Almost two years have passed since the COVID-19 outbreak hit Wuhan. Minus the one pro of being able to cancel plans without any fallback, the series of events that followed seem like something out of a fiction novel: a raging global pandemic, people locked in their homes, unforeseen economic crises, and even toilet paper wars.
Pandemics and “plagues” weren’t a rarity in the past and thus have ample representation in both fictional and non-fictional books. Let us look at some fiction books featuring their very own pandemics.
The Plague by Albert Camus
We tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away.
This book was authored by Albert Camus, a French writer and philosopher famed for his book ‘The Stranger’. Despite the author’s objections, this book is considered to be an existentialist classic that shows the undefeated human spirit in the face of the bubonic plague ravaging the French Algerian city of Oran.
The Stand by Stephen King (1978)
No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don't.”
Considered to be one of Stephen King’s best works, this post-apocalyptic dark fantasy novel grapples with the concept of good and evil in the face of a major pandemic. The book is centered around a weaponized virus, “Captain Trips” and was intended to be an epic series like the Lord of The Rings series set in modern America.
Horror writer Grady Hendrix observed, “You can feel the great relish King took in burning it all down in The Stand.”
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
In a world where you can’t open your eyes, isn’t a blindfold all you could ever hope for?
This book has been adapted into a Netflix movie, Bird Box, starring the near-immortal survivor Sandra Bullock. In the story, a pandemic of sorts rages around the world that causes people to turn into violent killers after witnessing an unknown entity. The story depicts a world trapped inside, eerily similar to the home quarantines and lockdowns imposed during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Eyes of Darkness by Dean Koontz
Laughter is a balm for the afflicted, the best defense against despair, the only medicine for melancholy
The snapshot of one of the book’s pages was recently all-over social media, for it was believed that the author correctly predicted the COVID 19 pandemic around 40 years ago. The book describes a deadly virus called the "Wuhan 400," which is a “severe pneumonia-like illness" which hits “the lungs and bronchial tubes” and "resisting all known treatments."
The Rationing by Charles Wheelan
Ellen had relatively little curiosity about my work but great interest in the people I had been doing it with. If I had been less exhausted, I might have been more charitable, but I remember wondering if Ellen was going to have me describe their outfits, including the designers.
This book is a fictional political satire set in The United States of America. In the story, the US politicians do everything possible to keep the story of a puzzling pathogen under wraps. Also, differing views, deceptive tactics, and political divisions affect the rationing of the prized life-saving drug to stop the crisis.
(Originally published on ScriveTribe)
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