IHM Giveaway: Win a Copy of the Book Blindness

Posted by mike
September 14, 2008

UPDATE: This post will remain at the top of the site throughout the giveaway time period. Please scroll down for new posts

We’re giving away two (2) copies of the book Blindness.

The book actually spawned a movie directed by the great Fernando Meirelles that will release on October 3rd.  Blindness is the story of an epidemic of blindness that quickly affects almost everyone in a mysterious city.  When the government gets scared of the epidemic spreading further, they quarantine all the characters that are subjected to it.  The novel follows many of the characters during their time in quarantine and their struggle for survival in the new world that forms inside of the abandoned mental hospital where they’re forced to live.  This revolutionary book by Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago focuses (similarly to Children of Men) on how humans react and their emotions work in a time of crisis.

To enter to win the giveaway, we’ve got a few simple rules.  First (there’s more than one rule.  keep reading after this), you have to be a subscriber to our daily email of our posts powered by Feedburner.  We won’t send you anything more than our updates each day and your email won’t be sold or have tons of spam sent to it.  (Trust us, we hate it too).  If you’re not already on the list, you can sign up for it via the form below:

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The second rule is that you must answer our question posted below in the comments area of this blog post.  You must also be a legal resident of the United States or Canada and have the comment posted before Tuesday, September 30th.

Question: What’s the scariest mass epidemic that you can think of?

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Viewing 18 Comments

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    Realistically, a widespread epidemic of ebola is about the scariest thing I can think of.

    You may not be symptomatic for up to 3 weeks. Transmission can come from direct contact with an infected person (kissing or touching), aerosol transmission (sneezing/coughing), or contact with bodily fluids (uncontrolled vomiting and bleeding is common).

    When symptoms begin to manifest, they include ever, chills, aches, and loss of appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, sore throat, and chest pain. Blood clotting stops, and so those infected begin to bleed from their intestinal tract, internal organs, and skin.

    The capillaries in your skin, eyes, nose, and mouth burst and you begin bleeding from your pores.

    After approximate 2 weeks of considerable pain, blood loss, and the excretion of your lower intestine, death (in 50% to 90% of cases) occurs from massive blood loss.

    There's no cure. Past outbreaks have ended when infected individuals are contained and die off. However, if a widespread epidemic or pandemic were to occur (an infected plane traveling internationally, for instance), there's no telling the damage it could do.

    I can't really think of anything scarier than this. You know those zombies in 28 Days Later that vomit blood on you? That's kind of how it is.

    To read about a real account of an outbreak of ebola in 1989 in Virginia, check out the book The Hot Zone.

    Movies about Ebola: Outbreak

    Alternatively scary: Outbreak of the Cha Cha Slide (part 2)
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    I would say Dementia.

    Dementia is a non-specific illness syndrome (set of symptoms) in which affected areas of cognition may be memory, attention, language, and problem solving. Higher mental functions are affected first in the process. Especially in the later stages of the condition, affected persons may be disoriented in time (not knowing what day of the week, day of the month, month, or even what year it is), in place (not knowing where they are), and in person (not knowing who they are).
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    Apathy. Think about how scary that would be if it were actually something physiologically transmissible. You'd not care enough to go in to work, ignore a baby crying for food, and be unaffected by your wife's crying and pleading for you to just be there. If people were completely unaffected emotionally by their world, think about how horrifying things would get.
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    I vote the Bubonic plague, its pretty darn scary, and is very easily spread. I mean25 million people died in just under five years between 1347 and 1352 in Europe alone and it continued to rise every spring after that when the fleas that carried the disease became un-dormant. I would have to say AIDS is up there to, because it also easily spred because so many people are uneducated about the spread and cause of the disease in third world countries.
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    Dylan I think that is called marijuana
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    The scariest epidemic I can imagine is one that is invisible -- you know, where things start happening to people, animals, and the planet, that can't possibly be explained -- other than through speculation, conjecture, and guesswork. The unexplainable is one of the scariest things to me -- that's why I spend a lot of time reading books and watching movies. If I can escape into that alternate universe of stories, I can forget my own fears for a while.
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    ZOMBIES!!!!! that would be the scariest epidemic. still hands down, zombies roamed the earth from like a nuclear war or mass explosion or something. i know it has been widely overdone, but i still fear the day they move around in packs lol.
    for everyone you lose, they gain, its almost a loosing battle imo. resources become scarce and communication is not guarenteed.
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    The zombie plague is the scariest epidemic I can imagine. The book 'World War Z' is some of the most fun and disturbing zombie fiction to date. I can see I'm not alone either. Zombies would overtake the world's governments before they even knew what they were dealing with.
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    My first thought was ebola, because I think it's the scariest of the real illnesses (but I see that someone else already commented about that). The epidemic from the movie 12 Monkeys was also pretty scary though (as was the one in the movie Outbreak).
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    oh my goodness i cannot believe someone else thought of zombies. the first thing i think about when i read/hear the word epidemic is of what happened in resident evil hehe i think being in danger of becoming a zombie would definitely suck : )
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    something scary are definately zombies!

    but realisticly, I would not want the Black Plague to EVER happen in our society. It's just too scary with 2/3 Europe dying. If it were to happen, breathing the same air with the person you love could mean DEATH

    kiss-of-paradise @ hotmail . com
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    The Third Riech and Holocaust
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    I believe a huge epidemic of VD would be quite terrifying. You meet a nice guy at a bar, have a little fun with him, then the next morning it hurts when you pee and you itch. Not fun times people. People wouldn't even want to kiss for fear of receiving herpes from their friends! Humans wouldn't want to reproduce in fear of passing the diseases to their children. Everyone would be tense from not getting any. It would be a sad sad world.
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    I think the scariest mass epidemic would be one where humans start losing theirs senses (taste, touch, hear, see, smell). Losing one is hard enough too deal with today even with all the advancements that have been made over the years but if everyone was losing multiple ones we'd all go crazy and society wouldn't be able to function properly.
    No tasting or smelling.....
    No hearing or seeing....
    No sense of touch...
    Just trying to image living with any of the combination's is frightening.
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    To me I think the scariest mass epidemic would be if humans had there emotions taken away. Just think of a world where no one would cry, laugh, smile, or anyone that you have loved given that stare knowing that there is life in emotion.
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    jews taking over the world
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    The worst, scariest epidemic I can think of is a very distinct possibility: Influenza. We humans have survived several influenza epidemics, but each one gets worse. It doesn't really respond to any medications, except to treat the symptoms, and that last big flu epidemic was the Hong Kong flu of 1968 which resulted in around 1 million deaths. Earlier in our history, though, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 resulted in anywhere from 40 million to 100 million deaths worldwide. With more and more strains of the flu being resistant to any kind of prevention, the next epidemic (pandemic, actually) could make the Spanish flu epidemic look mild.
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    Winners chosen, thread closed.

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