Book Review: "Feed" by Mira Grant
Sep. 10th, 2010 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jpskewedthroneFeed is a post apocalyptic zombie novel, and it's a damn good one. The writing is so smooth and easy to read that you're swept along on the ride with little effort on your part and as a consequence you get caught up in all of the action. The author, Mira Grant, also writes under the name Seanan McGuire, and I've read the other books currently out under that name . . . and this book is better. It is, by far, the best book that Seanan/Mira has written, which is saying quite a bit. I also expect to see greater things for Seanan/Mira in the future, including the sequels to Feed and the upcoming October Daye novel An Artificial Night.
The interesting thing about this book is that it is set AFTER the apocalypse. Unlike every other zombie novel I've read, we aren't thrust into the zombie attack as it first begins. Instead, the zombie attack happened years ago, and we get to see how the world not only survived, but how it had to adjust to the presence and threat of zombies in the world, because they're here to stay. And guess what? Their existence is our own fault. So instead of following a bunch of characters as they try to survive the zombie outbreak, we get to see the adapted world, and THAT is what's interesting here. The world goes on, including news reports on the upcoming presidential race and election.
That's where the heart of the novel is: following three blog reporters as they become part of a presidential campaign. And as with most political stories, we have betrayal and intrigue and conspiracies. The fact that the world is infested with zombies is a backdrop to this main story. The setting--the world after the zombie apocalypse--is essential to the story, but it isn't the story itself.
I'd strongly recommend this bood to anyone who enjoys zombies, political thrillers, or anything along those lines from the fiction section. It reminds me most strongly of Stephen King's novels, although it is not a rip-off of any of Stephen King's books. I will definitely be reading the sequel, Blackout, when it comes out.
The interesting thing about this book is that it is set AFTER the apocalypse. Unlike every other zombie novel I've read, we aren't thrust into the zombie attack as it first begins. Instead, the zombie attack happened years ago, and we get to see how the world not only survived, but how it had to adjust to the presence and threat of zombies in the world, because they're here to stay. And guess what? Their existence is our own fault. So instead of following a bunch of characters as they try to survive the zombie outbreak, we get to see the adapted world, and THAT is what's interesting here. The world goes on, including news reports on the upcoming presidential race and election.
That's where the heart of the novel is: following three blog reporters as they become part of a presidential campaign. And as with most political stories, we have betrayal and intrigue and conspiracies. The fact that the world is infested with zombies is a backdrop to this main story. The setting--the world after the zombie apocalypse--is essential to the story, but it isn't the story itself.
I'd strongly recommend this bood to anyone who enjoys zombies, political thrillers, or anything along those lines from the fiction section. It reminds me most strongly of Stephen King's novels, although it is not a rip-off of any of Stephen King's books. I will definitely be reading the sequel, Blackout, when it comes out.
