The Plague Tales

Dos historias con mas de 500 años de diferencia cuyo principal protagonista es la Peste Negra, dos historias totalmente diferentes al comienzo que a medida que avanzan van teniendo una logica comun. Una de las historias comienza en Londres en el 2005, Janie, Carolina y Bruce se ven envueltos en una peligrosa aventura despues de activar una cepa de Peste extraida en una excavacion y las peripecias que tienen que realizar para no ser detenidos por la policia biológica o morir contagiados. La otra historia comienza en 1348, cuando Alejandro Canches, despues Hernandez, tras huir de Aragón y llegar a Avigñon es enviado por el Papa a proteger a la familia real britanica de la Peste, convirtiendoce en el medico real, enfrentandoce a la enfermedad, a las voluntades palaciegas y descubriendo la cura de la terrible enfermedad antes de huir de Gran Bretaña. Una novela muy bien escrita donde dos historias diferentes van entrelazando los destinos de sus personajes. Preferiblemente leer esta novela primero que "Ruta de Fuego" la segunda parte de "La Plaga"

This book would be great to take on an airplane or to read on the beach if you want an exciting, but not too deep, read. A really clever plot keeps you wondering right from the beginning. Two alternating tales of bubonic plague in the 14th century and disease outbreaks in the 21st century future keep you guessing what the connection between the two tales might be. Both tales are equally fascinating: One is the story of a wandering Jewish physician from Spain who is unwillingly caught up in the political intrigues between Pope Clement and King Edward of England while trying desperately to hide the secret of his past. His experiences of plague in medieval Europe are frightening and grotesque. The other tale is of a woman physician, Janie Crowe, of the near future who has suffered heartbreaking loss due to outbreaks of unspecified diseases that have swept America and threaten Europe. Hysterical fear of these diseases have changed the face of modern civilization--air travelers are forced to wear sterile suits and masks and powerful Bio Cops are authorized to shoot and kill if it is suspected that a citizen harbors disease. Janie is engaged in research in London, and unearths something that has a connection to the 14th century physician.As the book progresses, these separate stories begin to entertwine, bringing us to an interesting conclusion. Benson does a wonderful job of making both stories compelling and equally interesting, and she gives you tantalizing clues concerning how the earlier story will come to bear on the future one. However, a slightly supernatural thread just doesn't fit with the technological bent of the book, weakening it.Inevitably, comparisons will be drawn between this book and "Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis, a Nebula and Hugo award winner which contains the story of Kirin, a student in future London who is mistakenly sent back to a 14th century English village just when plague is breaking out. Like "Plague Tales," the Willis book alternates between the 14th century and England of the future. While superficially similar, "Plague Tales" is much more of a bio-thriller that is a fun book to read once and then pass along to a friend, while "Doomsday Book" is a deeper, more polished book with a stronger emotional impact that you will want to read again and again. Interesting how two different authors can come up with such different takes on a similar subject.

Although I do have several complaints about The Plague Tales and its sequel, the two books are still better than many things out there. People complain about this work like there are so many better works to read, and yet many fail to mention a single other suggestion.... I read this book over a weekend, during a horrible winter storm while my husband who had recentally had two serious surgeries, was very sick with the flu. The combination of constant snow and wind, a total lack of sleep, my husband alternatlly wracked with chills or burning with feaver and unable to keep any kind of food or drink in him made this book more real than I hope to experiance again. I have yet to read a historical book that is compleatly accurate, by the way Hot Zone is truely more fiction than fact, and far less intertaining than The Plague Tales.

I loved the way The Plague Tales alternates between two time periods: the fourteenth century and a near-police state in the early twenty-first century. It's similar in structure to my favorite novel, Katherine Neville's The Eight, even though the time periods are different, and it also reminded me a little of another of my favorite books, Connie Willis' Doomsday Book. Benson's characters are great; I really liked both the main characters, Janie and Alejandro. I read on Ann Benson's Web site that there's going to be a sequel to The Plague Tales; I'm looking forward to it!

As a physician with an abiding interest in medical history, I must commend Ann Benson for a great read. I found no major "boners" in either her historical tale of a fourteenth-century plague doctor, or her understanding of the epidemiology and "natural course" of infectious diseases in general, and plague in particular. Her comment about the overuse of antibiotics, and her dire prediction that antibiotics might someday be rendered totally useless, is dead on target. Multiply-drug-resistant "superbugs" are already appearing in the modern world's hospitals (including the very one where I myself am on staff!); perhaps, therefore, the "Outbreaks" which presage her near-future tale might be about ready to occur. The very pleasant surprise is that Benson also makes a brilliant contribution to a debate that is currently raging among professional epidemiologists and civil libertarians. The best all-around statement of that debate might be, "Resolved: that high-handed quarantine measures, including but not limited to shoot-on-sight rules of engagement, are unnecessary and even counterproductive to preventing or halting the spread of dangerous epidemic or pandemic diseases." Benson argues the affirmative, and is absolutely ruthless. The plague-doctor protagonist of the medieval tale, and some of the "authority" characters in the futuristic tale, create very authoritarian quarantine rules, and then have doubts about their ethics and even their long-term effectiveness. Benson's description of a particularly humiliating and privacy-invasive diagnostic procedure called "bodyprinting" reads, frankly, like a BDSM eroticum--definitely not for the squeamish. And just whom does society have to thank for stopping the resurgent epidemic of plague? Read for yourselves. You will likely never look at "public health" questions in the same way ever again. Here, then, is history, medicine, and political theory, all rolled into one very powerful package. For someone who is not even a physician, this is a truly remarkable achievement, which I recommend to every thinking adult, including professional and layperson alike.