public health physician and self-described “medical detective” --- who dub themselves the “Junior Certain Death Squad.” They’re quickly dispatched to Greenland, where they discover that, along with its ability to spread rapidly (five weeks into the pandemic, some 14 million people have been infected worldwide), the disease has a terrifying power to kill quickly and with a lethality approaching 40 percent, far above the level of the coronavirus.
As Shepard describes it, the work of scientists like Jeannine and Danice is painstaking and often frustrating. It seems to Danice that “every third clue introduced a confounder, an element that seemed to drive the investigation off track. And each pattern that was initially found significant devolved into a maddening knot of ambiguities.” Their efforts are hampered by the fact that, as the settlement’s sole survivor, Aleq’s devastation over the deaths of his family members, his suspicion of the investigators’ motives, and, on a most basic level, his inability to speak English impede his desire and ability to cooperate in their investigation.
Shepard portrays a world in which few lessons seem to have been learned from our encounter with COVID-19. “Countries were like people: they didn’t value health until they lost it. And then once they got it back, they returned to their old complacency,” he writes. He doesn’t dwell on the social and economic effects of the pandemic, but having lived through 2020’s quarantines and lockdowns, there’s no need to say much more than “Amazon was unable to ship” or to mention a run on an antibiotic that had “generated pharmacy riots in seven cities in the South and Midwest” to paint a discomfiting picture of rising fear and chaos.
In short story collections like THE WORLD TO COME and YOU THINK THAT’S BAD, Shepard has displayed an affinity for stories that pit humans against the forces of nature, like the Dutch hydraulic engineer in “The Netherlands Lives with Water,” fighting to stave off an epic storm threatening Rotterdam, or the workers on a collapsing radar tower in the North Sea in “Safety Tips for Living Alone.”
PHASE SIX is built on a similar foundation, as Jeannine and Danice bring their scientific knowledge and inexhaustible grit to bear on the project of outwitting the bacteria. And like his short stories, Shepard’s novel bears the mark of prodigious research, with dozens of books, articles and interviews listed as source material. But he’s also an accomplished storyteller, and he avoids the common mistake of less talented writers of periodic information dumps that highlight the author’s diligence at the cost of slowing the novel’s narrative momentum.
Anyone looking for reassurance from Shepard would be well-advised to search elsewhere. Though he’s never specific about the death toll wreaked by his imaginary pathogen, he cites a 2006 survey in which 90 percent of the epidemiologists polled predicted a pandemic that would kill more than 150 million people in one of the next two generations.
“All of those pathogens that over time we’ve de-adapted to --- we keep sticking our noses everywhere, they’re all coming back,” Danice warns. “Who would you put your money on? Humans have been around for what, two hundred thousand years? And bacteria for like three and a half billion.” PHASE SIX is an impressive cautionary tale, and we can only hope that some of the people whose efforts might make a difference in preventing the next public health catastrophe will take the time to read it.
Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg
The pathogen that wreaks havoc in PHASE SIX (the title refers to the World Health Organization’s highest pandemic level) emerges in a tiny fishing settlement in Greenland, where aggressive efforts to mine rare earth deposits --- ironically to support the green economy --- are underway. One of those drilling projects releases “a cluster of molecules that had previously thrived in the respiratory tract of an early variant of the Bering goose and that had been trapped with some throat tissue in the crystalline framework during the Holocene glaciation.” Once 11-year-old Aleq and his best friend Malik inhale some of those spores at the site, and exposed miners depart for airports around the world, the race between disease and humanity is on.
The novel focuses most of its attention on the efforts of two young CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officers --- epidemiologist Jeannine Dziri and Danice Torrone, a public health physician and self-described “medical detective” --- who dub themselves the “Junior Certain Death Squad.” They’re quickly dispatched to Greenland, where they discover that, along with its ability to spread rapidly (five weeks into the pandemic, some 14 million people have been infected worldwide), the disease has a terrifying power to kill quickly and with a lethality approaching 40 percent, far above the level of the coronavirus.
As Shepard describes it, the work of scientists like Jeannine and Danice is painstaking and often frustrating. It seems to Danice that “every third clue introduced a confounder, an element that seemed to drive the investigation off track. And each pattern that was initially found significant devolved into a maddening knot of ambiguities.” Their efforts are hampered by the fact that, as the settlement’s sole survivor, Aleq’s devastation over the deaths of his family members, his suspicion of the investigators’ motives, and, on a most basic level, his inability to speak English impede his desire and ability to cooperate in their investigation.
Shepard portrays a world in which few lessons seem to have been learned from our encounter with COVID-19. “Countries were like people: they didn’t value health until they lost it. And then once they got it back, they returned to their old complacency,” he writes. He doesn’t dwell on the social and economic effects of the pandemic, but having lived through 2020’s quarantines and lockdowns, there’s no need to say much more than “Amazon was unable to ship” or to mention a run on an antibiotic that had “generated pharmacy riots in seven cities in the South and Midwest” to paint a discomfiting picture of rising fear and chaos.
In short story collections like THE WORLD TO COME and YOU THINK THAT’S BAD, Shepard has displayed an affinity for stories that pit humans against the forces of nature, like the Dutch hydraulic engineer in “The Netherlands Lives with Water,” fighting to stave off an epic storm threatening Rotterdam, or the workers on a collapsing radar tower in the North Sea in “Safety Tips for Living Alone.”
PHASE SIX is built on a similar foundation, as Jeannine and Danice bring their scientific knowledge and inexhaustible grit to bear on the project of outwitting the bacteria. And like his short stories, Shepard’s novel bears the mark of prodigious research, with dozens of books, articles and interviews listed as source material. But he’s also an accomplished storyteller, and he avoids the common mistake of less talented writers of periodic information dumps that highlight the author’s diligence at the cost of slowing the novel’s narrative momentum.
Anyone looking for reassurance from Shepard would be well-advised to search elsewhere. Though he’s never specific about the death toll wreaked by his imaginary pathogen, he cites a 2006 survey in which 90 percent of the epidemiologists polled predicted a pandemic that would kill more than 150 million people in one of the next two generations.
“All of those pathogens that over time we’ve de-adapted to --- we keep sticking our noses everywhere, they’re all coming back,” Danice warns. “Who would you put your money on? Humans have been around for what, two hundred thousand years? And bacteria for like three and a half billion.” PHASE SIX is an impressive cautionary tale, and we can only hope that some of the people whose efforts might make a difference in preventing the next public health catastrophe will take the time to read it.
Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg
May 22, 2023
This is the best book about the immediate onset of, and response to, a pandemic that I've ever read. Unlike most pandemic literature (for example: Emily St John Mandel's wonderful Station Eleven), Phase Six is very closely focused on the first few weeks and months after a new pathogen is released into the environment due to the thawing of Greenlandic permafrost. Jim Shepard digs deep to produce an incredibly well-researched picture of how the CDC, WHO, and healthcare centres might respond, which I found fascinating to read in its own right. I love medical detail, especially epidemiology, and the way Shepard has woven in references to Covid-19 in what was clearly a later draft of this novel only emphasises how realistic his original version was. However, Shepard also transcends this material to tell the human stories of a handful of characters caught up in this pandemic; the abrupt and open ending is intentionally frustrating, but also beautiful, speaking to how our own personal stories always finish before we want them to. This makes Phase Six sound like a dark and difficult read, but I didn't find it so. In many ways, it's uplifting, emphasising co-operation and collaboration between humans rather than selfishness. This is not a dystopian novel, but a realistic exploration of how people respond to adversity, and the power as well as the limitations of scientific research. 4.5 stars.
December 29, 2021
A real pageturner about a global pandemic. Yes, this admittedly was just another version of doomscrolling for me, but I guess I find submerging myself in all things pandemic cathartic in some way.
Not great literature, but this fast-paced book was so entertaining, I thought. Something very specific (the reader knows, the characters don't) and quite fascinating unleashes a deadly pandemic on the world. As in most pandemic books, it's much deadlier than Covid or else it wouldn't be as dramatic of a read. It's scientifically a new thing, which throws off all the scientist characters in the book.
It is interesting how despite being much deadlier than Covid, the mitigating measures taken are the same--masking, distancing, obsessive cleaning of surfaces. The reader recognizes that all too well from our current world, and yet it's a much different disease.
The 2 main characters, female scientists, become best friends during the short time they are desperately trying to figure out what they are dealing with. The characters in this book make it more personal; the pandemic gives it the drama.
Not great literature, but this fast-paced book was so entertaining, I thought. Something very specific (the reader knows, the characters don't) and quite fascinating unleashes a deadly pandemic on the world. As in most pandemic books, it's much deadlier than Covid or else it wouldn't be as dramatic of a read. It's scientifically a new thing, which throws off all the scientist characters in the book.
It is interesting how despite being much deadlier than Covid, the mitigating measures taken are the same--masking, distancing, obsessive cleaning of surfaces. The reader recognizes that all too well from our current world, and yet it's a much different disease.
The 2 main characters, female scientists, become best friends during the short time they are desperately trying to figure out what they are dealing with. The characters in this book make it more personal; the pandemic gives it the drama.
May 24, 2021
The books is based on the assumption that the human civilization has learnt nothing from Covid-19. It’s based in a time period not very far after COVID-19, which is evident from the mention and cross referencing it many times to compare it to the pandemic that the future world is facing in the novel.
But this time it’s in the frigid zones of a remote village in Greenland which spreads some infection. All the people infected face severe symptoms and are dead within short span with the exception of few survivors like Aleq, who somehow is resistant to the infection after initial outbreak and has been taken to the Rocky Mountains for finding why. His family, friends and all whom he knew in his country are dead because of the virus and he has now been uprooted to a different country for knowing about the infection.
Two investigators Jeannine and Danica have been tasked with researching about the pandemic spread.
The novel is short and to the point and hence was a fast read for me. It looked liked the author summarized the entire future pandemic in a nutshell.
But this time it’s in the frigid zones of a remote village in Greenland which spreads some infection. All the people infected face severe symptoms and are dead within short span with the exception of few survivors like Aleq, who somehow is resistant to the infection after initial outbreak and has been taken to the Rocky Mountains for finding why. His family, friends and all whom he knew in his country are dead because of the virus and he has now been uprooted to a different country for knowing about the infection.
Two investigators Jeannine and Danica have been tasked with researching about the pandemic spread.
The novel is short and to the point and hence was a fast read for me. It looked liked the author summarized the entire future pandemic in a nutshell.
May 31, 2021
I read it in one sitting. Tense, fast-paced, very moving, from one of my favorite living authors. Is it one of his best? Probably not. But that's a high bar. Shepard's gift is his ability to take a global crisis and scale it down to the human level - as he says, the "worms-eye view." The poor schmucks caught on the front line, in over their heads, trying their best.
May 2, 2021
Conflicted ... Confused ... I wasn't sure how to approach 'Phase Six': If Shepard's book is meant to be a read of "This is what could happen if ...," then we're far too deep into THIS and we've experienced too much for 'Phase Six' to be a future, foreboding harbinger. Or if Shepard's book is meant to be a "snapshot" of sorts of what we've been through so far, my approach to 'Six' becomes less conflicted and leaves me with an understanding of how his book can be read.
So, with all of this in mind, I leave 'Phase Six' with this review: It's a good read - a story with the outlines of memorable characters intact but a "sketch" of an apocalyptic world, perhaps, in a first draft with a more fully-realized tale to come.
So, with all of this in mind, I leave 'Phase Six' with this review: It's a good read - a story with the outlines of memorable characters intact but a "sketch" of an apocalyptic world, perhaps, in a first draft with a more fully-realized tale to come.
June 7, 2021
This is the second pandemic story I have read while living through COVID. I'm not sure why I do this to myself. Interesting story about an outbreak that starts and Greenland and quickly moves around Earth. More character driven, with the focus on scientists trying to solve the problem while also dealing with the stress and emotions involved.
Read
July 19, 2021in this pandemic story greenland is ground zero for the latest deadly outbreak. starts out strong but lags at about the 1/2 way point.
July 22, 2021
For those who just can't get enough pandemic,
a novel well written and medically incisive,
about an epidemic even worse. A threatening read.
a novel well written and medically incisive,
about an epidemic even worse. A threatening read.
October 24, 2021
I liked it. It was well written, fast-paced. But only 3 stars for me, because it's really hard for me to say I really liked a book about a fictional, much more deadly pandemic than the one we are currently in. And I kept waiting for the happy ending...
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