'Deadline'- Mira Grant 2011.

'Deadline' is the second novel in the 'Newsflesh Trilogy' of zombie novels by Mira Grant, and if you haven't already read 'Feed' then I suggest you start there before diving into 'Deadline'.

If I had written this post last night at 2am when I finished 'Deadline' it would have consisted of "No way, she [Grant] didn't, oh no she didn't, ah" and so-on, interspersed with mutterings about "too many cliffhangers for one person to handle" and finished off with "best book I have read all year". However, I have a nights sleep and a few hours of perspective and though those sentiments are still valid I have toned them down a little.

Anyone who has read my original review of 'Feed' will realise that I was totally smitten. I ordered 'Deadline' almost immediately after finishing 'Feed', and intended to savour it over a few weeks reading. That didn't happen. Despite having work and social commitments I still finished 'Deadline' in less than 24 hours. I enjoyed this novel immensely, despite it being missing some of the characteristics which made me love 'Feed'. By focusing only on main character Shaun, rather than the original shifting perspective, the tone of the novel was quite different. The other shift was away from what I saw as using zombies as an allegory for various other 'real-world' issues manipulated to control population through fear. While the theme of control through fear is still prominent, as the storyline moves deeper into determining the specifics of the manipulation it becomes less and less of an allegory and more of a whole-world-conspiracy story. While I did miss the focus on the truth, integrity and reporting of 'Feed', as long as the next book can void the many whole-world-conspiracy clichés I think it will still be a great read.

There were a few irritating points throughout 'Deadline', beginning with the repetition of the opening scene. While I understand that opening with a similar [read: almost identical] scene is a stylistic decision I think it was poorly executed. In addition, the repetition of some phrases and actions throughout the novel became irritating. This included constantly explaining how blood-testing units operate and their results, and mentioning whether or not the members of the group wanted snacks when someone went to the kitchen. The second one may sound silly, but no one EVER wanted anything, and yet every time a character goes to the kitchen this is repeated, and since a large portion of the book has them holed up in a house, it happens fairly often.

One of the biggest improvements in 'Deadline' was that the entire book was relevant to the plot and contributed to both building suspense and characters, rather than the dragging, irrelevant first section of 'Feed'. This was a major plus, and did not mean the sacrifice of the wonderfully unforgiving nature of the plot. Grant has no qualms about killing off main characters, or inflicting mental trauma on others, and this really adds to the overall tension.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and highly recommend the series, especially if you like zombies. I'm off to play Left 4 Dead 2, and pretend I'm Georgia Mason, wish me luck.

Love it, Read it,
LR

'Feed'- Mira Grant 2010.

I must first admit that I have a soft spot for zombie books, and apocalypse books in general, which is what originally made me buy this book online. Mira Grant's book 'Feed' did not disappoint, it had a sizeable helping of gadgets and gore which is expected of this kind of book, but what made me love it was all the unexpected angles on inquiry into society.

The first surprising thing was the setting, or rather the time of the setting, 20 years after the 'Rising' is not you usual starting point for a zombie novel. In the genre the good (who could go past 'World War Z'?) and the bad (I want 5 hours of my life back- 'Married with Zombies') seem to have all, or at least most, of their action taking place during the main 'rising'.

My favourite part about reading this book was thinking of it as an allegory for the US fear-mongering in response to the threat of terrorism. Yes, my university degree impacts on how I read zombie novels, and I am well aware that Grant may not have had any intention of it being read like that, but it doesn't make it any less interesting as a political commentary in the face of a threat.

Since I have also been reading extensively on propaganda, communication techniques, narrative theories and all sorts of other wonderful things (like disconnection from traditional media sources and what that means for politics), Grant's version of future news media as blogging was also fascinating. I especially enjoyed some of the commentary on 'ethics' and 'truth' because if you ignore the zombies this book has a lot of insightful observations about the media culture in the US (and the rest of the world).

Another plus for this book was decent non-Mary-Sue female protagonist! I don't want to give anything away, so I shall not say any more. But I did find it really refreshing to read a novel filled with a number of interesting, multi-dimensional female characters, rather than a token cookie-cutter female victim or hero.

My final good point about this book is fearless plot progression. I recently read the first book of the Codex Alera Series (which I will review when I read the next few) but my main bugbear with Jim Butcher is his addiction to ALMOST killing all/most of his main characters in every single book, only to have them revive in time for the rest of the series (Harry Dresden *cough*). It drives me mad.

The only downside to this book was the slow plot development in the first third of the book, I feel like there was a lot was superfluous information which, while helping to build a picture of the 'world', but didn't really contribute anything to the main plot.

An interesting little tit-bit I discovered, Mira Grant is actually Seanan McGuire, I can see why she wanted to name herself Mira...

Love it, Read it,
LR