I enjoyed it but it felt more sci-fi than the Nuclear War book. Mainly because it centers around a pathogen that is engineered for maximal transmission and it seemed quite unbelievable that so many things that came down to bad luck would all happen at the same time. The Nuclear War scenario seemed a lot more plausible because only a couple of bad things need to happen to set off the chain of events and they all seemed plausible.

I preferred the Nuclear War scenario book. Same style of narrative mixed with expert insights. The first several days of the scenario were riveting, after that less so. This one tries to describe the impact of social media and influencers, which I found inconclusive.

She also reports that Bush rode in the back of a laundry truck on the day of 9/11 to avoid detection getting to the Doomsday plane. Single source attribution, though.

I thought it was better than the Nuclear war scenario, which I also enjoyed. I thought she did a better job in this one explaining possible off ramps or inflection points in the scenario but saying "this is the one we're exploring", which answers some of the critique of the nuclear war scenario.

You're absolutely right! I was excited about this book, having heard Ms. Jacobsen discuss it on a podcast. She was a great guest, and her book is well researched, for sure. Unfortunately, I found the prose unbearable and gave up half-way through. To me, it reeks of LLM. If you can somehow set that aside, you might enjoy it.