Review - BLACKOUT
May. 10th, 2012 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wendyzskiUPDATE - UNLOCKED 5/21
INTRO: This entry is Friends-locked because Barnes & Noble seems oblivious to the concept of "release dates", so I received my pre-ordered copy 2 days ago despite the release date being 5/22. As Seanan/Mira is rather OCD and had a total flipout when her last book 'Discount Armageddon' released early, I notified her webmaster but left it up to them when/whether to tell her. As far as I can tell she is still blissfully unaware, and I think that it is better that she remain so for now. She will find out eventually, but for now let's let her have at least a few less-stress days and good nights of sleep.
WHY DOES THIS MATTER? From reading her blog, I've learned that the book industry has become increasingly more like the movie industry. First-week sales really matter, especially when it comes to hitting numbers like the NYT lists. Since I really like her work, and want companies to give her more money to write more lovely books, I want to do my part and make my purchase count towards those numbers. Since this was The Year of Three E-Readers, I had lots of Barnes & Noble store credit left, so I pre-ordered both Discount Armageddon and BLACKOUT in January. (Ashes of Honor, the next Toby book, is coming out in September but wasn't available for pre-order at the time). Stores like pre-order figures, as they are a great measure of the "buzz" for an upcoming release. My copy of DA wasn't too early, but BLACKOUT was. Usually when books ship early like this, it ends up diluting those critical first week's sales numbers. So from now on I plan to actually go to physical stores and buy books whenever possible - especially for Seanan's work.
So this is why this is F-locked - because I don't want this to be cross-posted or found by her little electronic spiders yet.
Please respect this.
UPDATE: Seanan's lates blog entry says "If you somehow get an early copy, please don't tell me. There's nothing I can do about it, and it'll just raise my blood pressure. But feel free to post a review. Reviews are awesome." So we're still not telling her and I'll unlock this entry on 5/22
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THE SETTING: For those unfamiliar with the Newsflesh books, they are a trilogy of works that take place after The Rising - that summer of 2014 when two genetically-modified viruses with the best of intentions combined in the wild and began bringing the dead back to life. 20% of the world's population died that summer, and while the world didn't end it was profoundly changed in a lot of ways. Some obvious and some less so. During the early days of the outbreak, while the government tried to cover up the story and the traditional media reported stories about student pranks in bad latex makeup, it was the blogoshpere that came into its own. Starting with a CDC researcher who violated security by posting the complete details of 'The Walking Plague' on the only unmonitored place he knew of - the blog of his young daughter Wendy. Bloggers shared the stories of "No shit - dead people are getting up and eating their relatives!". They posted survival tips culled from a score of Romero movies, and the ways that people were trying to protect themselves. Many of them died, but their last posts remain on The Wall, am online memorial to everyone who died trying to save the world.
The best science fiction has always been about people - it uses the tropes of spaceships or zombies to tell us important truths about ourselves. So while yes, there are zombies in these books. They are not the real monsters.
In FEED, a team of bloggers wins the chance to follow the presidential campaign. They encounter a lot more than they bargained for, and discover that there are truths that some people don't want to be told. Not all of them survive.
In DEADLINE, the surviving members of the team - very much 'walking wounded' - are handed what seems like the keys to unlocking the vast conspiracy. But not all is as it seems, and strings are being pulled on both sides.
Since it's impossible to discuss BLACKOUT without revealing some fairly important spoilers about the other two books, this is where the LJ cut comes in. No spoilers for book 3 here - just the other 2.
The book opens with Shaun and his team getting twitchy in hiding with Dr. Abbey and her team of mad scientists. Dr. A trying to work out why K/A is suddenly able to spread via mosquito and how Shaun is now immune. Clone-Georgia is in a CDC facility, playing a deep game for her life while monitored at all times. If you saw the bonus chapter released by Orbit a couple of weeks ago, you know that the CDC has been infiltrated by the EIS, which has made contact with her and seems to want to get her out.
This book is a wild ride from the underground world of ID theft and off-the-grid smugglers' towns, through infected swamps and into the highest corridors of power. We find out everything - why Rick wasn't returning their calls, how Dr. Wynne set them up, what exactly The President knows, who is responsible for the deaths of those with reservoir conditions and the Second Rising. Old enemies become reluctant allies, and lots of people die.
I don't read a lot of conspiracy thrillers - mostly because I find the idea of widespread conspiracy pretty unlikely. The idea that hundreds or thousands of people could be involved for decades without anyone screwing up presumes a level of competency that I just don't buy. Someone would lose their wallet or their laptop, get fed up and quit, sell their story for money or blackmail, tell their sister/daughter/wife, etc. So while I enjoyed this book a lot, I was left a little cold at the end. There is a LOT of string-pulling going on here, from quite a few different directions, aside from 2 plot elements EVERYTHING mostly works out like planned. It just seems awfully convoluted and unlikely that that could happen.
But when I stuff that part of my brain back into a box and sit on it, it really is a great read. Seanan is a detail-fiend, so I expect that I will realize even more breadcrumbs on a second read-through. Characters act consistently with the way they have all along. It's no surprise to anyone who has ever read a book that Georgia and Shaun get back together, and the reaction from the rest of the team is priceless. Shaun has spent the last book and a half more than slightly psychotic and talking to his dead sister out loud, so when she finally shows up he just assumes that it's another hallucination and just runs with it. Possibly his best line in the book is "Wait, you can see her too?". And his crazy just doesn't go away like a convenient plot device when she turns up - he's broken, and while her presence grounds him somewhat he's still pretty damaged. Georgia is dealing with what it means that the person she believes herself to be isn't real, so then what exactly is she (besides a 97% copy). Mahir is still exhausted and desperate for a proper cup of tea. Maggie is loyal to the team but deep down she just really wants to go home. Alaric STILL doesn't have his field license and is slowly going nuts because his only surviving family member is trapped in Florida, which is about to be abandoned. Becks still just wants to find something she can shoot.
Especially as we get to the end, things get wrapped up a little too neatly. Like the others, this is a long book, but the ending still feels a bit rushed to me. I think I would have been happier with a little less atmospheric road tripping and a bit more explanation and justification towards the end, but none of that changes the fact that it's still a hell of a ride. Everyone gets to do something heroic, and while not everyone survives (we learned that in the other two books) those who die do get great death scenes. The plot is foiled, those who survive get more-or-less happy endings, and the coda featuring a still-beleagured Mahir feels true.
I personally feel that BLACKOUT is a better book than DEADLINE but not quite as good as FEED. It's certainly a fitting wrap-up to a great series. I also recommend doing what I did and rereading the other two just prior to tackling this one. There are lots of threads that get wrapped up here, and if you haven't had a recent review of where they get started then parts of this book just plain won't make sense.
Alive or dead, the truth won't rest.
Rise up while you can.
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no subject
Date: 2012-05-11 02:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-11 02:14 am (UTC)Also very much looking forward to being actually able to TALK about this with people.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-11 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-11 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-11 02:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-11 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-21 09:20 pm (UTC)Oh and the alternate ending to Feed that she recently released was fun too.
I do also want to mention that it wasn't just Seanan (from your "Seanan/Mira is rather OCD and had a total flipout when her last book 'Discount Armageddon' released early") being majorly unhappy about early shipping about her previous book, she also got some very nasty emails and threats about the fact that the physical book was being shipped early but the ebook not yet being available (like it was her fault, somehow - idiots) and other such stuff, aside from the numbers. She wrote about that on her blog at the time.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-22 02:09 am (UTC)I remember the nasty people, but I was honestly more worried about her reaction. She really doesn't handle disruptions to her planned schedule at all well.
It's interesting - I'm finding some of the things that annoyed me on 1st reading (the Mason's reversal, Rick's planning) annoyed me less on the second read - possibly because I'm taking more time rather than plowing through to find out what happens next. But the whole Conspiracy of the Mad Scientists still annoys me - so much string-pulling!
no subject
Date: 2012-05-22 11:56 am (UTC)I now live 2 miles further up the road, so it wasn't quite as creepy.
I was just hoping that some stupid people at online retailers weren't going to screw with her numbers AGAIN. It's not difficult, people. There is a reason for a release date.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-22 10:38 pm (UTC)