Virus by Graham Watkins (First Edition)

Doctors investigating the outbreak of an unknown disorder, discover a connection between the deadly epidemic and computers

YA?Drs. Mark Roberts and Alexandra Walton's patients are addicted to their computers, and no one knows what could cause such an unusual number of educated, generally affluent individuals to succumb to the exhaustion and malnutrition this addiction has created. Crime is on the increase, and the doctors' own families are involved. Acting as sleuths, the physicians discover that a computer virus compels its victims to continue online. Chapters are short and alternate between victims, doctors, and technicians. These shifts can be confusing until readers are thoroughly familiar with the characters. Technical terms are often explained by the hospital's computer specialist, who also gets the virus. The element of potential realism in this sci/fi adventure is wonderfully, frighteningly present.?Claudia Moore, W.T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Watkins takes the concept of a computer virus far more seriously than anyone else has thus far in his scary novel about a medical problem labeled CAS (Computer Addiction Syndrome) by the CDC (Center for Disease Control). At first, physicians believe that people are simply overworking themselves, causing exhaustion, anorexia, and other related symptoms. When patients start dying of apparent convulsive disorders and even the medical investigators start getting "hooked" on Penultimate (a highly advanced, caching program with artificial intelligence), a doctor, a psychiatrist, and a computer expert come together to look deeper into the dangers of computer addiction. A fascinating chase scene throughout the programming world results. Virus is as compelling as the dangerously irresistible computer game that Watkins has invented (or has he?). Denise Perry Donavin