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starladyGrant, Mira. Feed. New York: Orbit Books, 2010.
I feel like I spend a lot of these introductory paragraphs disclaiming any particular interest in whatever trend/subgenre of which the book I'm talking about is part, and I should stop doing that. That said, this is the first zombie book I can recall reading, and I enjoyed it. It's also been nominated for a Hugo Award for best novel, and looking at the ballot, I wouldn't be disappointed to see it win. Here's something I should disclaim: I am acquainted with the author, which is part of why I read this book, but not why I liked it.
I remember reading at one point, some years ago, in Newsweek an anonymous quote from some Hollywood screenwriter who claimed to have written a script very similar to The Matrix, except that unknown script didn't have kung fu. Feed, the first book in a trilogy (Deadline is out as of last week), takes the time-honored zombie apocalypse concept and marries it to some very well thought-out explorations of what journalism, and U.S. society, would look like 26 years after the zombie apocalypse, or as it's called, the Rising. If one half of the sibling duo of bloggers, Georgia Mason, the book's narrator, is named for George Romero, it shouldn't have taken me so long to realize why her brother Shaun Mason has the name he does.
Georgia and Shaun are the heart and soul of their news site, two beta bloggers looking to move up to alpha, which they're sure they will do when a Republican presidential hopeful selects them as the bloggers to come along and cover his campaign. They quickly get much more than they bargained for--but all the ratings gold they could want--when the campaign develops a tendency to attract suspiciously well timed outbreaks of the Kellis-Amberlee virus, which turns humans into flesh-eating zombies, and it becomes clear that those suspicions are well-founded.
So, I liked the book. Like Grant's other books as Seanan McGuire, it's narrated by a tough female lead with a no-nonsense approach to life, and it's quite suspenseful. I also appreciated the strong world-building with which Grant's interest in epidemiology has allowed her to endow the story. It's de rigeur (I almost said de rigor) by now that the zombie apocalypse will be caused by a virally-delivered cure for the common cold or for cancer gone horribly wrong, but Grant actually takes the time to think about what that would mean, both biologically and socially, and I found much of her vision scarily plausible. The other thing is that reading this book in public spaces will make you uncomfortably aware of the number of people around you and how, in an outbreak situation, you would be so very likely to wind up as one of the undead, which guarantees an unpleasantly unsettling reading experience.
I liked Georgia and Shaun a lot too, as well as the various members of their news site staff, and that in the end was what sealed the deal for me. It's a thought I have that the books I read rarely depict a truly close relationship among adult siblings, let alone between brother and sister, and sibling relationships--and by extension, family--are certainly one of my personal "sore tooth" themes; I found what Grant did here to be fascinating and wrenching. Georgia and Shaun love each other too much in many ways, and not enough in at least one other, and they make a frighteningly effective team. I also thought that Grant earned the ending, the exact details of which I won't spoil but which certainly took guts and tenacity to write. I'll be picking up Deadline when I get a chance, since the news cycle doesn't end, and neither does the potential for an outbreak.
I embed the (non-spoilery) trailer for the first two books below:
Happy hunting.
I feel like I spend a lot of these introductory paragraphs disclaiming any particular interest in whatever trend/subgenre of which the book I'm talking about is part, and I should stop doing that. That said, this is the first zombie book I can recall reading, and I enjoyed it. It's also been nominated for a Hugo Award for best novel, and looking at the ballot, I wouldn't be disappointed to see it win. Here's something I should disclaim: I am acquainted with the author, which is part of why I read this book, but not why I liked it.
I remember reading at one point, some years ago, in Newsweek an anonymous quote from some Hollywood screenwriter who claimed to have written a script very similar to The Matrix, except that unknown script didn't have kung fu. Feed, the first book in a trilogy (Deadline is out as of last week), takes the time-honored zombie apocalypse concept and marries it to some very well thought-out explorations of what journalism, and U.S. society, would look like 26 years after the zombie apocalypse, or as it's called, the Rising. If one half of the sibling duo of bloggers, Georgia Mason, the book's narrator, is named for George Romero, it shouldn't have taken me so long to realize why her brother Shaun Mason has the name he does.
Georgia and Shaun are the heart and soul of their news site, two beta bloggers looking to move up to alpha, which they're sure they will do when a Republican presidential hopeful selects them as the bloggers to come along and cover his campaign. They quickly get much more than they bargained for--but all the ratings gold they could want--when the campaign develops a tendency to attract suspiciously well timed outbreaks of the Kellis-Amberlee virus, which turns humans into flesh-eating zombies, and it becomes clear that those suspicions are well-founded.
So, I liked the book. Like Grant's other books as Seanan McGuire, it's narrated by a tough female lead with a no-nonsense approach to life, and it's quite suspenseful. I also appreciated the strong world-building with which Grant's interest in epidemiology has allowed her to endow the story. It's de rigeur (I almost said de rigor) by now that the zombie apocalypse will be caused by a virally-delivered cure for the common cold or for cancer gone horribly wrong, but Grant actually takes the time to think about what that would mean, both biologically and socially, and I found much of her vision scarily plausible. The other thing is that reading this book in public spaces will make you uncomfortably aware of the number of people around you and how, in an outbreak situation, you would be so very likely to wind up as one of the undead, which guarantees an unpleasantly unsettling reading experience.
I liked Georgia and Shaun a lot too, as well as the various members of their news site staff, and that in the end was what sealed the deal for me. It's a thought I have that the books I read rarely depict a truly close relationship among adult siblings, let alone between brother and sister, and sibling relationships--and by extension, family--are certainly one of my personal "sore tooth" themes; I found what Grant did here to be fascinating and wrenching. Georgia and Shaun love each other too much in many ways, and not enough in at least one other, and they make a frighteningly effective team. I also thought that Grant earned the ending, the exact details of which I won't spoil but which certainly took guts and tenacity to write. I'll be picking up Deadline when I get a chance, since the news cycle doesn't end, and neither does the potential for an outbreak.
I embed the (non-spoilery) trailer for the first two books below:
Happy hunting.