Posted on 02/13/2020 7:42:46 AM PST by TigerClaws
The Eyes of Darkness, a 1981 thriller by bestselling suspense author Dean Koontz, tells of a Chinese military lab that creates a virus as part of its biological weapons programme. The lab is located in Wuhan, which lends the virus its name, Wuhan-400. A chilling literary coincidence or a case of writer as unwitting prophet?
In The Eyes of Darkness, a grieving mother, Christina Evans, sets out to discover whether her son Danny died on a camping trip or if – as suspicious messages suggest – he is still alive. She eventually tracks him down to a military facility where he is being held after being accidentally contaminated with man-made microorganisms created at the research centre in Wuhan.
In another strange coincidence, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which houses China’s only level four biosafety laboratory, the highest-level classification of labs that study the deadliest viruses, is just 32km from the epicentre of the current coronavirus outbreak. The opening of the maximum-security lab was covered in a 2017 story in the journal Nature, which warned of safety risks in a culture where hierarchy trumps an open culture
Maybe.
Maybe they read the book and got an idea.................
Koontz is a great author. He also wrote a book called The Watcher about two genetically modified animals, a Golden Retriever that seemed to have some human DNA and a vile murdering creature that was genetically modified to kill. Both were developed in a genetics lab in the US. The man in the book found the Lab while hiking in the mountains. Both escaped from the lab and were being hunted but the monster was also hunting the Lab to kill it.
I have read it over and over and it sounds like something that could happen in the future. Very scary book.
There have been lots of strange cases where fictional books have come close to ‘predicting’ things that later happened. I guess the most famous is ‘The Wreck of the Titan’:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wreck_of_the_Titan:_Or,_Futility
That’s astonishing.
A lot of the ideas written about by science fiction writers eventually come true. The same is true of science fiction TV shows and movies. This one is pretty interesting.
At no point in history has any government ever wanted its people to be defenseless for any good reason ~ nully's son
Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!
To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don't add you to the list...
I keep trying to remember a story from way back when where there was a killer plague and the Chinese were incinerating anyone who lapsed into a coma.Bring Out Your Dead
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
If a quarantine saves just one child's life, it's worth it.
The chicoms should’ve developed a cure FIRST, unless their goal is to thin out the 1.5 BILLION population they have.
That was the first Dean Koontz book I read, years ago, and liked it alot. Since then, I’ve read a lot of his stuff.
Peach
Maybe. Though often such foretelling in pop culture isn’t.
Still, Wuhan as I understand it is the only location of this type of lab in China.
It’s not prophesy. Talented writers can envision what can happen and write about it convincingly. 1984.
What is true for science fiction is also true for nut-job conspiracies.
That's why I have a ping list...
That is creepy....
Me too! I loaned my original copy of the book to a co-worker and lost track of it as it made it’s rounds around work. I bought a paperback version and still have it. He does great work!
Geez, I wonder if they will find find the story in an old Simpson ‘s episode too ?
I’ve read or listened to a whole bunch of Koontz books.
Easy reading..
Never read this one though.
I listen to audio books at work, actually i’m in the middle of Koontz’s Ashley Bell right now.
Have to do this one next...
The Stand...
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