Amazon sent an email letting me know that this was $1.99 for a day and so I grabbed it with a vague memory of having read numerous Robin Cook books at some point in the 90's. Reviewing Goodreads, the only ones I'd marked as read were [b:Vital Signs|85440|Vital Signs (Dr. Marissa Blumenthal, #2)|Robin Cook|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1315514913s/85440.jpg|2771378] and [b:Terminal|129091|Terminal|Robin Cook|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1399769116s/129091.jpg|124332] although, I've probably read more.

Coma is definitely a snapshot of its time period, with ash trays in the doctor's lounges, overtly sexist attitudes and punch card fed mainframes. But there's also a ton that's familiar from watching so many seasons of ER, Gray's Anatomy and such. The pronunciation of drugs, the hierarchy of a teaching hospital and plenty else.

I don't read pure thrillers that much. And the reissue cover material claims that this was the first medical thriller. There was a really stark line between the medical and the thriller. Roughly the first half was a fairly interesting medical procedural with a growing mystery and the second half was an over the top conspiracy thriller. There's an almost alternate history feel to reading a near future thriller like this 40 years later.

I think my biggest pet peeve was the sloppy head hopping. We see motivations for certain characters as the main character would, even when we're momentarily not seeing things from her point of view. Led to some idiot plotting but it probably could have been worse.

It holds up as a thriller, even though it suffers from a crazy abrupt ending.