Feed is a stonking little zombie novel which is also the opening entry in a series, and one that I enjoyed so much that I immediately downloaded the rest on finishing.
Feed is set twenty years after the Rising, when George Romero films stopped being horror films and started being survival guides. Humanity found a cure for the common cold, as well as a cure for cancer. But when the two combined, it created the Kellis-Amberlee virus and now everyone in the world is infected – the virus lies dormant in the system until either coming into contact with the virus in its live state through bites, scratches and the like, or until its host dies…meaning that everyone turns, eventually.
Society has since adapted to a world full of zombies by majorly ramping up its security – mobile blood testing kits are now essential everyday items – and much of the regular folk stay safe indoors as much as possible, meaning the internet is now more important than ever. Traditional media has essentially died, giving way to the bloggers who are not only our entertainment but are also now seen as our most trusted news sources. Which is where we find our protagonist, Georgia Mason, head of the small crew at After the End Times who have just been picked to follow the presidential campaign, but end up uncovering the story of their lives….someone is weaponising Kellis-Amberlee. And it’s a story like that is quite likely to cost our crew their lives.
Grant has clearly put a lot of thought into the way this world works, and it showed. I enjoyed the evolution of the different media strands of the blogger world with all its pop culture nods, and the militarisation and politics of what remained of society rang true. Simply finding out how this world worked was a tremendous amount of fun, and as soon as things started going south I could barely tear myself away in order to go work, eat or sleep. I also really enjoy when an author is willing to deliver a gut punch of an ending, and this one delivered, with my eyes still stinging as I pressed the download button on my Kindle for the next instalment.
Which is exactly where I’m heading now…