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Quarantine
The virus: Formido Inexorbisilis. Common name: Rabies
Breeding properties: Travels and reproduces in fresh water and the bloodstream
The symptoms: Uncontrollable violence
The prognosis: Death within six to eight hours
He was a genius. The CIA wanted him. And they knew how to get him. A son with cystic fibrosis, and endless unpaid medical bills, left Dr. James Lockton no choice but to accept the offer. The CIA foots the bill - and he builds them the ultimate weapon. A microscopic organism. An organism that kills.
But the controlled conditions of a top-secret laboratory on an isolated island are never far removed from the world of greed, corruption and fear. A botched attempt to steal the virus unleashes it into the water supply. The ultimate nightmare begins.
Breeding properties: Travels and reproduces in fresh water and the bloodstream
The symptoms: Uncontrollable violence
The prognosis: Death within six to eight hours
He was a genius. The CIA wanted him. And they knew how to get him. A son with cystic fibrosis, and endless unpaid medical bills, left Dr. James Lockton no choice but to accept the offer. The CIA foots the bill - and he builds them the ultimate weapon. A microscopic organism. An organism that kills.
But the controlled conditions of a top-secret laboratory on an isolated island are never far removed from the world of greed, corruption and fear. A botched attempt to steal the virus unleashes it into the water supply. The ultimate nightmare begins.
- GenresHorror
Paperback
Published February 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 27, 2018
The writer has the odd habit of throwing in bizarre similes that take away from the story and seem unnatural. The characters also come across as flat and without much personality. Therefore I found that I didn’t care much about what happened with them. I was relieved to finish this book.
June 3, 2026
"He discovered that abstract sociopolitical philosophies meant little while getting pummelled about the head and body with lawsuits and bankruptcy."
Quarantine by Josh Webster is one of those frustrating cases of a good book getting subsumed by a mediocre one.
The premise had the potential to do something similar to Breaking Bad: put a character in a situation that forces them to weigh their ethics against their own material reality. In this case, that looks like: a liberal American scientist whose wife dies in childbirth, leaving him the sole provider for a son with cystic fibrosis, is faced with mounting medical bills he can't afford to extend the life of/maintain a quality of life for his son. Right at this financial breaking point, a guy from the US government shows up and offers him a way out: develop a bio-weapon for the American military and the military pays off your house, your medical debt, and provides a salary that more than covers your son's present and future medical expenses.
What a delicious moral dilemma.
It's great because it leverages a very real tension many Americans feel in no small part because of a lack of access to nationalized healthcare. Healthcare, being an inelastic demand, is a sword of Damocles that dangles over most people, and so the protagonist's quandary is relatable, and seeing what the author does with it is interesting.
And it remains interesting for the entire front-end of the book.
Of course, this being a horror novel with a title to live up to, this dilemma does have to go somewhere, and where it goes isn't surprising, but it's not dissatisfactory either. It paints a bleak if not unrealistic image of both the American healthcare 'system' (so-called), the suspicion a lot of people feel towards their governments, and the more specific suspicion many have of the power of the US military. Not for nothing, but the US has a history of 'rules for thee, but not for me' foreign policy (I mean, look at the rhetoric around Iran right now in the year of our lord, 2026). So, the idea that they'd rush to design a bioweapon 'just in case' tracks.
A particularly self-aware moment of humour comes when the scientist is talking to the US agent near the beginning. The agent explains they just want to have the bioweapon; there's no intention to use -- its existence is just to give the US political leverage over the Soviet Union; it's just about parity. And it's been so, so long since capacity resulted in usage. The scientist immediately points out the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, to which the agent replies: "mistakes are made in any war." (p.36)
All of this: very good. It doesn't matter that the tracks of the plot are visible because a cautionary tale is about the journey, not the destination.
What was the problem, then? What went wrong here? Cuz it wasn't the super-rabies virus.
Genuinely, I can only explain how a novel that started out like this ended with a whimper by assuming Webster ran out of steam or had some contractual constraints or something. Because the premise and the set-up are the best parts of the novel. Everything else feels rushed, as though we're trying to get to the conclusion as fast as possible when, in a story called 'quarantine' about a super-rabies virus infecting the water supply on an island of unassuming inhabitants, the conclusion is not the central point of interest. Like, we know what happens at the end: either the virus is contained and neutralized or it isn't. Everything that happens in the middle is what makes a setup like this interesting.
But no, no. We need to focus on the generic-ass love story with a 'twist' that adds absolutely nothing whatsoever and on the scientist's son, ill with cystic fibrosis. Except. Is he?
I have a good friend with cystic fibrosis, so maybe I'm in an unusually strong position to judge, but I can say for sure that the kid in this story doesn't have cystic fibrosis. Never once does he cough. His reduced lung capacity is mentioned all over the place, yet he is a prodigy flute player and scuba dives, not to mention running all over the island to escape the rabid townsfolk. In a story set in the 1980s before Tricafta existed. Before really much at all existed in the way of raising quality of life to what this kid experiences.
Lazy! So lazy on the author's part. Why choose such a specific illness only to immediately not have it matter? It's like his research extended to what he needed to get him to chapter 3 and then he lost interest and just... gave up.
The same could be said for a lot of the story, honestly. We get all the way up to the section giving us the explanation for how this bioweapon virus escapes the lab and then... he gave up. And from there on out everything is generic, rushed, and feels like it's just waiting to be put out of its misery.
Good bones for an action-thriller film, though! Just take the outline, give it to a competent screen-writer, and you’d have a potentially pretty good summer blockbuster. Something to put in a lineup with Jaws or Jurassic Park or any other film straddling that horror-action film line that have central questions behind the horror about socio-political machinations that raise questions about who the monster really is.
Quarantine by Josh Webster is one of those frustrating cases of a good book getting subsumed by a mediocre one.
The premise had the potential to do something similar to Breaking Bad: put a character in a situation that forces them to weigh their ethics against their own material reality. In this case, that looks like: a liberal American scientist whose wife dies in childbirth, leaving him the sole provider for a son with cystic fibrosis, is faced with mounting medical bills he can't afford to extend the life of/maintain a quality of life for his son. Right at this financial breaking point, a guy from the US government shows up and offers him a way out: develop a bio-weapon for the American military and the military pays off your house, your medical debt, and provides a salary that more than covers your son's present and future medical expenses.
What a delicious moral dilemma.
It's great because it leverages a very real tension many Americans feel in no small part because of a lack of access to nationalized healthcare. Healthcare, being an inelastic demand, is a sword of Damocles that dangles over most people, and so the protagonist's quandary is relatable, and seeing what the author does with it is interesting.
And it remains interesting for the entire front-end of the book.
Of course, this being a horror novel with a title to live up to, this dilemma does have to go somewhere, and where it goes isn't surprising, but it's not dissatisfactory either. It paints a bleak if not unrealistic image of both the American healthcare 'system' (so-called), the suspicion a lot of people feel towards their governments, and the more specific suspicion many have of the power of the US military. Not for nothing, but the US has a history of 'rules for thee, but not for me' foreign policy (I mean, look at the rhetoric around Iran right now in the year of our lord, 2026). So, the idea that they'd rush to design a bioweapon 'just in case' tracks.
A particularly self-aware moment of humour comes when the scientist is talking to the US agent near the beginning. The agent explains they just want to have the bioweapon; there's no intention to use -- its existence is just to give the US political leverage over the Soviet Union; it's just about parity. And it's been so, so long since capacity resulted in usage. The scientist immediately points out the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, to which the agent replies: "mistakes are made in any war." (p.36)
All of this: very good. It doesn't matter that the tracks of the plot are visible because a cautionary tale is about the journey, not the destination.
What was the problem, then? What went wrong here? Cuz it wasn't the super-rabies virus.
Genuinely, I can only explain how a novel that started out like this ended with a whimper by assuming Webster ran out of steam or had some contractual constraints or something. Because the premise and the set-up are the best parts of the novel. Everything else feels rushed, as though we're trying to get to the conclusion as fast as possible when, in a story called 'quarantine' about a super-rabies virus infecting the water supply on an island of unassuming inhabitants, the conclusion is not the central point of interest. Like, we know what happens at the end: either the virus is contained and neutralized or it isn't. Everything that happens in the middle is what makes a setup like this interesting.
But no, no. We need to focus on the generic-ass love story with a 'twist' that adds absolutely nothing whatsoever and on the scientist's son, ill with cystic fibrosis. Except. Is he?
I have a good friend with cystic fibrosis, so maybe I'm in an unusually strong position to judge, but I can say for sure that the kid in this story doesn't have cystic fibrosis. Never once does he cough. His reduced lung capacity is mentioned all over the place, yet he is a prodigy flute player and scuba dives, not to mention running all over the island to escape the rabid townsfolk. In a story set in the 1980s before Tricafta existed. Before really much at all existed in the way of raising quality of life to what this kid experiences.
Lazy! So lazy on the author's part. Why choose such a specific illness only to immediately not have it matter? It's like his research extended to what he needed to get him to chapter 3 and then he lost interest and just... gave up.
The same could be said for a lot of the story, honestly. We get all the way up to the section giving us the explanation for how this bioweapon virus escapes the lab and then... he gave up. And from there on out everything is generic, rushed, and feels like it's just waiting to be put out of its misery.
Good bones for an action-thriller film, though! Just take the outline, give it to a competent screen-writer, and you’d have a potentially pretty good summer blockbuster. Something to put in a lineup with Jaws or Jurassic Park or any other film straddling that horror-action film line that have central questions behind the horror about socio-political machinations that raise questions about who the monster really is.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews