Bookish Thoughts

I ended up liking Blackout , the third and final book in Mira Grant's Newsflesh  trilogy, much better than Deadline . But still not as much as Feed . I think this is going to end up being one of those trilogies where I just ignore the existence of the second and third books. Like His Dark Materials . I am so glad George was back for this book. I actually considered skipping all of Shaun's chapters and just reading George's. But I decided I'd probably miss too much of the story that way. George is ultimately what kept me going through this trilogy. The science is unbelievable to a point that I ended up writing it off as magic so I could accept the story on its own merits. I mean, clones of dead people being nearly exact matches of the people they're cloned from? Memories and everything? Also sexually transmitted immunities? (That is what Grant was getting at with Shaun, right?) Anyway, Grant did a decent job expanding the conspiracy beyond the first ...

Deadline , the second book in Mira Grant's  Newsflesh  trilogy and sequel to  Feed , was a really difficult book to get through. I actually walked away from it for a couple of weeks because I had so many issues with the main character. But the plot eventually pulled me back and I actually read the last half of the book pretty quickly (and only partly because I have so much time on my hands right now). Shaun takes over the narration of this book after his sister dies at the end of  Feed . While I liked him fine in the first book, being inside his head destroyed most of my goodwill. It's quickly revealed that George's death has driven Shaun insane. He has vivid hallucinations that she's talking to him and he has violent tendencies, striking out at his employees and friends seemingly at random. I don't think these traits would bother me so much except that Shaun recognizes them both as negative things that are driving away his friends and proceeds to do absolutely ...

Mira Grant's Countdown is a novella rather than a proper novel. It's really short. Short enough that I had no problem reading it on my phone. Grant wrote it as a prequel to Feed , and released it in the month leading up to Feed 's sequel, Deadline . Countdown is a prequel, detailing the events that led to the zombie apocalypse and setting the stage for Feed. Countdown relies pretty heavily on dramatic irony. If you've read Feed , you know exactly how and when the zombie rising happens. You're passingly familiar with many of these characters and already know their fates. I think Grant does a good job of using that to ramp up the tension in this book. If you enjoyed Feed (which you should definitely read), give Countdown a try. My only complaint is that it's only available as an e-book (hence my reading it on my phone). I can't put it on my shelf with the rest of the series.

Feed is the first book of the Newsflesh trilogy written by Seanan McGuire under the pen name Mira Grant. The title is a clever double-play on the word. It refers to both the desire of zombies to feast on human flesh and the RSS feeds that many people get their news from, both today and in the near-future of the novel. This book takes place 26 years after the zombie apocalypse. Both sides have survived the initial uprising of the zombies and have managed to find a sort of equilibrium in which they can both continue to live. The main character, George, and her brother, Shaun, are bloggers who report on the zombie situation near their northern California home. But then they get their big break, following the presidential campaign of Senator Ryman, and take off on the road with their friend Buffy. Grant creates a world that is staggering in it's detail. She's thought through security protocol (zombie tests at every door), diet changes (many people have chos...