Amy Lou asked Carl Zimmer:

Would you like to do a sequel to Parasite Rex? BTW I loved that book so much!

Carl Zimmer Thanks! I don't know how other writers feel about sequels, but they make me uneasy. I like to jump to a different subject with each book, although there may be links from one book to another. For "Parasite Rex," for example, I decided to studiously avoid viruses and bacteria, because people are so familiar with them (as opposed to, say, a parasitic worm that turns ants into zombies). But lots of parasites are bacterial or viral. Later, I wrote a book about bacteria ("Microcosm"), and there I spent some time talking about the strategies that parasitic bacteria use to exploit us. And later still, I wrote a book called "Planet of Viruses," where I revisited some of the main themes of "Parasite Rex". So while I don't write sequels, my books do echo each other.

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