Disclaimer: I know the author personally, which may mean I’m biased in favor of awesomeness.
Just finished up Feed, the first volume of Mira Grant’s epic zombie trilogy Newsflesh. If the words “epic zombie trilogy” put you off, you would do well to take a second look — this isn’t a horror hack-n-slash as much as it is a science-fiction political thriller, set in a near-future world transformed by 25 years of dealing with an infection that kills in minutes, then keeps the bodies moving to attack the living…
I grew up reading the science fiction classics: Asimov, Heinlein, Farmer, Niven, McAffrey… What always kept me reading late at night, eyes wide open, was their ability to craft a detailed world, working out the consequences of the big What If, and then tell a great story in it. Grant doesn’t disappoint; her post-Rising world is rich, weaving a gripping story from the societal consequences of a planet that has become quite legitimately paranoid.
Everything from home life to politics to the news and social interaction has been affected… after all, how wouldn’t a world where the dead attack the living be different? Where school safety is about keeping the children from gnawing each others’ faces off? Where it’s illegal to go outside the city without a weapon, or to come back in without uploading your blood test results to the CDC?
Most people stray from their homes as little as possible; online social networks have replaced most “in the flesh” socialization. Blogging, journalism, and reality television have merged as thrill-seekers risk their lives going outside to get the stories… or if they’re unlucky, to become them.
We dive into this world through the eyes of sibling internet journalists Georgia and Shaun Mason. Embedded with Senator Peter Ryman’s 2040 presidential campaign team on a dangerously old-fashioned nationwide tour, what could the Masons possibly uncover that’s more horrifying than the world they already live in?
Pick up a copy of Feed and you’ll find out… if you dare!
You may also enjoy…
If urban fantasy detective mysteries are more your speed, give the October Daye series a try, penned under Grant’s mundane name of Seanan McGuire.
Born to a Fey mother and human father, changeling Toby Daye always seems to end up getting the short end of both sticks. A former private detective trying to lay low after a particularly unpleasant magical transformation, she finds herself drawn back into the tricky — and deadly — games of Fairie politics in San Francisco, where murder spans two worlds…