#3 - Biohazard by Ken Alibek
This one was a bit of a surprise. I've been interested in epidemics and epidemic agents, and so when I checked this one out of the library, I wasn't expecting to write this up here. I knew Alibek was a defector from the Soviet Union, and that he had been very high up in the bioweapon hierarchy, so I assumed he was a white Russian guy.
Assumptions are dangerous. Ken Alibek is an Americanization of Kanatjan Alibekov, and he is a native of Khazakastan. He doesn't talk much about being different from the rest of his colleagues, but it's still really easy to pick him out in his platoon graduation photo. It may be that he was just that good, so he didn't picked on, or he was studious enough not to notice too much, or he just didn't care to talk about institutionalized racism in a book about his work. He does mention that his daughter got teased in school. Not much, because it was a company town, and her father was known to be the head of the lab complex, but enough to read between the lines and see some not-good times for Mira.
Alibekov himself did his level best to be a New Soviet Man, and succeeded at that beyond what he expected. He was on the top levels of the Soviet hierarchy for biological and genetics work, well-respected by his peers and subordinates, and the second-highest ranked Khazak in the Soviet military. Of course, he and his brains earned all of this by engaging in illegal weaponization of biological agents.
If you like this sort of thing, it's absolutely fascinating. However, I know that it's nightmare fuel for others, so I won't go into details about it. I just love the fact that I stumbled upon a PoC book by accident. (There's also a PoC main author on my current ebook, Smallpox and its Eradication, but since it's one out of five main authors, I won't review it here.)
Assumptions are dangerous. Ken Alibek is an Americanization of Kanatjan Alibekov, and he is a native of Khazakastan. He doesn't talk much about being different from the rest of his colleagues, but it's still really easy to pick him out in his platoon graduation photo. It may be that he was just that good, so he didn't picked on, or he was studious enough not to notice too much, or he just didn't care to talk about institutionalized racism in a book about his work. He does mention that his daughter got teased in school. Not much, because it was a company town, and her father was known to be the head of the lab complex, but enough to read between the lines and see some not-good times for Mira.
Alibekov himself did his level best to be a New Soviet Man, and succeeded at that beyond what he expected. He was on the top levels of the Soviet hierarchy for biological and genetics work, well-respected by his peers and subordinates, and the second-highest ranked Khazak in the Soviet military. Of course, he and his brains earned all of this by engaging in illegal weaponization of biological agents.
If you like this sort of thing, it's absolutely fascinating. However, I know that it's nightmare fuel for others, so I won't go into details about it. I just love the fact that I stumbled upon a PoC book by accident. (There's also a PoC main author on my current ebook, Smallpox and its Eradication, but since it's one out of five main authors, I won't review it here.)