Feed-Mira Grant

Feed
Mira Grant
Orbit, May 1 2010, $9.99
ISBN 9780316081054

2014 is the year that has gone down infamy as blogger Georgia Mason notes twenty-six years later that everyone has someone on the Wall. Sometimes the cure proves worse than the disease as that is the year cancer and the cold were cured but the remedy led to a more powerful disease. The Rising virus spread throughout humanity taking over the body and mind of every dead host with one command: Feed. Only social networking saved society from total destruction.

In 2039, Senator Peter Ryman runs for president. He is the first realistic candidate for the top office from the new generation born after the world was somewhat saved from the zombies. The Senator invites the popular twin bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason to cover his campaign from the inside. They are euphoric with the offer even knowing that Ryman understands the value of keeping your potential enemy nearby. At a stop, zombies attack killing Ryman's daughter. However, while the twins learn the power of the press, the government bureaucrats of CDC and a Machiavellian candidate want the bloggers shu down; but it is an influential group of co-conspirators who have ambition beyond the White House and want the bloggers reanimated but will settle for dead.

Told through the perspective of the twins, Feed is a profound action-packed paranormal political thriller that extrapolates from modern trends including epidemiology research, political buying, handling and spins, and blogging superseding mains stream media, but in a way that the audience would not expect. Fast-paced, Mira Grant avoids turning the tale into another zombie horror saga; instead Feed is a political thriller with plenty of hidden handlers working their candidate’s almost robotic run for higher office. Readers will appreciate the opening act of the Newsflesh trilogy while looking forward to the middle tale that like many on the Wall begins and ends with an idiot.

Harriet Klausner