We live in an age of wonders.
Modern medicine has conquered or contained many of the diseases that used to carry children away before their time, reducing mortality and improving health. Vaccination and treatment are widely available, not held in reserve for the chosen few. There are still monsters left to fight, but the old ones, the simple ones, trouble us no more.
Or so we thought. For with the reduction in danger comes the erosion of memory, as pandemics fade from memory into story into fairy tale. Those old diseases can’t have been so bad, people say, or we wouldn’t be here to talk about them. They don’t matter. They’re never coming back.
How wrong we could be.
It begins with a fever. By the time the spots appear, it’s too late: Morris’s disease is loose on the world, and the bodies of the dead begin to pile high in the streets. When its terrible side consequences for the survivors become clear, something must be done, or the dying will never stop. For Dr. Isabella Gauley, whose niece was the first confirmed victim, the route forward is neither clear nor strictly ethical, but it may be the only way to save a world already in crisis. It may be the only way to atone for her part in everything that’s happened.
She will never be forgiven, not by herself, and not by anyone else. But she can, perhaps, do the right thing.
We live in an age of monsters.
When I first read this, I thought Grant must have written it in the middle of the pandemic, and I thought it was a great exercise in sci fi that also looked at real world reactions to a global pandemic.
Guys. She wrote this in 2018. The woman might be psychic. Now I have to worry about her other scarily plausible sci fi pandemic zombie novels coming true too?!
This is a novella that feels like the set up to a full novel, and if she goes that route, I will not complain. I devoured this book. Once again, Grant has done her homework and sets up a global pandemic and aftermath so realistic, I literally thought she had modeled it after COVID, instead of basically predicting it (no zombies this time- this is more speculative then sci fi/fantasy). This is also a great look at bodily autonomy vs anti-vax arguments. I get the feeling Grant was working through some frustrations there, and it’s so satisfying to go on the journey with her (the book is thoroughly pro-vaccine and castigates those who try to co-opt the pro-abortion bodily autonomy argument to justify anti-vax views. I picked up some new arguments I will be using in the future).
It’s a novella, so it’s a low time commitment. Give it a shot and join me in terror about Grant’s ability to predict the future.
