Virus: The Day of Resurrection Hardcover – December 4, 2012

This is the original novel by Sakyo Komatsu that was adapted into the 1980 movie "Virus" (Fukkatsu no Hi).I was only a child when I watched it and since then my appreciation for any kind of catastrophical movies never lessened, especially those involving viruses and the likes . That is to say, the fascination that movie played on my imagination!When I found out that finally the original novel had been translated in English, I rushed to get the book as soon as possible.And the wait was all worth it: the story is enticing from start to end to read and follows step-by-step, deep in details, the plot portrayed in the movie.There are some minor tweaks in the names, the major one being the disease name, that goes by "Tibetan flu" instead of the more impressive "Italian flu" like it was in the movie but, apart from that, I have no complaints at all.A masterpiece I highly recommend to every science fiction reader, in particular those with a thing for disasters.

Pre-dating The Andromeda Strain and The Stand by several years, Virus shows how the world falls apart due to mass extinction and the efforts of survivors in Antarctica to try and maintain a society. The first 250 pages introduce many characters who shortly die, showing just how widespread and deadly the disease really is. You don't get attached to them, because they die so fast, which is the point: the disease takes everything and is unstoppable. The last 100 pages are more of a thriller, allowing you to finally get into the head of one of the characters and how this desperate band of survivors tries to stop final armageddon when it is learned of doomsday systems that will automatically launch nuclear missiles, with some that may be aimed at Antarctica. This book was written by a man who was born in 1931. In the years since his birth, he would have witnessed the rise and fall of his native Japan's empire, the horror of nuclear weapons, and the efforts of his countrymen to rebuild after total annihilation. That's reflected in this book. Not a race against time thriller, not a clash of good vs. evil. This book is about how fragile, and yet how strong, the human race is. Highly recommmended. I only hope more of Sakyo Komatsu's work will finally become available in the years to come.

This rare 1964 Sakyo Komatsu classic award winning “ Apocalyptic Classic Japanese Sci-Fi” novel is in perfect / mint “ like new” condition!’ I am stunned and thrilled to have found this great bookseller to get this hard-to-find Classic!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Reading this book in the early stages of the Ebola outbreak may not have been my smartest choice._Virus_ is grim, bleak, exciting, and even a little over the top campy--not quite in equal measure (it's mostly grim). Instead of a viral outbreak turning most of the world's population into rampaging zombies, an outbreak kills just about everybody. And rather than taking the post-apocalyptic moment as its starting point, Komatsu attends at great length to collapse of human civilization. In grand Cold War fashion, the militaries and governments of the US, Soviet Union, Great Britain, Japan, and others are tripping over themselves and each other (in ways I can't specify without revealing too much). Scientists make a variety of almost-right guesses in their efforts to stop the disease.My biggest complaint with the book is a handful of long, very pedantic lectures about science, philosophy, history, and politics. As often happens with science fiction, the science both matters and doesn't--if you're a geneticist or microbiologist, I can imagine there are all kinds of problems that most of us wouldn't recognize. But it seems at times as though Komatsu wants to bury any problems with the science (or philosophy or history) in words words words! You can skim those parts and probably won't miss a lot.That, and 1960s gender politics. Don't be surprised.

A very chilling take on the virus apocalypse trope.Ive read a lot of apocalyptic novels so far, and this one, despite its age, ranks among the top books in the genre imho. A much read for any apoc fan.

I'll be returning this book within the next two hours. I'm that disappointed with it. Don't get me wrong, the writing is pretty impressive and stylistic, but the plot is disjointed. The dialogue is incredibly rambling but occasionally moving and insightful. Still, the moving and insightful parts are too few and far between, and plenty of them are dated to the col war era. It's a pandemic narrative that is pretty impressively researched, but there are dozens of similar stories which are just as good and with far better plots. Pretty much everyone who appears in this book is just here to preach the authors opinion and then die. Even the so-called main character is barely in a fifth of the book. The narrative at the end in Antarctica with the missile system is the only interesting part of the book and its rushed and lacking in detail or character depth. I wouldn't recommend this book except as a cure for insomnia.

きっかけは YouTube で見つけた仏語字幕のついた映画であったのですが…。小松左京氏のものは初めてです。原作と英語版を入手し云わんとする処を読み取ろうと数回読み直しています。これは所謂 SF ではないと思うし…後付け的にイヤラシく考えれば脚本のネタというもので、悪くはない。単なる小説としての見方をすれば少なくとも二倍程度の語数が必要であったと考えられます。フィクションなのですからきちんとした背景、必要な筈のテクニカルな造形が抜け落ちているという気がします。綿密な取材の結果のうちの数％を活かすというようなアプローチが欲しかったかな。翻訳されていれば原作の問題点は無意味化しますからプロット自体に興味があって紐解かれる方は言語の問題がなければ原作よりもこちらから入られるのが適当と存じます。