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FEED - a review
May. 15th, 2010 08:56 pmDamn you Seanan McGuire Mira Grant. I've been weeping since chapter 20-something.
FEED is a zombie book. But like the best zombie books it is not really about zombies at all, but about what a zombie plague does to society. What happens when people finally stop and look around and realize that they at least are still there and that things will never be the same again. In this world people realized that the "traditional media" lied to them and it was the bloggers who told it like it was - how to survive, what worked and what didn't, and to hold people together in a world that fell apart.
But people are people (except the dead ones) and as American society rebuilds itself Our Heroes find themselves covering the Presidential campaign in a world of mandatory blood tests at all doors and if you think today's politics is cutthroat you have no idea what this world is like.
In the end it is a story about truth, about fear, and control and unbearable loss. To summarize one character "Was it worth it? No. But sometimes that's all you can do".
I will confess that it's not "my kind of book" - I'm more of a Toby-stories girl. But I urge people who might not think it's "their kind of book" to read it anyway. There is a lot of unavoidable exposition early on because this is a well-thought-out and detailed world, but hang in there. The "Seanan Voice" is still clear in the writing - the characters are impossibly sarcastic and witty and the phrase "poking it with a stick" got a little overused.
But these are minor stylistic quibbles about a richly-detailed landscape of post-zombie America, where crowds can be deadly, good people can die, you are only as good as your most recent upload and somehow life goes on after The Rising.
When will you Rise?
FEED is a zombie book. But like the best zombie books it is not really about zombies at all, but about what a zombie plague does to society. What happens when people finally stop and look around and realize that they at least are still there and that things will never be the same again. In this world people realized that the "traditional media" lied to them and it was the bloggers who told it like it was - how to survive, what worked and what didn't, and to hold people together in a world that fell apart.
But people are people (except the dead ones) and as American society rebuilds itself Our Heroes find themselves covering the Presidential campaign in a world of mandatory blood tests at all doors and if you think today's politics is cutthroat you have no idea what this world is like.
In the end it is a story about truth, about fear, and control and unbearable loss. To summarize one character "Was it worth it? No. But sometimes that's all you can do".
I will confess that it's not "my kind of book" - I'm more of a Toby-stories girl. But I urge people who might not think it's "their kind of book" to read it anyway. There is a lot of unavoidable exposition early on because this is a well-thought-out and detailed world, but hang in there. The "Seanan Voice" is still clear in the writing - the characters are impossibly sarcastic and witty and the phrase "poking it with a stick" got a little overused.
But these are minor stylistic quibbles about a richly-detailed landscape of post-zombie America, where crowds can be deadly, good people can die, you are only as good as your most recent upload and somehow life goes on after The Rising.
When will you Rise?
