Feed, by Mira Grant

Posted by: Redhead on: August 24, 2012

• In: Mira Grant | Seanan McGuire
• 12 Comments

Feed, by Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire)

published in 2010

where I got it: library

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Feed isn’t a zombie book. It’s an anti-fear, anti-stupid, pro-truth and pro-common sense story that’s cleverly disguised as a zombie book. It’s a story about the power of information, the power of censorship, and the paralyzing power of fear. The obsession with security and  blood testing is a mirror held up to our fears of terrorism, catching diseases, and general anxiety about, well, everything.  At times, Feed reminded me of some recent Cory Doctorow books, and that’s also a good thing.  Also, I find the title highly amusing as some nice wordplay on what the zombie virus makes a (dead) person do, and what we call a chronological listing of blog updates.

Feed is my first zombie book, so I could be completely wrong thinking most zombie books take place during the zombie outbreak, and focus on survival. The first trick that Mira Grant flawlessly pulls off is setting her story nearly a generation after the original zombie outbreak. We’re twenty some years into it, and cities have strict security,  blood testing for the virus is nearly everywhere, and society seems to run on a healthy dose of government promoted fear.

In Mira Grant’s future Earth, it was the combination of two supposedly harmless viruses that caused the zombie apocalypse. Trick number two that she pulls off is medical infodumps that are actually interesting. Bah interesting, they are downright fascinating. Everyone is infected with a sleeping version of the virus, and when you die, the virus comes alive, reanimating you.

Georgia (she goes by George) Mason and her brother Shaun are news bloggers.  Twenty years and a zombie apocalypse hasn’t changed how the “pro” media views bloggers, as in George and Shaun fly under the radar, do their own thing, and are overtly looked down upon by the more professional media.  When the Mason siblings win a chance to work with a Republican Senator who is running for President, this could be their chance to change how the world views independent news bloggers.   Many of the chapters end with blog entries, and I just loved those.

But this isn’t just any presidential campaign. In the time of zombies, security guards carry portable blood testing units, vehicle caravans are bullet proof, and you wear your kevlar under your evening wear.

To add to the fun, Georgia has a rather unique medical condition: she has a version of the virus in her eyes, making her very sensitive to light, and making her test a false positive on some of the cheaper virus testing gear.  For a bit there, I got annoyed that her eye condition seemed to come into every single conversation, and every single interaction with nearly every other character. But then I began viewing it as a handicap, and I realized that for someone who is blind, or someone who is in a wheelchair, their handicap probably is a part of every aspect of their lives, especially when they may need to get up or down a flight of stairs, fill out a form, or reach the right button in an elevator.

And then there is the last trick that Mira Grant pulls. It’s a trick that I’ve seen successfully done only once before, and if you’ve read Feed, you know what I’m talking about. It’s a mean, cruel thing she does, and she does it so well, and so flawlessly, that I had to be okay with it.
Feed has interesting characters and an fascinating, unique premise. That’s great and all,  but did I enjoy it?

I loved the first hundred pages. I appreciated the pop-culture jokes, I loved the medical infodumps. And I almost cried at the end.

But man, those four hundred pages between the beginning and the end sure took forever. Tons of scenes of Georgia and Shaun’s every day doings and some technobabble that even they don’t understand. Their discovering that some of the people who work for them are maybe a little deeper than everyone thought.  Random interactions with zombies, random interactions with humans. Politicians smiling and shaking hands and getting interviewed. Georgia having to explain her eye condition, again. More blood tests. More dialog about Shaun taking unnecessary risks. Much of the character interaction was starting to sound repetitive and I was getting bored.  Very bored.

Ultimately, I needed that oh shit moment to show up a lot earlier. It’s the oh shit moment that keeps me reading a book that is, under everything, supposed to be a thriller.  And that moment did eventually show up (and it knocked my socks off when it did), but I nearly missed it, because I almost stopped reading around page 300.

Am I happy I finished Feed? Yes.  Will I continue in this series? probably not.  Will I read more Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant that isn’t this series? most likely. I’ve sampled some of Seanan McGuire’s short fiction, and I really liked it.

Tags: post apocalyptic, science fiction, zombies