Feed / Mira Grant

 

R

4 out of 5 stars

The first book of my SFF Reading Project for the New Year. I am a fan of Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire, so I was looking forward to this novel, despite the fact that I'm less enthusiastic about zombies. I much prefer vampires or the fae (or both).

Nevertheless, Grant's choice of names was fabulous. Georgia, named after George Romero, father of the zombie film. Her brother, Shaun (Shaun of the Dead). Their partner Buffy (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). In a world where traditional media has been replaced by bloggers, known as Newsies, Irwins, and Fictionals. The Irwins are particularly well named, as they actively seek out zombies outside the safe zones and poke them with hockey sticks, much as Steve Irwin used to go looking for snakes and leaping on crocodilians.

If you're really into American politics, you will be in your element here. Grant takes us forward in time from the actual disaster, to see where the society has gone in the aftermath of the Rising. We are given to understand that a cure for the common cold interacted with a viral cancer cure to produce the viral combination that creates zombies. Georgia, Shaun, and Buffy get chosen by a Republican presidential candidate to accompany his campaign and we get to witness the political machinations through Georgia's eyes. And Georgia's eyes are her weak point, as she has a Kellis-Amberlee infection which is contained to her eyes, making her pupils dilate continuously and threatening retinal damage from too much light.

This was published in 2010, which seems centuries ago now, when George W. Bush was president. It was before the enormous chasm developed between the Republicans and Democrats, before many Americans began to seriously distrust the media, and the internet had just recently become a potential force in all aspects of public life. In many ways, like so many apocalypse writers, Grant seems to have interpreted the trends very accurately. She joins authors like Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood with her unsettling depiction of a credibly horrible future.

It's an exploration of the dark areas of American politics: the conspiracy theorists, the home-grown terrorists, the anti-intellectual tendencies of the public, the (perceived) biases of the media, the spin. I try to ignore politics in the US as much as possible, saying (not very convincingly) “It's not my country, not my business.” (A version of Not my monkeys, not my circus). I found the novel to be an engaging read despite this prejudice of mine. I came for the zombies. I stayed for Georgia and Shaun.

Book number 511 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project