Have I talked to you all about my love for Seanan McGuire’s Toby Daye urban fantasy series? No? Probably because I kept not finding time to do real book reviews, and then I read all of the series that was out and writing truly non-spoiler-y things for books later in the series is hard, so I put it off more, etc., etc. I apologize. When the next one comes out in September, I’ll rectify that, I promise! Short version: I love everything Seanan McGuire writes.
But why am I telling you this? Because I am waiting impatiently for the next Toby Daye book, and Seanan McGuire also happens to write science fiction under the name Mira Grant, specifically the Newsflesh trilogy, starting with Feed. I hadn’t read this, even though it came out a year ago, because I thought, “Eh, zombies aren’t really my thing.” But then I wanted something to read, and Feed was nominated for a Hugo, so it was clearly a sign that I should have faith that my author* wouldn’t write me something bad. She just wouldn’t.
And it was true. Feed was a book I had to stay up late reading. It was a book I had to carry with me all over the house, just to go pour a glass of water, because I didn’t want to put it down long enough to walk to the sink and back. When I finished it, I couldn’t even bring myself to start another book for the rest of the day, because I wanted to savor it. (That last bit is the highest endorsement I can give, really.)
Maybe you are also thinking, “Eh, zombies aren’t really my thing.” But that’s okay! Zombies don’t have to be your thing! The zombies are not the focus of the book. The zombies are just the reason for the setting, how this version of our future developed into what it is. Zombies are there, but they are now a fact of life. Here, the book trailer made to kick off the second book in the series, Deadline, explains the background for the series nicely (and doesn’t give anything away, I promise):
So, short synopsis of Feed: Georgia and Shaun Mason are blog journalists, as mentioned in the trailer. They (and the third member of their blogging triumvirate, Buffy,) get picked to be the first bloggers to actually accompany a post-Rising presidential candidate through his entire campaign, largely because Senator Ryman appears to be more in touch with how the rest of the world actually gets their news now. Georgia is a Newsie, reporting the news from as unbiased a position as possible, prizing facts and truth above all. Shaun, on the other hand, is an Irwin, always after another thrill and adventure to report back to the generally housebound public. And Buffy is their technology whiz, as well as a Fictional, focusing on poetry and stories. (For a more fully defined breakdown of the different types of bloggers in 2040, see here.)
This seems like a pretty awesome gig. The three bloggers are able to break out of “beta” status and set up their own popular site, pulling in massive readership. Their candidate even seems to be a genuinely good guy with the best interests of the nation at heart. (Who would have thought?) But then… things start to go wrong. There’s a zombie attack after one of Ryman’s local campaign speeches, and it looks like the security breach might not have been an accident. Georgia smells a story, and boy, does it turn out to be a big one.
And now I won’t tell you anymore about the actual plot of the book, because I want you to read it. It is the first book in the trilogy, but it ends at a definite stopping point. I’m told the second one ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, so I might wait until the third one is out to read those two back-to-back, but this one you can definitely read now. It’s one of those books that felt like I’d just read something vaguely important when I finished it. Sure, on the surface its premise is a little silly; it is, after all, a future where George Romero became a public hero after his movies turned out to work as instructional films on surviving a zombie apocalypse. But at the same time, it’s saying some really insightful things about the state of news and the media today, not to mention politics, and in a way that I don’t think is likely to become immediately dated to people who read the book years from now.**
Anyway, this was my favorite of all the Hugo-nominated novels this year, and there were some really, really good ones. Let me know what you think.
*Authors count as “mine” when I learn that they never write anything I don’t like, but don’t worry, I’m willing to share. She can be your author, too.
**I am thinking of this in contrast to a specific urban fantasy book that I read just a year after its initial publication that had so many Topical Issues of the Day mentioned that it already seemed really out of touch. Don’t do that.
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