Okay so this is a collection of some of the short stories she was releasing by themselves, as well as two new stories featuring the Masons (parents anOkay so this is a collection of some of the short stories she was releasing by themselves, as well as two new stories featuring the Masons (parents and kids). I'd read most of the short stories, but not the one set in Australia, and not the one featuring Dr. Abbey.
Australia story: Like, it was actually REALLY CLEANSING TO MY SOUL to read her acknowledge that most koalas don't get big enough to amplify? Now if she could just do the same with raccoons my life would be perfect. I frickin love Mahir, and getting to see how the virus affected Australia was actually super interesting.
Dr. Abbey story: I really like Dr. Abbey, and watching her defend her home was pretty cool.
Older Masons story: I didn't need this. They aren't sympathetic characters, and this story didn't help turn them into sympathetic characters. It gave us information we already knew but didn't really expand on anything that would help explain why they were so awful to Shawn and George. That's basically the problem with trying to retcon awful adults.
Shawn and George: This was legitimately interesting and worth getting through the older Masons story. I liked seeing a bit of their life after. Couldn't really get behind the fact that they continue to refer to each other as brother and sister? But whatever....more
You know what, I'm calling it. At 33% of the way through this book, I just can't anymore. I'm adding it to "read" because there's not an option for "aYou know what, I'm calling it. At 33% of the way through this book, I just can't anymore. I'm adding it to "read" because there's not an option for "abandoned because it sucks." There are several reasons:
1) Life is too short to read poorly written rewrites of previous works by people who don't know how to use google.
2) Raccoons and koalas have an average weight of 15-20 pounds, and finding one that would not only be large enough to amplify according to her rules but also be in the proximity of someone to actually do something are so astronomical it's probably just as likely they'd win the lottery at the same time.
3) Instead of long winded expository dumps of your world building, can you trust that if we're reading the fourth book in a series that we've read the first three and don't, for the love of GOD, need the lights of the blood testing machine explained to us YET AGAIN?
4) Instead of long winded expository dumps of your world building, can you do literally anything else. Show instead of tell.
5) Every single heroine in these books strikes the same note. Georgia, Sal (from Parasitology) and now this girl, who is supposed to be from Ireland but other than sometimes remarking about her own accent, doesn't come across as Irish at all. I've already forgotten her name.
6) Maybe if I read more it would start to make sense, but if the reason they're out to kill Governor Kilburn is the exact same reason they were out to kill Senator Ryman from the first book literally why did you bother.
7) While I do appreciate the insertion of characters that aren't straight and white, this book felt an awful lot like Mira Grant suddently got woke in between the last novella and this novel and wanted to tell everyone about it in novel form.
8) If you're going to make decontamination showers mandatory after someone comes home from the field, doesn't it make more sense to have the showers in the garage, where they won't potentially contaminate the entire house they're walking through to get to their rooms?
9) The characters in these books are so concerned with being edgy and cool that no thought is given as to whether or not they make SENSE. Sure, give your pithy one liners about being close to death at every moment in a world filled with zombies to people who are ALREADY LIVING WITH YOU IN THIS WORLD OF ZOMBIES. Like unless you're feeding pithy one liners to a time traveler who is surprised by all the zombies then what the f are you doing.
Things I couldn't get behind: FLIPPING EVERYTHING. THIS BOOK WAS SO FLIPPING AWFUL. I only fThings I liked: it ended.
Things that were meh: it began?
Things I couldn't get behind: FLIPPING EVERYTHING. THIS BOOK WAS SO FLIPPING AWFUL. I only finished reading it so I could yell about it on goodreads with authority. That is literally the only reason.
First off, the anachronisms. This is a feudal society. They live in castles and ride horses. There's no evidence that their science has progressed past "there's a sun in the sky, stuff grows, idk." THEY HEAL PEOPLE WITH MAGIC. So how in the WORLD would someone in this society know what immunity is? What antibodies are? That this would be carried in your blood?
Also can we talk about curing people of disease by injecting your blood straight into their bloodstream? Like, that's all frickin well and good IN A REALM OF MAGIC, I guess, except that there are OTHER blood born diseases that could be, idk, SOMEWHAT PROBLEMATIC. Not to mention the fact that unless you're a universal donor, frickin injecting your blood into TWENTY RANDOM PEOPLE would be toxic to at least some of them? Have you read what an ABO reaction looks like?
Why did this book use American military ranks? Why would that make sense in this setting? Why would a character in this feudal society know the term "biological warfare"?
There was no indication anywhere that this society is Christian based or has even HEARD of Christianity, so why would "Thank the Lord" be a phrase they would know to bastardize? The author might think "Thank the Flea" is funny (she's wrong), but it makes no sense.
Two characters that are together (but are not paternal figures to the rest of their group) are fighting and then talk about splitting up the group. One of the members of the group then refers to that exchange as a "custody battle" which, outside of the realm of modern legal jargon, MAKES NO SENSE.
Like EITHER YOU HAVE CREATED THIS FANTASY WORLD WITH RULES THAT YOU OPERATE IN, MARIA SNYDER, OR YOU'RE JUST BEING FLIPPING LAZY. YOU'VE BEEN FLIPPING LAZY AND CREATED AN AREA WHERE RULES DON'T EXIST AND LOGIC DOESN'T APPLY UNLESS YOU TELL US IT DOES. WHICH IS NO WAY TO WRITE A BOOK, MARIA. IT JUST ISN'T.
I'm giving this one star so it actually counts against the metrics, but rest assured that if there was a searchable "no stars" I WOULD GIVE THIS ZERO STARS. I WOULD GIVE THIS NEGATIVE STARS. I WOULD DELETE THIS BOOK FROM THE EARTH.
Oh my god I forgot about the cannibals. HOW DID I FORGET ABOUT THE CANNIBALS. And the plot inconsistencies. I was so mad about the anachronisms.
So surprise!!! This book has cannibals!!!!!!!!!! It not only has cannibals, it has cannibals that literally bite people to torture them for information. So there's this GREAT (this is so sarcastic, in case you couldn't tell) scene that pretty frickin closely resembles rape where the Skeleton King (who is also describes as having thick skeletal fingers AND HOW CAN THEY BE BOTH) bites her all over her body (and yes I do mean ALL OVER HER BODY) and literally right after she starts thinking about whether this guy or the other guy were worse. She decided the biting made the Skeleton King more intolerable. Like. Okay. People react to trauma in different ways. Except SHE NEVER REACTS TO THE TRAUMA. IT'S JUST LIKE A THING THAT HAPPENS, WHATEVER, NO BIG. He bites her DOWN TO THE BONE and she's described later as having bruises. Bruises. No blood. She puts on a shirt and manages to hide everything. Like. What? Pretty sure a bite down to the bone is gonna break some skin. Pretty frickin sure people are gonna notice that, especially people you're sleeping with. And there I mean literally sleeping, not the euphemism.
And the reason they became cannibals in the first place was rather blithely given as they were running out of food, so they had to start eating people. But like. Like. They can't eat plague victims because they have the plague? And the plague is the reason there was scarcity? So they were killing not plague victims? I guess? And creating more scarcity? What kind of sense does that make? If you're going to have cannibals JUST MAKE THEM CANNIBALS. Why try to give them weird reasons for being a cannibal? ALSO WHY HAVE CANNIBALS. YOUR BOOK IS PUBLISHED BY HARLEQUIN, FRICKIN WRITE LIKE IT.
Avry also will randomly decide to balk at killing someone? Despite the fact that she kills lots of people who are bad. Sometimes, when someone's attacking her, she doesn't. Because she's a healer and she should be saving people? I guess? Character arcs ain't nothin', I guess.
deus ex machina: You can try to pretend Noak isn't exactly what I'm calling him, but you'll never convince me. A character from the north comes down and immediately identifies exactly what's wrong with both main characters and their connections to each other and the bad guy. Okay, sure. Except that magic users have been in the realm since forever, and literally no one had ever heard of them bonding before? This was a new thing? Why did it need to be explained? It felt like that scene in the movie version of ROTK: Arwen's fate is now tied to that of the ring. WHY? Because you said so???
Frick. Okay, I think I'm actually done this time. ...more
Things I liked: wellllllllllllllll the system of magic still is pretty cool? Sentence construction is good?
Things that were meh: I'm sure stuff happeThings I liked: wellllllllllllllll the system of magic still is pretty cool? Sentence construction is good?
Things that were meh: I'm sure stuff happened with Kerrick. But like. You know in the movie version of the Two Towers when they kept checking in with Merry and Pippin and for a while there it just always seemed like they were still riding around on a tree in Fangorn? That's kind of like Kerrick in this book. Checking in with him, still tied up, riding a tree. Or whatever. So that storyline (while it's probably going to come into play in the third book) was hella boring and literally nothing that couldn't have been given to us in a quick update from Kerrick.
Things I couldn't get behind: I'm just, generally, starting to not care at all about anyone? Avry just isn't interesting to me, and it seems like every time she starts to have good chemistry on the page with someone they're killed or kidnapped or they double cross her. The stuff with Tohon basically mind raping her is just creepy in the extreme and not a plot device I find interesting at all. It's pretty triggering in most places. I don't know. I didn't really love the first but I'd already purchased the second. I might skim the third (again, because I already own it) but I'm not really excited about it. I read four other books in the middle of reading this one, if that's any indication of how much I didn't care. ...more
I would like her books a lot better if she did some basic research on how much things weigh. The Mason's first child was killed by a dog bitten by an I would like her books a lot better if she did some basic research on how much things weigh. The Mason's first child was killed by a dog bitten by an amplified raccoon. Do you realize how unusual a 40 lb raccoon is? VERY UNUSUAL. It's happened, sure, but it's not, like, THE NORM.
And that brings me to this book. She makes this big point of kindergartners not being big enough to amplify. That's hilarious. Bro, my 1 year old nephew weighs 30 lbs, are you telling me you think a 5 year old is the same size as my 1 year old nephew? The average, THE AVERAGE, A V E R A G E weight of a 5 year old is 45 pounds, which is right above the dot of her amplification weight, and that's just AVERAGE. Sure there are kids beneath that, but there are also kids ABOVE IT. And this story is all about kids in the first grade! Who are 6-7! All above the 40 pound mark unless they're, like, underdeveloped for some reason. (Or have tiny parents, that can still happen, yes.) But being UNDER FORTY POUNDS is even more unusual at the age of 6.
I'm in the middle of this book but I just had to yell about it somewhere. Screaming into the void.
Okay I'm done with this now and I stand by what I said. Sooooooo much of this tale is predicated on Mira Grant's mistaken understanding of the size of children. Which is easily google-able, so I don't know why she didn't bother doing that. You know what else is google-able? The weight of raccoons.
Anyway. My favorite part of this was actually the interactions between Mahir and Alaric, especially this bit:
AKWONG: Does the truth always have to hurt this much?
MGOWDA: Sometimes I think that's the only way we ever really know it's true.
The tale itself is kind of unrelenting in its gore and sadness, which I've come to expect in these novellas of individual risings. No one gets to be a hero in these, probably because there aren't any heroes of the rising in Mira Grant's mind. I feel like we occasionally hear stories of someone who fended off attack but those are always told in passing, and the stories she chooses to dwell on are more like this one.
Warnings in case the subject matter of the review didn't make this clear: children are killed in this story. A lot of them....more
Okay, I liked this, I did, but I found it frustrating at the same time. Why tell us on the first page that no one made it out alive, and then proceed Okay, I liked this, I did, but I found it frustrating at the same time. Why tell us on the first page that no one made it out alive, and then proceed to show us all these awesome characters that we're not going to give a crap about, since none of them will survive? I'm not gonna lie, it didn't mean I didn't cry, especially when a dog dies protecting her human, but still. Could have been a lot more interesting. ...more
This is fine and all, but it does not at all pack the same emotional punch as the real ending of that book, and I'm REALLY HAPPY she went with the oriThis is fine and all, but it does not at all pack the same emotional punch as the real ending of that book, and I'm REALLY HAPPY she went with the original ending. Fed also leaves no room for sequels, it feels like, which is boring. It's interesting to find out, in Mira Grant's mind, that Shaun is apparently more emotionally stable and strong than Georgia is. Not what I would have thought....more
I'm not going to lie to you, this book is not without its flaws. It takes a long time to pick up, for all that there are EXPLOSIONS and ZOMBIES and RUI'm not going to lie to you, this book is not without its flaws. It takes a long time to pick up, for all that there are EXPLOSIONS and ZOMBIES and RUNNING FROM THE GOVERNMENT AND A FREAKING ZOMBIE BEAR. (Why, oh why, could the zombie bear not have happened on screen? I sat through TONS of angst and descriptions of things I already knew about, like exactly how the lights on the blood test units work, and she skips over a zombie bear? Lame.) The plot seems to be a lot of them running around in circles until the last hundred pages, when really cool stuff happens.
And. But. So. It still has the greatest characters, and this book used them even better than Deadline did, which did even better than Feed. George and Shaun we know, but getting to know Maggie? Becks? Mahir? Alaric? (Role call!) AWESOME.
The world building continues to be phenomenal, the virus and medical jargon believable (to this non-scientist).
One of my favorite things about the Newsflesh trilogy is that it's set more than a decade after the Rising, and the world has already adapted to its nOne of my favorite things about the Newsflesh trilogy is that it's set more than a decade after the Rising, and the world has already adapted to its new way of life. There's an interesting history there, but more interesting is the way the world is different from what we've got now.
Countdown fleshes out (ahhhh I had to!) the story given to us in the full length novels, and gives an incredible amount of detail about the viruses involved, how they're spread, etc. Hey, I majored in religion, so I have no idea if this science is plausible, but it sounds good to me. I also love the development of characters I've only ever heard mentioned in passing before.
And it made me catch my breath and cry a little at the end.
Seriously? If you're going to give a zombie novel a go, read World War Z. But if you're willing to give SEVERAL zombie novels a go, read the Newsflesh trilogy (starting with Feed). They are so, so good. ...more
This one was strange. The story is about a tiny town that made a pact long ago with the dead. There must always be a Graveminder to keep people in theThis one was strange. The story is about a tiny town that made a pact long ago with the dead. There must always be a Graveminder to keep people in their graves, and an Undertaker to help the Graveminder travel into the land of the dead and come back out.
What I was expecting? Floaty, ethereal, ghostly dead. Spirits, if you like. What I got? Zombies that ate people. And look, I'm obviously not opposed to zombies, but they didn't even really fit in the feel of the story. Just kind of strange.
Idk. Thats all I've got, actually. It was weird. ...more
I only finished this out of sheer will and stubborn cussedness. I was very sure, from the moment Bran wasUnpopular opinions about books: I have them.
I only finished this out of sheer will and stubborn cussedness. I was very sure, from the moment Bran was pushed out a window, that this was not going to be a book I would like. I don't think that it was poorly written or not fully realized or sloppily executed. I think it's pretty disgusting, dark, dreary, and utterly devoid of hope and love. And you know? I look for a little more escape in my escapism.
What kills me most about this book is that Time Magazine has apparently named Martin "the American Tolkien," which is so false a comparison it makes me cry a little inside. Tolkien wrote about beauty and hope and love; his story transcended reality. Martin revels in the grime, the dirt, the pain, the humanness, and while that's not a bad thing, it is the antithesis of Tolkien.
All that said, I already own the first four in a bundle on my kindle, and sadly kindle books are not something I can return when I find out that I have zero interest in reading anything more. So I might poke at the next few, after I've read all the wiki plot summaries and ripped that off like a bandaid. Red Wedding? I am totally prepared.
Wait, I DO have a complaint about construction of the book. If there is any comparison that could be made with Tolkien, it's that they both could have benefitted from the services of a competent editor. There is so much florid prose clogging the story here that truly added nothing to the plodding (emphasis PLODDING) journey Martin took us on. ...more
Okay, so in my review of the first book, I said I was worried about future installments in the series because I couldn't imagine how they could live uOkay, so in my review of the first book, I said I was worried about future installments in the series because I couldn't imagine how they could live up to Feed. Turns out my imagination is somewhat lacking.
I don't want to spoil anything, because if you ever want to read these (and you should, provided zombies are your thing) anything I say could ruin every single plot twist ever.
Mostly I just want to quote the final line and say "WHAT THE F IS GOING ON HERE."
It's a roller coaster, and now I simply cannot imagine the next book, but OH MY GOODNESS, they are so good.
Okay, I've already talked myself out of a star. The conspiracy was awesome, and the plot was awesome, but first person narration is Shaun instead of Georgia, and I like Georgia better. Personal tastes, I guess. :)
And on the second time through: I talked myself up a star again, because this really is a better book than Feed, at least in construction. This time through the scientific inconsistencies got to me. A raccoon amplifies and gets a dog, but I challenge you to find me a raccoon that weighs 40 lbs. They can't eat cow because slaughtering it would activate the virus, but they have emu burgers? Those birds weigh more than 40 lbs.
But those are few and far between, and this book is mostly just amazing. I'm nervous AND excited about Blackout, which I'm going to start in two secs....more
This book has the best first line I've read in a while.
Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-six years: with an idiot-This book has the best first line I've read in a while.
Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-six years: with an idiot-in this case, my brother Shaun-deciding it would be a good idea to go out and poke a zombie with a stick to see what happens.
From there it hits a lot of good notes, a few inconsistent ones, and a couple that made me cry quietly into my napkin while sitting in a booth at City Bites on my lunch break. I really, truly, deeply loved this book. It was actually incredibly well thought out and well executed. It had rich characters that you actually gave a crap about at the end of the story, and it had a history, which is something I've come to care a lot about since falling in love with Tolkien. (Yes, I'm invoking the name of Tolkien in this review, that's how much I liked this.)
I worry a little about future installments in this series, because I know she's already got one slated to come out, and call me pessimistic, but I just don't see how it could be as awesome as this one is.
--
Reread to refresh myself before tackling the newest installment in the series. I couldn't remember the conspiracy, just that one existed. Love this book just as much the second time, possibly slightly more....more
**spoiler alert** I'm TORN about how many stars to give this one. The zombie, post-apocalyptic world bit was AWESOME. I loved the isolation in the vil**spoiler alert** I'm TORN about how many stars to give this one. The zombie, post-apocalyptic world bit was AWESOME. I loved the isolation in the village, the absolute unrelenting nature of the zombies (Unconsecrated) that just never let up the whole book through. I loved that the moans of the Unconsecrated were such a part of their lives that they could have a tender first kiss right next to a streaming horde of them at the fence line. She did a fantastic job at world building.
Just. Mary. My God, I couldn't even come up with a more insipid character if I tried. I did not see what was so freaking special about her that not one, but TWO attractive boys would rather die than be without her. So she got to see the ocean at the end, BULLY FOR HER. In doing so, she got her one true love (who she didn't realize was her one true love until after she had to behead him because he'd been bitten) killed, her brother PROBABLY killed (they didn't find a body, but hey, there are more books coming), and her bff, a kid, her dog, and the other boy that is in love with her stranded in the middle of a different screaming horde of zombies.
So, you know, kudos to her, I guess.
If she weren't THE MAIN CHARACTER of the book, she'd be easier to take. ...more
I give this five stars with reservations, because while I think Rowlings' imagination is unparalleled on this plane of existence, I also think this boI give this five stars with reservations, because while I think Rowlings' imagination is unparalleled on this plane of existence, I also think this book had a lot of flaws, mostly in pacing and character development.
That said, I totally read it all in one day, in one sitting, and did not regret a minute of it....more
I've got tears in my ears from reading the end of this while lying on my back in bed. I've got tears in my ears from reading the end of this while lying on my back in bed. ...more
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