The Post-Antibiotic Era is Here

Guest Post by Chris Holm

Let’s get something straight right off the bat: CHILD ZERO is not a COVID novel. It can’t be, because I’ve been working on it for six years—completing my first draft in January of 2020, when COVID cases still numbered in the hundreds.

And while I’d be delighted to find myself shelved alongside Justin Cronin, Stephen King, and Emily St. John Mandel, the near-future of CHILD ZERO isn’t all that post-apocalyptic, either. Sure, the pillars of society are a little wobbly, but they’ve yet to crumble, and there’s every chance the better angels of humanity may yet prevail.

So what, exactly, is CHILD ZERO? That depends on who you ask.

My publisher, Mulholland Books, describes it as a scientific thriller in the vein of Michael Crichton about our species' next great existential threat—namely, the imminent collapse of the antibiotic era.

Tess Gerritsen, of Rizzoli and Isles fame, called CHILD ZERO “a terrifying look at a world gone mad and the possible plagues to come.”

Chris Holm

Lee Child said it was “really scary” and “highly recommended.”

In their starred review, Publishers Weekly declared it an “alarmingly plausible thriller… fans of Lawrence Wright’s THE END OF OCTOBER won’t want to miss.”

And some other fella from up my way by the name of Stephen King said it’s a thriller that “really thrills” with twists that “go off like a string of firecrackers.” (Say, that’s a snazzy turn of phrase. He might have a future in this business.)

Personally, I like to think of it as a thrilling yarn about a little kid with a big secret that many powerful people would kill to learn—but I won’t deny that I also intended it as a call to action.

See, for years, scientists and medical professionals have been sounding the alarm about the dangers of multidrug-resistant bacteria.

“A post-antibiotic era—in which common infections and minor injuries can kill—far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the twenty-first century,” wrote physician Keiji Fukuda in his foreword to a 2014 World Health Organization report.

“Stop referring to a coming post-antibiotic era,” insisted CDC director Robert Redfield in 2019, “it’s already here. You and I are living in a time when some miracle drugs no longer perform miracles and families are being ripped apart by a microscopic enemy.”

“Unless researchers develop new antibiotics and therapeutics,” cautioned professors Jennie H. Kwon and William G. Powderly in a 2021 editorial for the journal Science, “the decimation of modern medicine will soon become a reality.”

Though their admonitions have garnered coverage from such outlets as BBC News, The New York Times, NPR, Vox, The Washington Post, and Wired, the public at large remains unmoved, likely because they fail to comprehend the enormity of the threat.

It’s not their fault. Widespread antibiotic resistance is a thorny concept, the full ramifications of which are tough for laypeople to wrap their heads around. That’s where I come in.

I’ve been fortunate enough to make my living as a writer for several years, but before that, I was a molecular biologist. I began my career at the University of Virginia’s Department of Internal Medicine, where my research helped identify a molecule that regulates a major virulence factor in the pathogen responsible for amoebic dysentery. Later, while working for a marine biotech startup on the coast of Maine, I discovered a gene in spiny lobster that provided the basis for a United States patent. I then spent several years doing research and development for a Maine-based diagnostic company whose tests help keep our furry friends healthy, and ensure the water on the International Space Station is safe to drink.

My background and experience make me uniquely suited to render, in vivid detail, the terrifying reality of a post-antibiotic world—and, by doing so, educate readers about this looming crisis before it’s too late to avert.

That is the essence of CHILD ZERO.

That is why I spent six years working hard to get it right.

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Chris Holm is the author of the cross-genre Collector trilogy, which recasts the battle between heaven and hell as old-fashioned crime pulp; the Michael Hendricks thrillers, which feature a hitman who only kills other hitmen; thirty-odd short stories that run the gamut from crime to horror to science fiction; and the scientific thriller CHILD ZERO. He's also a former molecular biologist with a US patent to his name. Chris’ work has been selected for THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES, named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and won a number of awards, including the 2016 Anthony Award for Best Novel. He lives in Portland, Maine.

Get yours

Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters

By Steve Weddle

Perhaps missed in the controversy regarding Ben H. Winters's new book, Underground Airlines, is the fact that the man has written a damn good book.

This alternate-history book tells the story of Victor, a former slave who now works for the US Marshals Service tracking down runaway slaves.

The War of Northern Aggression was averted by a compromise that created the "Hard Four" -- four states that still allow slavery while the rest of the country does not. Victor has located more than 200 runaway slaves from the Hard Four and turned over their locations to the Marshals who, for reasons political and practical, use men such as Victor to track down the runaways. All Victor has to do is call in the location of the runaway and the Marshals take care of the recapturing. More than 200 times Victor has done this. But, because this is the story worth telling, this time it's different.

Winters was lauded by one newspaper for being a white man daring to write from the perspective of a black man addressing slavery.

Unlike the new Captain America movie in which White Captain America and White Iron Man are the stars and each character has a Black partner, Winters tells the story from the point of view of the former slave, the man of color.

That brought about quite a discussion online -- and in the real world, I'd imagine -- about white folks writing about minorities, about the media praising white authors doing what authors of color have been doing for years, about whether "daring" was the right word to use, and so forth. Many of those conversations are exactly the sort that we should be having. This is not the post for that discussion, and I am not the guy for the job. My job is to tell you how good Underground Airlines is as a story.

And it is. Damn good. When I would set the book down and head out to the real world, there was always a second or two of adjustment because of how immersed I was in the story. Not because I was tired. Not because my psychiatrists were adjusting my meds again. No. The story felt real. It feld grounded.

Kirkus called the book "Smart and well paced" and that's a pretty good assessment.

Victor is moving towards his prey, and the story develops as normal detective story, for the most part. We get to see the trunk of gadgets Victor uses. We listen in as Victor and his boss talk about "the plan" and so forth. We see Victor getting close and get scared when he nearly gets caught in lies or doing things he shouldn't. See, Victor works for the Marshals Service, but he still has a chip in his neck. He is, effectively, owned by them. As an escapaed slave himself, he was caught and forced into the service of catching other runaways. This is just one of many conflicts within Victor, who is as fully formed a character as I've seen in years.

Victor's original mission ends pretty early on in the novel. And then things really start to pick up. There's a secret out there that only Victor can expose. The book goes from detective novel to crime fiction to thriller to psychological drama and the reader is never the wiser -- because everything feels authentic to the story.

Near the end of the book, Victor is trapped without any way out. And here's where you can really appreciate what Winters is up to. See, the other Winters book I read was The Last Detective, which Fountain Bookstore in Richmond handsold me a couple years back. That showed me what a good writer Winters is. But in Underground Airlines, when Victor is trapped without an escape plan, he runs through a couple. After some thought, he settles on one. Risky, yes. But, he imagines, it could work. Could it? Would it? It's the sort of plan you and I have seen in action movies. Sure it could work. Victor thinks: And maybe it would have worked. We'll never know because a completely bonkers thing happens and the story takes a big turn I didn't see coming. Winters, the man at the desk writing the draft of the story, seems to be saying something like, "Yeah. I could have done that. I could have written that escape. But this is better."

And he's right. And I think he's right about telling the story from Victor's point of view.

On his website, Winters addressed the concerns he knew people would have:

“I approach the possibility of concern with great respect and humility,” Winters tells me, “and with an understanding that there has been a history of white artists appropriating black voices and black works for their own ends. All I can do is stand behind the work.” For Winters, Underground Airlines comes from a place of empathy rather than exploitation. “I hope people will see that my intentions are good,” Winters says. Then he pauses. “Also,” he adds, “intentions aren’t necessarily enough.

It is clear that the discussion of how -- and whether -- we write from different points of view is worth having. I remember posting a few years back about someone who decided to take up a yearly challenge of reading one author from each country on the globe. We've talked at this blog about non-mainstream authors of color who have written amazing books. Gizmodo had a great post about various alternative history novels you might not know.

The world is full of many, many wonderful books from many different voices. Underground Airlines is one of those books.

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Underground Airlines
Author: Ben H. Winters
Hardcover, 336 pages
Published July 5, 2016 by Mulholland Books
ISBN0316261246 (ISBN13: 9780316261241)
Edition Language: English
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Photo of Ben H. Winters. Photo credit: Nicola Goode