Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Zombies Over Elves: Feed

Mira Grant is a pen name for Seanan McGuire, who writes the October Daye books.  I've tried a few but never really enjoyed them, a position not shared by many urban fantasy fans since she won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.  When Feed (Newsflesh, Book 1) first came out, I was slightly interested, but then found out that McGuire wrote it, so I figured it wouldn't work for me.  Then Dirty Sexy Books picked it for her December book club, so I ordered it from the library, but just glared at it it until I missed the discussion, and then I read it.  I'm a master of timing, me.

It turns out that I find Mira Grant more readable than McGuire, and I finished the book with enjoyment.  It's a future post-apocalyptic book with zombies and bloggers, which is always fun.  The main characters are a team of young bloggers who win the right to join an aspiring presidential candidate's campaign train.  All bloggers work with a team of three -- an Irwin, a Newsie, and a Fictional.  That way their web page has exciting acts of wild derring-do, solid articles about fact, and never-ending poems and fanfic about the world.  Most of the narration is from George, the newsie, who works with her adopted brother Shaun (the Irwin) and their friend Buffy (tech expert and fictional, real name Georgia, but all small blondes risk the nickname Buffy nowadays).

The three get a chance to wonder about so the land of zombies makes sense, and the conspiracies pile up in an entertaining way.  There aren't too many unexpected twists, except a real bit of authorial courage at the end which I really appreciated.  I had a problem swallowing one development (only our intrepid team of reporters bother to investigate the zombie destruction at the presidential candidate's home) but then I laughed at myself -- if I don't blink at viral zombies, fanfic as a profession, and the elaborate licensing system for poking the recently dead with sticks, why weep at incompetent secret service agents?  Anyway, I will look for the next book in this series.  B+

2 comments:

Linda said...

Feed has a very different feel than the October Daye books. I enjoy both. I too am looking forward to the next in the series.

Beth said...

I'm not sure why I don't like the October books -- they have everything I usually like. Oh well, the problem is probably me.