A Spoileriffic Review/Discussion of Mira Grant’s “Feed”
I finished reading Feed [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] by Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire) this week.
The zombie uprising began in 2014, due to a combination of two viruses meant to eliminate the common cold and cure cancer. Everyone is infected: when you die, the virus reanimates you as a zombie. But if you’re bitten/infected by a zombie, that also triggers the transformation, and you’re a walking corpse within minutes.
The book is set twenty-five years after the uprising, and society has adapted (somewhat) to the presence of zombies. Certain territories are more hazardous, and declared off-limits. Blood tests are everywhere. And a trio of bloggers has just been selected to follow and report on presidential candidate Peter Ryman.
One of the key lines for me came early in the book, when Georgia Mason (our protagonist) remarks that the zombies aren’t the story. I can’t remember the exact wording, but that line captures why the book works for me. We’ve all seen story after story about zombie uprisings; Feed is the story of what comes next.
I can see why this book has broken out the way it has. You’ve got classic SF extrapolation of future trends, like Grant’s presentation of the blogging world. You’ve got zombies that make sense (at least moreso than 98% of the zombie stories out there). You’ve got plenty of zombie-fighting action, political intrigue, and nonstop tension. You’ve got relevance in the strong parallel between fear of zombies and our present-day attitudes toward terrorism. And Georgia and her brother Shaun make a great pair of characters, complementing one another beautifully.
I’m about to get into major spoiler territory, so if you haven’t read it, look away now. (To anyone reading on an RSS feed, I’m sorry – I’m not aware of any way to put a cut tag into the feed.)
I love that Grant kills off her first-person protagonist and makes it work. I admit I didn’t see that coming. I got a bit choked up, but it was a great death scene. Georgia’s final blog post, where you can see her mentally succumbing to the virus… whoa.
And that nicely set up our ending, with Shaun going to confront Tate. That scene wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped, but after Georgia’s death, I don’t know that anything could have been cathartic enough. Which I’m guessing is kind of the point, helping the reader empathize with Shaun’s shock and loss.
You know I can’t let any book go without some criticism. In this case, the zombies/terrorism parallels felt a little heavy-handed on occasion. I was also a bit disappointed by our villain Tate. He was flat-out nasty/evil from page one, without much apparent depth. And I was disappointed that both Tate and Buffy claimed to be doing it for God. Both characters are hard-core Christians, so naturally they’re the bad guys. It touches on an attitude I see in our genre from time to time, one that bugs me.
Overall though, it’s an impressive book, and it doesn’t surprise me to see it on the Hugo ballot. From the smaller details like Georgia’s retinal KA to the interspersed blog posts from various characters to the emotional power of the story … Grant did good.
Deadline [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy], the second book in the Newsflesh trilogy, comes out on May 31. McGuire/Grant has been posting some great little snippets on her LiveJournal.
I know a lot of my blog readers have read this book, and I’m eager to hear what you thought!
Teresa
May 28, 2011 @ 10:02 am
Jim,
Thanks for posting this. I’ve been curious about your thoughts on the book. FEED has become one of my favorite books (I am, by nature, a big zombie-story-done-right fan). It works for me on many levels. I’ve started reading Seanan’s earlier Toby Daye books, and I can clearly see how her writing has progressed to the point where she makes FEED so good. I think you’re probably right with regards to Tate–there really isn’t anything likeable about him. I’m not sure I agree with the comments on the Christian characters. I am a Christian, but I see real life so-called Christians like the Westboro Baptist Church, and I can understand why extremists are often painted as villains. Unfortunately.
The heart-wrenching ending never ceases to lose impact for me, having read the book twice, AND listened to the audio (which is extremely well read). It brings me to tears every time.
But more than anything, what I love is the underlying message that the characters didn’t set out to be heroes, just to tell the truth. And Shawn’s answer to the question, “Was it worth it?” is just so believably human.
Jim C. Hines
May 28, 2011 @ 10:12 am
Teresa,
Oh, I agree with you on the WBC. (See here.) And I have no problem with the idea of extremism gone bad, or that hard-core so-called “Christians” can be evil.
But in the book, we see two strongly religious characters, both of whom end up as villains. (Buffy has regrets and conflicts, but given what she’s done, I’m comfortable putting her in the villain side.) In other words, we’re two-for-two with religious = villain.
So I don’t mind Christians, or any religious character for that matter, being painted as villains. It’s when they’re *only* painted as villains that it bugs me, if that makes sense? I don’t believe it’s something she did deliberately, but it is something that bothered me as I was reading.
And yes to Shaun. Getting to read his PoV at the end made Georgia’s death so much more powerful, and the preview of the next book … well, I’m really looking forward to reading it! 🙂
Teresa
May 28, 2011 @ 10:48 am
I picked up DEADLINE yesterday. I can’t wait to start it!
I see what you mean re: the villains. It’s a valid point. In thinking about it, the characters who devoutly espoused Christian rhetoric (right or wrong), ended up on the wrong side. Ryman is said to be Christian, but it’s barely touched on for the purposes of the election, and never really comes into play. Faith itself rarely becomes an issue for the good guys; I’d venture to say that “the truth” is as close to a faith that Georgia gets.
I don’t notice it much, though, largely due to reading Philip Pullman’s Golden Compass series. If there’s ever a series that is more of a beat-down on Christians, I haven’t seen it.
Jim C. Hines
May 28, 2011 @ 11:35 am
I thought about the Rymans too, though like you say, we don’t really see much of their religious beliefs. (Am I remembering right that they do say grace at one point?) But given the political context, I wasn’t sure how much of that was genuine and how much was the fact that you pretty much have to portray yourself as Christian to win the election in this country…
And I’m certainly not saying there aren’t books that hit Christianity and religion in general a lot harder than Feed does. Feed didn’t come off as preachy in that regard, whereas there are some books that feel like they were written specifically to expose the fact that organized religion is EVIL…
Teresa
May 28, 2011 @ 12:02 pm
Yeah, the Emily Ryman says grace before the lunch she serves at the beginning of the campaign trail. I think I got the feeling that the Ryman’s consider their faith a personal thing–at least, in regards to Emily. Peter seems either more ambivalent, or more private, depending on how you view it. His vague response to the woman who asked him about the Rapture (and right now, that cracks me up) kind of set the tone in regards to that. If he’s lukewarm on the issue of religion, then politically speaking (and in theory), selecting a conservative “Christian” as his running mate would make sense.
Cath S
May 29, 2011 @ 10:48 pm
Thanks for the tweet about this review. I think that you are dead on about the ‘Religious True Believers(tm)being shown as villains, unwitting or not. Coming to this as recovering from Buffyhood myself, I think that anyone who places their own choices of morality in the hands of another is indeed a villain. I am not limiting this description to Christians or any other religion, example from the secular world PETA and ALF. I think the issue is that you want to give true Believers ™ benefit of doubt, but they are not able to doubt nor do they wish to question the authority. Not all devout Christians are like this(Tate & Buffy) but when the fear overrides thought & empathy there are a lot. I have found, in the circles that I move in, the more public about religion the more likely to follow a Strong leader.
Kevin Hogan
August 12, 2011 @ 1:21 pm
It’s an old entry, I know. But I thought you should be warned:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44090512/
We’re just about halfway to Kellis-Amberlee. Although it’s the distinctly better half.
Jim C. Hines
August 12, 2011 @ 1:25 pm
I saw that. You know what? Screw the common cold, but if this really does have a shot of curing cancer, I’ll risk the zombies!