(no subject)
I finished another non-challenge book today: Feed by Mira Grant. It's the first in the Newsflesh "trilogy" (five books and more to come), and I really liked it. Political intrigue, virology, murder, two siblings looking out for each other, science fiction, and zombies!
So basically, the cure for the common cold and the cure for cancer -- both viruses -- got together and created something entirely new that restarts a mammal's nervous system when the body dies and shuts down. This is how the zombies happened in 2014, and it explains how it spreads. Now it's 2039, and the protagonists are bloggers who run a news site. Bloggers have gained credibility as a source of news since the dead started walking: the official news sources were denying anything was going on, but the bloggers, who weren't being censored, spread information on self defense and what was really happening. The siblings and their business partner are invited to join a senator on the campaign trail as he runs for President of the United States.
I love the world building, the research that went into the causes and effects of the Rising, the strong brother-sister relationship, and the plot that kept me guessing right up to the end. It's occasionally graphic, but not as gory as you might think a zombie book would be because this isn't an origin story. The world changed a generation before the events in this book; there are security protocols, quarantine areas, and defense mechanisms, and the world has had twenty-five years to learn and adapt. But people are still people, and shit happens.
I have yet to read any other books in this series, but I hope to get my grubby little paws on them this weekend. Once I started, I wanted read this 599 page book in one sitting, and I needed Kleenex before I finished. Twice. If I like the other books, there's a complete volume coming out in June with the three main novels and some in-between novellas.
So basically, the cure for the common cold and the cure for cancer -- both viruses -- got together and created something entirely new that restarts a mammal's nervous system when the body dies and shuts down. This is how the zombies happened in 2014, and it explains how it spreads. Now it's 2039, and the protagonists are bloggers who run a news site. Bloggers have gained credibility as a source of news since the dead started walking: the official news sources were denying anything was going on, but the bloggers, who weren't being censored, spread information on self defense and what was really happening. The siblings and their business partner are invited to join a senator on the campaign trail as he runs for President of the United States.
I love the world building, the research that went into the causes and effects of the Rising, the strong brother-sister relationship, and the plot that kept me guessing right up to the end. It's occasionally graphic, but not as gory as you might think a zombie book would be because this isn't an origin story. The world changed a generation before the events in this book; there are security protocols, quarantine areas, and defense mechanisms, and the world has had twenty-five years to learn and adapt. But people are still people, and shit happens.
I have yet to read any other books in this series, but I hope to get my grubby little paws on them this weekend. Once I started, I wanted read this 599 page book in one sitting, and I needed Kleenex before I finished. Twice. If I like the other books, there's a complete volume coming out in June with the three main novels and some in-between novellas.