Nature is always on the move. Evolution over untold generations moves, streamlines, sometimes mutates.

Since the dawn of life there is little doubt that at any given time disease can strike, slowly growing over time or with a sudden instant ferocity that catches any given species in a consuming catastrophe.

The human race has been on the receiving end of many viral and bacterial diseases from the Black Death, to smallpox, polio and a myriad of others that have slaughtered millions in their trail. And as medicine brings them to heel, eradicates their power, so Nature and Evolution brings others to the fore in a ceaseless march to weaken some, to strengthen others.

And, as our race understands their mysteries so we begin to weaponize them for our own malevolent use as biological weapons.

The movement of the Global Pandemic in the modern age is overwhelmingly quick both in reach and transmission. Covid merely the front runner in the early years of this Century.

Authors have always been drawn to this global scale and individual human response. In this collection virus and plague are given their head and the responses must see cure or capitulation within a few short pages.

Edgar Allan Poe, Jack London, Fred M White and H G Wells unleash words and thoughts in four startling tales of war with an unseen enemy.