Monday, October 10, 2011

Feed by Mira Grant aka Seanan McGuire

Alright - first off - the book is fantastic, a great light read and more about that later.  How dare I publicise an author's real name after they wrote under a pseudonym? Well, apparently it's an open pseudonym specifically for "horror." 

Given there's nothing quite like tying up loose ends it's probably worth noting Seanan won the John W Campbell award for best new writer in the Hugo Awards here  and Feed has been getting some great press and this is why...

The characters are fun.  The premise is amazing.  The writing is sharp and to the point, and if the characters aren't up to the hips in danger then there are interesting emotional diversions and the story is making little snide commentaries on the American electoral system (at a level that's not too hard for even foreigners to follow - so long as they've watched maybe a couple of episodes of the Daily Show).

Georgia and her brother Sean grew up with Zombies, their adoptive parents pushing them into the life of the media, not of glitz so much as dangerously living a life as close to that children would have enjoyed before life became too dangerous for people to frivolously risk going outside.  A dangerous life.  And all for the ratings.

Now the siblings plan to become blogging stars with their own network, Sean as an "Irwin" (yes, that's right obviously a tip of the hat to old Stevo), his job is to keep his followers happy with exciting footage of himself getting into dangerous situations.  Georgia on the other hand is a "newsie" and she's only interested in the truth, keeping her readers appraised of what it going on in her part of the world.

To kick-start their career Georgia applied to follow a prominent politician.  It was their chance to make the big time.  But it wasn't the easy gig they expected. The problem is that while poking zombies with sticks is very very very (etc) dangerous - telling the truth is positively suicidal.  Especially where politics is involved...

ok that'll do.

Read it.

And don't worry- a zombie never, ever, ever says "brains". And it's not really what I'd classify as horror either - maybe adventure horror?







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