Feed by Mira Grant

The dead started walking, but life continued on regardless in this original science fiction take on zombies.

Shaun and Georgia Mason are sibling journalists who get invited on the presidential campaign trail of senator Ryman. What follows is their journey, unexpected espionage with assassinations to derail the campaign, and zombies. Lots of zombies. You see, all this takes place 20 years after the zombie apocalypse, where the walking dead are the new normal.

It’s refreshing to read a zombie novel that doesn’t deal with the fall of civilization, but it’s survival. Caused by an unexpected combination of cures for cancer and the common cold, the dead started to rise and everyone is infected. Hey, there’s no cancer or colds anymore, so that’s a win! Humanity has survived by introducing strict quarantine zones and lots of tests. As any mammal over 40lbs is able to go full zombie, pets and livestock have become rare, and eating mammal meat is no longer advised.

One of the highlights of this book is the world building. The author goes to great length to detail how humanity might survive such an outbreak, and for the most part it is a believable world. However, my suspension of disbelief was broken by the zombie animals. Zombie rats alone would be so plentiful that humans wouldn’t stand a chance against them. If meat caused conversion, predators would all become zombies and there would be an overpopulation of prey animals which would lead to a lack of food and death – that’s assuming they weren’t all turned into zombies by the predators. Soon the world would be engulfed by zombie mammals and that would spell lights out for mankind.

Animals aside, Georgia and Shaun are likable, and the cast of characters are realistic humans. When the zombies do appear, they are everything you could hope for. However, this book is really about politics and journalism, and as that, it is very good.

I enjoyed this book, even though political thrillers aren’t my favorite genre. I liked Shaun and Georgia. Learning about their world was fun.

I award Feed…

Feed is available for $6.13 ebook and $10 print book on Amazon.