Top 12 Fiction Books About Pandemics Updated 04 /2024

In the last few weeks, the coronavirus pandemic has spread all over the world. Many people have been forced to stay at home to stay healthy and avoid getting sick. Though movies like Steven Soderbergh's 2011 thriller "Contagion" are getting a second chance because of their timely storylines, books about epidemics are also getting a second chance because of the health crisis.

In the last few weeks, the coronavirus pandemic has spread all over the world. Many people have been forced to stay at home to stay healthy and avoid getting sick. Though movies like Contagion, which was made by Steven Soderbergh in 2011, are getting a second chance because of their timely storylines, books about epidemics are also getting a second chance because of the health crisis.

If a character has to stay inside because they can't afford to go outside, or if scientists have to deal with an epidemic caused by an extraterrestrial microorganism, a lot of books have looked at the idea of a pandemic-wrecked world.

'The Andromeda Strain'

Michael Crichton wrote The Andromeda Strain (Vintage) in 1969. It's about a group of scientists who have to deal with an unknown extraterrestrial microorganism that causes an epidemic. Residents of an Arizona town are terrorized by a deadly phenomenon after a military space probe sent to collect organisms from the upper atmosphere crashes to Earth. Only an elderly drug addict and a newborn baby are left alive. The U.S. government then has to use Project Wildfire, which is a top-secret emergency response plan. As soon as the crisis came up, scientists were scrambling to understand and contain it. New York Times best-selling author Daniel H. Wilson will write a sequel to Michael Crichton's book The Andromeda Evolution, which will be called "The Andromeda Evolution." Crichton's wife Sherri gave the go-ahead for Wilson to write about the evolution of Andromeda, which will be called "The Andromeda Evolution."

'Bird Box'

Josh Malerman's 2014 book (Harper Collins) may be on the edge of horror and thriller, but the story has a lot to say about the world we live in now. Sandra Bullock stars in the Netflix film version of the story, which is about an epidemic in which people become violent when they see a mysterious thing. As they live in an abandoned house near the river, a few survivors remain. They can't go outside without fully seeing what's out there. Malerman's story shows a dark picture of a world that can't be exposed to the outside world because of the coronavirus pandemic. This seems to be a foreshadowing of the social isolation that many people have to do because of the virus. Malerman is also going to write a sequel to Bird Box called Malorie.

'The Stand'

Stephen King has a way of scaring people with his scary stories, and this 1978 book (Doubleday) could get a lot of new attention because it has a plot that is very similar to the current pandemic. Patients are being tested in this book, and one escapes. Unbeknownst to them, they are carrying an altered strain of superflu that could wipe out 99 percent of the world's people in a few weeks. 108-year-old Mother Abagail and "Dark Man" Randall Flagg, a man who likes chaos and violence, become two of the leaders of the public, which is afraid of what might happen. Mother Abagail and Randall Flagg are two of the choices that the survivors have to make. They also have to decide what will happen to all of us. King's best-selling post-apocalyptic book will be turned into a TV show. It was announced in early 2019 that CBS All Access had ordered 10 episodes of King's book right away.

'The Plague'

Albert Camus' 1947 book, The Plague (La Peste), has a title that fits right in with today's world. His book, which has been called a classic of literature, tells the story of a plague that spread through the French Algerian city of Oran and killed a lot of people. Once the epidemic has set in, it stays in the minds of the people in the town until February of the next year. Edistat, a French book stats website, says that sales of the book in France have gone up about "300 percent" over the last year. It has also led to a lot of articles about "What We Can Learn (and Shouldn't) from Albert Camus' The Plague" during the coronavirus.

'The Companions'

Katie M. Flynn's book came on time. On March 3, Simon & Schuster published The Companion, a book about a virus that is very contagious. California is under quarantine after the virus spreads. There are many ways for the dead to walk around, from "sad rolling cans to bodies that can be made to look like people." In a new "companionship" program, people can choose to upload their consciousness before dying so that their families can keep them. This means that people can stay with their families after they die. People who are less fortunate are given away to strangers when they die, but all of their companions become the intellectual property of the Metis Corporation, which creates a new class of people who have no legal rights or true free will. Flynn's dystopian story looks at the idea of a world ravaged by a pandemic, which happens to be published at the same time as the coronavirus.

'Station Eleven'

Emily St. John Mandel's book Station Eleven (Knopf) was released in 2014. But the storyline of the book is very similar to the pandemic that is going on now, even though the book was written in 2014. People who are famous in Hollywood die when they have heart attacks during a play about King Lear, according to the story told by the author. There is a pandemic of swine flu called "Georgia Flu," which turns out to be a myth. Most people die. Almost immediately, the story shifts to show life before and after the virus spread.

'The American Plague'

Journalist Molly Caldwell Crosby has written a book called The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic That Shaped Our History (Penguin Random House). In the book, she tells the story of the infectious disease, which has paralyzed governments, quarantined cities, and shaped the country. To find out how yellow fever spread and do one of the most controversial human studies in history, the U.S. sent three doctors to Cuba in 1900 to study yellow fever. A book called The American Plague tells the story of yellow fever and how it spread across the United States and Africa. Every year, it kills people.

'The Eyes of Darkness'

Dean Koontz's The Eyes of Darkness (Pocket Books) is almost 40 years old, but the book is getting attention again. During the coronavirus, a picture of one of the book's pages went viral, and many people wondered if the author had foreseen what would become known as COVID-19. There was a virus called the "Wuhan 400" that killed a lot of people in 1981. In his book, Koontz wrote that it was a "very severe pneumonia-like illness" that attacked the lungs, bronchial tubes, and "resisted all known treatments."

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