Title: The Other Side of the Island

Author: Allegra Goodman

Genre: Dystopia, Post-Apocalypse, Speculative Fiction, Young Adult

Publisher: RazorBill
Publication Date: September 2008
Hardcover: 272 Pages

From New York Times bestselling author Allegra Goodman comes a post apocalyptic novel about love, loss, and the power of human choice.

Honor and her parents have been reassigned to live on Island 365 in the Tranquil Sea. Life is peaceful there—the color of the sky is regulated by Earth Mother, a corporation that controls New Weather, and it almost never rains. Everyone fits into their rightful and predictable place. . . .

Except Honor. She doesn’t fit in, but then she meets Helix, a boy with a big heart and a keen sense for the world around them. Slowly, Honor and Helix begin to uncover a terrible truth about life on the Island: Sooner or later, those who are unpredictable disappear . . . and they don’t ever come back.

Stand alone or series: Stand alone novel

How did I get this book: Bought

Why did I read this book: I’ve had this book on my TBR for a while. I’m always on the lookout for a new post-apocalyptic/dystopian novel, especially of the environmental persuasion. The Other Side of the Island definitely fits the bill!

Review:

In the years after the world has been ravaged by global warming, pollution and war, peace has emerged in the form of Earth Mother. With her message of Peace, Love and Joy, Earth Mother has brought blessed Stability to a flooded, weather-beaten world. With color-overlayed skies, her ‘ceiled’ and controlled islands remain safe from savage, fierce weather wrought by climate change. While Earth Mother’s world is Safe and Secure, it also has a number of very strict rules to ensure that it stays that way. Each family is allotted a single child, and must pick that child’s name from a preselected list with a birth-year first letter. Each child must pass rigorous examination in order to attend school. Curfew is enforced every night, credits are assigned books are regulated, and everything is ordered. Predictable. Safe.

Except, when ten-year old Honor and her parents move to Island 365, relocated from their home in the wilder, uncharted Northern Islands, they don’t fit in. Honor’s name, with its silent “H” stands out to her classmates, as does her general deficiency in knowing Earth Mother’s official prayers, creeds and history. Honor’s parents break curfew amongst other rules – singing to their daughter, and even having an unheard of second child.

Honor, desperate to fit in and be liked by her fellow classmates, is ever-conscious of how awkward she and her family are – how they do not fit in the predictable, desirable mold as decreed by Earth Mother. Dismayed and frightened by her parents’ behavior, Honor decides to take matters into her own hands before she becomes a complete pariah at school…but then the unimaginable happens. Her parents are Taken, leaving her an Orphan. No one knows what happens to people that are Taken, but Honor and her friend and fellow Orphan Helix are determined to find out.

I’m getting into these environmental catastrophe/apocalyptic dystopias, and Allegra Goodman’s The Other Side of the Island certainly fits the bill. An effective story about control, misinformation, and – as with many dystopias – the best intentions gone awry, this novel is certainly readable, if familiar. The future world, Earth Mother’s paradise, is a highly regulated, efficient machine. Sky color is regulated by projectors, and humans are controlled and steered away from unpredictable behavior – the implication of course being that human unpredictability leads to pollution, conflict and the demise of the planet. The question, then, posed by The Other Side of the Island is how far must humanity, must the planet itself be controlled? And at what cost? The extent of Earth Mother’s control is chilling stuff – chunks cut from books, names preselected and approved, citizens drugged and regulated to the point where art, different methods of counting, and songs are outlawed.

Although the novel makes a gallant effort at a range of motifs – familial love and duty, for example – many aspects came across as implausible and heavy-handed. Borrowing heavily from other novels (substitute Earth Mother for Big Brother), The Other Side of the Island doesn’t really come close to the moral complexity or subtlety of its numerous predecessors, such as Lois Lowry’s The Giver or George Orwell’s 1984. The convenience of memory-drugging citizens is a bit too simplistic for my tastes, and certain key details (Helix discovering lost pages of The Wizard of Oz or The Bridge to Terabithia, or Honor bizarrely learning to count in base two only to later use that as a secret code) are just a little too fortuitous for my liking. From a logistical standpoint, I found myself unable to suspend disbelief with just how solidly Earth Mother’s grip was on society (drugs can only get you so far), and certain details – tree climbing octopi? beacon colored/projected sky? – were left distractingly unexplained and, well, implausible. In addition, the novel does show a tendency towards Class Lesson Info Dumping (on a level almost as notorious as Teri Hall’s The Line), which is a HUGE pet peeve. And, from a thematic standpoint, the conflict and the dividing line between the “good guys” and “bad guys” is similarly blatant. Ultimately, the central thematic conflict boils down to a question of SAFETY versus LIBERTY (see the Notable Quotes excerpt below), which translates to a simple message (i.e. Totalitarianism BAD! Freedom GOOD!). Complexity? Not so much a huge priority in The Other Side of the Island.

That said, the greatest strength of the novel lies in Honor’s characterization and narrative. As with most young children, Honor’s first priority when she and her family move to Island 365 is to fit in – even if it is at the expense of others. Her desires to make friends, to be Predictable and Good (note the caps) are the impetus behind the first half of the novel, and when it all goes to ground after Honor inadvertently draws attention to her family’s…unconventionalism, Honor’s journey of realization and her resolve to discover the truth is a gripping thing. I loved the reversal here, because so often it is the parents that are the slaves to the system, too old or too afraid to break from the shackles of their dystopian societies. In The Other Side of the Island, however, Honor is the one that is too scared to rebel, and it is her parents that fearlessly rise up. It’s an interesting way to turn a trope on its head, though I’m not certain ultimately how effective it is (as I’m a fan of the immutable, brave young hero).

The bottom line: The Other Side of the Island is a solid read. It’s nothing particularly new or memorable, but with an interesting reversal of character and a fittingly chilling totalitarian society, this is a book certainly worth at least checking out for the dystopian fan. Younger readers or those not so deeply-versed in the dystopian canon will most likely enjoy this book more fully.

Notable Quotes/Parts: No official excerpt is available online, but here’s a snippet from the book (that I think highlights the style of the novel pretty well):

“The Flood destroyed the ancient world,” Honor recited to the class. “Where there were continents, only islands are left. Where there were archipelagos, only mountainous islands remain. After the Flood, and the wars that followed, Earth Mother organized the Great Evacuation to the remaining islands in the Tranquil Sea. Then the Earth Mother rose up and spoke. ‘What is freedom? What is choice? Words and only words. We need Safety. We need shelter from the elements. Without shelter all other words are meaningless.’ Earth Mother pledged to Enclose the Polar Seas. She pledged to establish New Weather in the North and reclaim the islands there, one by one. Finally, she pledged to make a new world in the islands of the Tranquil Sea, islands she numbered and named the Colonies.“

Additional Thoughts: Author Allegra Goodman does have an interesting piece at her website about the backstory for The Other Side of the Island – which you can read HERE.

Rating: 6 – Good, Recommend with Reservations

Reading Next: How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

Title: Salt

Author: Maurice Gee

Genre: Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Young Adult

Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Publication Date: October 2009
Hardcover: 272 Pages

In a dangerous world, Deep Salt strikes terror into the heart of everyone. Hari lives in Blood Burrow, deep in the ruined city of Belong, where he survives by courage and savagery. He is scarred from fighting, he is dangerous and cruel, but he has a secret gift: he can speak with animals. When his father, Tarl, is taken as a slave and sent to the mine known as Deep Salt, from where no worker ever returns, Hari vows to save him. Pearl is from the ruling families, known as Company, which has conquered and enslaved Hari’s people. Her destiny involves marriage that will unite her family with that of the powerful and ambitious Ottmar. It soon becomes clear that the survival of their people depends entirely upon the success of Pearl and Hari’s mission.

Stand alone or series: Book 1 in the Salt Trilogy

How did I get this book: Review Copy from BookExpo American 2010

Why did I read this book: When I was at BEA this year, the quiet, unassuming Orca booth caught my eye – and when I saw Salt (and its sequel, Gool) sitting so prettily on the display table, I knew I had to have it. A post-apocalyptic/dystopian YA novel with a speculative fiction bend? Of COURSE I wanted it!

Review:

In a future world, rules are simple and finite. The Company reigns supreme. Commoners live squalid, wretched lives in the Burrows, fighting amongst each other and feral packs of rats and dogs for food. And, when the Whips come for choosing, those that go to the Deep Salt do not ever return. When Hari’s father Tarl is caught in a Whip raid and rebels against his enslavement, he is sentenced to serve in Deep Salt much to Hari’s horror. Sworn to save Tarl, Hari tracks him through the harsh wilderness that isolates the Burrows and will travel to Deep Salt, tempting death itself to save his father. Along the way his path collides with Company heiress Pearl and her maid Tealeaf – Pearl fleeing her engagement to the much older, cruel Ottmar (incidentally, the owner of the Deep Salt mine). Though the simpering, spoiled Pearl and the spiteful, violent Hari hate each other on sight and seem to have nothing in common, they are more similar than they could ever believe – because both share the almost unheard of human ability to communicate and control others with their minds. United in their quest to understand their shared ability, Pearl’s former “maid” and mentor Tealeaf takes the two young adults to her people, the Dwellers. The fate of their world and every living creature is at stake, and Pearl and Hari are the key to survival.

New Zealand author Maurice Gee takes on a grim dystopian future with Salt; a socio-political and environmentally-conscious post-apocalyptic (and radiation-ravaged) landscape. And, in a subgenre churning out post-apocalyptic/dystopian novels at an ever increasing rate, you might be asking yourself, what if anything distinguishes Salt from the pack? (As a huge fan of the dystopian and apocalyptic, I find myself asking this question more and more, too) Well, gentle reader, I’m here to tell you: Salt is indeed a memorable, old-school SF dystopian adventure-type novel, by virtue of Mr. Gee’s sharp characterizations, gritty storytelling, and – this is completely subjective – the sense of reader nostalgia Salt provides.

If you’re familiar with our reading preferences, you’ll probably know that I am a sucker for dystopias and end-of-the-world stories. And, if you too are a fan of these types of books, Salt will undoubtedly strike a familiar chord with you. Salt is definitely what I’d consider “old school” in the subgenre – there’s the danger of nuclear proliferation, the deadliness of radioactive decay, and the mutations that these isotopes can wreak on all living things. The immediate influence (with Hari and Pearl’s ability to communicate across species’ with their minds) is with another author from Oceana – that is, Isabel Carmody’s Obernewtyn series. (Of course, I love the Obernewtyn series, so this is a good thing.) Also, Salt is reminscent of Patrick Ness’s more recent Chaos Walking books – the knife of the father, the violent, hateful young boy, the rich and pampered (but competent and totally awesome) young girl. Heck, there’s even a sort of Lord of the Rings sensibility with the irresistible power of Deep Salt as a weapon – those who possess the power are almost possessed themselves, refusing to give it up. These similarities, however, are not pointed out to imply that Salt is derivative in any way – rather, it’s a familiar (dare I say, classic?) premise and it’s testament to Mr. Gee’s writing skill that he manages to own this familiarity and create something entirely new and memorable from it. Also, on the note of familiarity, from a world-building perspective there is a twist to the landscape – it’s unclear if this book is set in a future New Zealand or perhaps on some alien planet altogether. I’m pulling for alien world (given the existence of the indigenous strange slitted-eyed and triple thumb jointed Dwellers, like Tealeaf – but that’s just speculation). From a plotting perspective, Salt is a fast paced adventure-quest sort of book, following two protagonists as they journey across unforgiving terrain and hone their powers, as they also discover the truth of Deep Salt. The idea of Deep Salt, the all-too familiar weaponization of this deadly element, well, it is terrifying stuff. There’s also a slight supernatural element too – the “voices” that the Dwellers and certain characters hear, the telepathic powers. These are all tantalizing plot seeds with a whole lotta promise in future books.

But the most remarkable thing about Salt lies with its dual protagonists. I *LOVED* these characters – albeit for slightly twisted reasons. Neither Hari nor Pearl are exactly likable characters. They are not “destined” to save the world, and they certainly are not big-hearted or innately courageous, selfless characters beneath a thin veneer of purported “badness” (like so many other protagonists, especially in this subgenre seem to be). Hari is seriously messed up and tries to kill Pearl many, many times . Similarly, Pearl is spoiled, vain and condescending – but what’s cool about this is that both characters truly are products of their upbringings. On the grimy streets of the Blood Burrow, Hari has had to fight for everything he has; in the gilded Company palaces, Pearl has had a life of luxury, and although she’s had Tealeaf’s guidance and training, she still is a self-entitled princess. Both of these characters grow used to each other as a matter of necessity, not choice, and it is all very believable. This forced growth works because they aren’t two characters that automatically understand each other and want the same selfless goals – rather, they are selfish, flawed people that discover they need to work together because so much is at stake. And, in comparison to older characters much more set in their ways, the younger protagonists’ growth is ever more impressive and poignant.

There’s so much in this book – the aforementioned character growth, the horrific journey into Deep Salt itself (seriously monstrous Rats of Unusual Size!), the wars for power. Salt is gritty and it’s grim, and it doesn’t pull any of its punches. It doesn’t attempt to make pretty or condense its characters or its message – while the Company is the oppressor of the moment, it is clear that anyone in power, lowborn or Company born alike are equally ruthless and spiteful – and I admire that. The way this book ends, the tantalizing seeds planted in this novel (especially concerning the slightly supernatural aspect) have me eager for more. You better believe I’ll be back for Gool very, very soon.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

The Whips, as silent as hunting cats, surrounded Blood Burrow in the hour before sun-up and began their sweep as the morning dogs began to howl. Rain fell heavily that day, washing the streets and overfl owing the gutters. The gray tunics of the Whips turned black in the downpour, their helmets shone like beetle wings, and the sparks that jumped from their fingers as they herded their recruits fizzed and spat like sewer gas.

They took ninety men, some from their hovels, some from the ruins, and prodded them, howling, to the raised southern edge of People’s Square, where the paving stones had not yet slipped into the bog. Brown water lapped the buildings on the northern side. Cowl the Liberator, crying Liberty or Death, raised his marble head above the rushes. Mosquitoes bred underneath his tongue.

The Whips, as custom required, paused in their herding and mouthed “Cowl the Murderer” before going on.

A cart with a covered platform and canvas aprons at the sides and back waited on the stones. A clerk sat at a desk under the awning, with a sheaf of forms under his palm and a quill pen, curved like a blade, in his other hand. His uniform was paler than the Whips’ (and dry) and had the Company symbol, an open hand, blazoned on the tunic. He frowned at the rabble herded in front of him and drew his head back in a vain attempt to avoid the stench of rotting shirts and festering bodies.

“Sergeant.”

“Sir?”

“Is this your best effort? My orders are two hundred fit for work.”

The Whip sergeant swallowed and seemed to shrink, knowing he and his men would earn no bonus, even though they had chased hard, sparing none. “They fled like rats. They have holes and runways everywhere.”

“And your job is to know them and bring me no starvelings, no half-dead.”

“They pretend, sir. This one”—he prodded a nearnaked man, making him whimper—“he ran like a marsh deer. Now he stoops. And this—he has swallowed dirt. It makes him vomit.”

“Enough. I know their tricks. Count.”

“Ninety, sir.”

“Silence them. And the women too.”

The Whips raised their electric hands and shot fizzing bolts into the air, and the howling stopped. Outside the ring of guards, the wives and children of the ninety fell silent. Some kept their mouths wide in cries they dared not utter, while others wept soundlessly, their tears mingling with the rain, which fell more heavily, making puddles around their unclad feet.

The clerk stood up under the awning. “Men,” he cried, widening his mouth in a smile, “this is your great day. You are chosen to serve Company in its glorious enterprise. Daily we grow in comfort and prosperity. In this you share. Who serves Company serves mankind. Raise your voices now and give thanks.”

The men closest to the Whips made a few ragged shouts, “Long live Company. Praise to Company,” but somewhere a woman shrieked, “Murderers!” And from the ruined buildings round the square cries like echoes came from doorways and windows: “Murderers, thieves!”

The clerk was untroubled. His speech was part of procedure, and the shouts and cries, and the howling and tears, were something he expected on recruiting days.

He sat down and yawned behind his hand.

“Examination,” he said.

A Whip prodded a man into the space before the cart, and then, with his gloves turned off, stripped off his clothing with raking sweeps of his iron hands. The man, young but stooped and thin, stood shivering in the rain.

“No need for the hose today,” said the clerk, but he yawned again while his underlings sprayed the man’s body with disinfected water from a tank behind his wagon.

“Name?”

“Heck,” the man whispered.

The clerk took his quill and wrote on a form.

“Deformities?” he said to a third underling who had stepped down from the cart.

“None.”

“Sores?”

“Multiple. Feet and legs.”

“Condition?”

“E.”

The clerk ran his eyes over the man’s body. “You bring me trash,” he said to the sergeant.

“Sir, he is fast. He goes like a mud-crab. He will fit in narrow places.”

“Perhaps.” The clerk frowned at Heck. “Saltworker,” he said.

“No,” cried the man, falling to his knees. “Not Salt. I’ll go to the farms. I’ll go on the ships. In the name of Company, I pray you, not Salt.”

“Brand him,” said the clerk, tossing a marker to the underling.

The man beckoned his helpers for the acid bucket and the brush. He fitted the metal marker on Heck’s forehead while a Whip held him still, and swiped the brush across the stencil. “Who joins Company joins history. Your time begins,” he intoned, ignoring Heck’s screaming as the acid burned.

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Book 2 in the trilogy, Gool is scheduled for release in the US this October. Here’s a peek:

The gool cannot be seen, not properly, but Xantee, Lo and their friends sense its evil presence. It lurks in the jungle in rock clefts, an enemy from …more The gool cannot be seen, not properly, but Xantee, Lo and their friends sense its evil presence. It lurks in the jungle in rock clefts, an enemy from outside nature. And now, a fragment of Gool holds Hari by the throat, draining the life from him. They can hold it back with the force of their minds, but for how long?

Xantee, Lo and Duro set out on a perilous mission to find the Dog King Tarl, Hari’s father, and the ruined city of belong. Can he help them find the source of the gool? Will they find it in time? And do they have the strength to destroy the mother Gool and rid the world of this life-sucking force?

Gool, the thrilling sequel to Salt, is another extraordinary fantasy adventure from the master writer Maurice Gee.

You can read an excerpt from Gool online HERE.

Verdict: Thrilling, thoroughly engrossing and delightfully gritty, Salt is the start of a promising new trilogy from Maurice Gee. Absolutely recommended, especially for fans of the dystopian/post-apocalyptic persuasion.

Rating: 7 – Very Good

Reading Next: The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman

Last year, we had two days of Bleak Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Book Goodness – and since we love this genre so much, we decided to have a reprisal this year (this is the first of a few dedicated days!). Today, we take a look at some new titles about the end of the world as we know it…

Birthmarked by Caragh O’Brien

Publisher: Roaring Book Press
Publication Date: March 2010
Hardcover: 362 Pages

After climate change, on the north shore of Unlake Superior, a dystopian world is divided between those who live inside the wall, and those, like sixt…more After climate change, on the north shore of Unlake Superior, a dystopian world is divided between those who live inside the wall, and those, like sixteen-year-old midwife Gaia Stone, who live outside. It’s Gaia’s job to “advance” a quota of infants from poverty into the walled Enclave, until the night one agonized mother objects, and Gaia’s parents are arrested.

Badly scarred since childhood, Gaia is a strong, resourceful loner who begins to question her society. As Gaia’s efforts to save her parents take her within the wall, she herself is arrested and imprisoned.

Fraught with difficult moral choices and rich with intricate layers of codes, BIRTHMARKED explores a colorful, cruel, eerily familiar world where one girl can make all the difference, and a real hero makes her own moral code.

Stand alone or series: Book 1 in a planned series

How did I get this book: Bought (at The Strand during BEA!)

Review:

Since her childhood, Gaia has trained with her mother to become the next midwife for her district, just outside the protective walls of the Enclave. And one fated night, sixteen-year old Gaia finds herself in an exciting position – while her mother is busy with another birth, Gaia is summoned to attend to her very first solo delivery. And, as it is her first delivery, the baby that is born must be Advanced to the Enclave. The laws for midwives are simple and absolute: the first three healthy children they deliver each month are to be advanced (that is, given over) to the walled-off Enclave. These children are the lucky and the blessed, for advancement means that the will never want for food nor suffer the hardships of life outside the fortress’s walls. But despite the happiness this means for those first children, their birthmothers are, understandably, distraught. As Gaia heads home from delivering her very first advanced child, she finds a grim, cold soldier awaiting her return. From his cruel lips, Gaia learns her mother and father have been taken prisoner by the Enclave under suspicion of keeping some sort of illegal records – though Gaia has no idea what her law-abiding parents could have done to anger the Enclave. Gaia also learns that she has inherited her mother’s job as the midwife of her district. Terrified for her family, Gaia struggles to find a way to do the impossible – to understand why her parents were taken, and to breach the Enclave’s walls and rescue her parents before they are executed.

Birthmarked is Caragh O’Brien’s first novel, and while highly anticipated, is something of a mixed emotions read. The idea of Birthmarked is unquestionably solid, blending familiar elements of post-apocalyptic dystopian novels such as the question of reproductive problems and rights from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaiden’s Tale, or environmental catastrophe and the ‘walled-off haves and have nots’ trope from books such as Julie Bertagna’s Exodus & Zenith or Carrie Mac’s Triskelia trilogy. I love the idea of a future society ravaged by climate change and genetic short-sightedness, and a totalitarian style of government struggling to separate the rich from the poor generations after their walls have gone up. And yet, for all this…there are significant problems with Birthmarked that kept me from enjoying it with full abandon.

I’ll start with What Worked: the backstory of the world (three hundred or so years after global warming has reached a critical point), the overwhelming lack of genetic diversity within the Enclave (leading to prevalent defects, such as hemophilia), the anger of people being told whom they can or cannot marry, and the separation of the poor outside the walls (as their children are taken inside as valuable commodities).

I liked all of these things…but at the heart of Birthmarked is a central fallacy; there is something that almost ALL dystopian novels have in common, a commonality – one at which Birthmarked fails spectacularly.

The book lacks a Truly Villainous Government.

Heck, what the Enclave is doing is by no means ideal – but it’s hardly the stuff of despicable oppression. The Enclave taking children from outside its walls and giving them safe, secure new lives does not exactly an Orwellian Big Brother make. Furthermore, when we finally learn why the government has its panties in a twist over Gaia’s mother’s records, the central conflict of the novel disintegrates completely. Had the Enclave been taking the advanced children and harvesting them for organs or stem cells or mulching them down for food or something equally horrifying, perhaps the story’s conflict might have made a bit more sense. But as it stands…these babies are brought in to help society keep going. Is it ideal? No. Is it EVIL OMG, THE HORROR! THE DYSTOPIAN HORROR?! Not really.

Furthermore, the whole central conflict of the story falls apart under scrutiny – WHY on earth wouldn’t the government keep records of every child? WHY the death penalty and ire at Gaia’s mother for marking advanced children with a tattoo and keeping track of them? It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve never before read a book so focused on hemophilia as the downfall for society – and on that note, in addition to hemophilia wouldn’t there be other physical manifestations of generations of inbreeding? If the recessive traits of hemophilia can be expressed in female children, wouldn’t there also be some other recessive trait mutations or disfigurations (of the jaw, of the cranium, etc) present? In a culture so focused on appearances – Gaia is turned away from being advanced because of a burn scar on her face (which IS NOT A GENETIC DISORDER, I might add!) – shouldn’t people look a little more funky and less beautiful, given the rampant inbreeding and lack of genetic diversity?

This is to say nothing of the exposition-y info-dumps along the way (the explanation of chromosomes – using chrome spoons, oho! – for example was particularly cringe-worthy), the superficial examination of certain characters (again with the midwifing/healer women roles!?), the sheer predictability of the plot, or – most infuriating of all – the incredible convenience with which heroine Gaia is miraculously bailed out every time she is in Mortal Peril or has a Big Problem to solve (e.g. Gaia is about to be sentenced to death…BUT LUCKILY a handsome, high ranking soldier saves her life!; Gaia’s luck has run out and she needs to find her mother before she is executed the next day…BUT LUCKILY a handsome soldier takes pity on her and helps her out!).

Suffice to say, I was a little underwhelmed with Birthmarked. That said, the book wasn’t all bad. I certainly finished the book eagerly enough, and certain parts of the story shone – Gaia’s childhood memories, her flashbacks of her father, in particular, stood out as memorable scenes. Although I didn’t much care for the “romance” (which felt stilted, contrived, and utterly predictable), I did like the relationship Gaia had with her family and other characters throughout the book – and Gaia herself is a gutsy heroine with admirable muster (if not the sharpest tool in the shed).

There’s enough to keep readers engaged with Birthmarked, but there are so many excellent post-apocalyptic dystopian novels out there, that it’s hard to truly recommend this one. But, I’ll stick around for book 2, in hopes that the books grow on me.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

In the dim hovel, the mother clenched her body into one final, straining push, and the baby slithered out into Gaia’s ready hands.

“Good job,” Gaia said. “Wonderful. It’s a girl.”

The baby cried indignantly, and Gaia breathed a sigh of relief as she checked for toes and fingers and a perfect back. It was a good baby, healthy and well formed, if small. Gaia wrapped the child in a blanket, then held the bundle toward the flickering firelight for the exhausted mother to see.

Gaia wished her own mother were there to help, especially with managing the afterbirth and the baby. She knew, nor mally, she wasn’t supposed to give the baby to the mother to hold, not even for an instant, but now the mother was reaching and Gaia didn’t have enough hands.

“Please,” the young woman whispered. Her fingers becko ned tenderly.

The baby’s cries subsided, and Gaia passed her over. She tried not to listen to the mother’s gentle, cooing noises as she cleaned up between her legs, moving gently and efficiently as her mother had taught her. She was excited and a little proud. This was her first delivery, and it was an unassisted delivery, too. She had helped her mother many times, and she’d known for years that she would be a midwife, but now it was finally real.

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Rating: 5 – Meh

POD by Stephen Wallenfals

Publisher: Namelos
Publication Date: April 2010
Paperback: 192 Pages

POD is the story of a global cataclysmic event, told from the view points of Megs, a 12-year-old streetwise girl trapped in a hotel parking garage in Los Angeles; and 16-year-old Josh, who is stuck in a house in Prosser, Washington, with his increasingly obsessive compulsive father. Food and water and time are running out. Will Megs survive long enough to find her mother? Will Josh and his father survive each other?

Stand alone or series: Book 1 in a planned series (I hope?!)

How did I get this book: Bought (during the same trip to The Strand!)

Review:

They appeared one morning, materializing in the sky after an impossibly loud sound heard by every person on the planet – hovering black orbs.

Pods.

The spheres hang in the clouds, suspended by technology unknown to man. More than just ominous shapes in the sky, the pods also prove deadly – disintegrating any humans that attempt to step outdoors and interfering with all methods of communication. With no way to organize, no news, no electricity, and with food running out, humanity faces a bleak future.

Told through the chapter-alternating perspectives of two young adults, POD follows sixteen-year old Josh and twelve-year old Megs. In a small town in Washington, Josh, his father, and their dog are closeted in their home and Josh struggles with the rules and responsibilities his father imposes to help keep them alive. And Megs, alone in a Los Angeles parking lot, hides and scavenges for food and water from parked car to parked car, desperately avoiding the men that have taken control of the hotel and its guests.

And all the while, the pods stand silent vigil…

Unlike Birthmarked, POD left me one seriously satisfied customer. Told from two very different – but equally harrowing – voices, POD rocks. Almost cinematic in its delivery (the image of black alien spherical ships zapping errant humans reminiscent of classic Sci-Fi drive-in B-movies), POD teases readers – though the alien invasion is imminent, not a single extraterrestrial is actually seen. With his apocalyptic invasion, instead of focusing on the sensational, Mr. Wallenfels focuses on the thing that makes the best apocalypse novels successful – the human element. The choice to use two young adults in different locations surviving the same (presumably) global event is ingenious and incredibly effective. Alternating each chapter with Josh and his deteriorating father with Megs and her desperate situation os the “parking lot pirate,” the story builds to a terse, high level of tension.

Which brings me to the reason why POD works so well – in addition to its expert plotting and storytelling technique – that is, because of the strength of its detailed, wholly genuine protagonists. Both characters go through very different ordeals, both do some serious growing up in the span of 28 long, grueling days. Josh’s narrative begins as somewhat spoiled and self-centered, as his biggest problems are initially centered around whining about his father’s strict food rationing methods and cold, cruel indifference to their family dog. While he deals with the injustice of only eating a meal a day, Megs (left behind by her mother in the hotel parking lot before the appearance of the ominous pods) hides from terrifying, violent men with guns, all the while hunting for any food she can – stale popcorn kernels and forgotten lint covered candies stuck between car seats, and subsisting off of ketchup packets and a soup of gunky, tepid, melted cooler water. From the first moment we meet Megs, its clear she’s a perceptive, cuttingly smart young girl – she may only be twelve, but nothing slips by her (as seen in the strained relationship with her mother). While Megs is the character who faces the most overt danger (and yeah, ok, I preferred her gutsy, defiant narrative over Josh’s), Josh also goes through hell of a different, more introspective sort. The relationship between the teen boy and his father is incredibly genuine, running the gamut of emotions from resentment to respect to love – and the fate of this family is harrowing stuff. I don’t want to spoil anything, so just trust me when I say that Josh’s tragic, haunting story is no walk in the park, even though it initially may seem so, especially in contrast with Megs’ adrenaline-fueled game of hide and seek from some very, very bad people.

What else can I say about POD? It’s touching, it’s fast-paced, it’s terrifying, and – like the best freakin’ apocalypse novels – it’s all about flawed, real characters. I loved every second of this book, and I can only hope that Stephen Wallenfels is hard at work finishing up the trilogy. (There’s something of a cliffhanger ending, and I need to know what happens next. IMMEDIATELY.)

Notable Quotes/Parts: Two excerpts, one from each narrator. From Josh:

We share a look but say nothing.

Birds fly from branch to branch. A gust of wind sends leaves skittering across the patio floor. Storm clouds gather and darken a turbulent sky. The sun feels like it’s going down instead of up. Sirens pierce the moment. It’s an ambulance and a fire truck, somewhere close. This wakes Dutch. He sees us, jumps to his feet, presses his nose to the glass.

I reach for the door.

“Josh, wait!”

The urgency in Dad’s voice stops me cold. He’s looking up. I follow his eyes. The air is sucked out of my lungs. My jaw hangs open, numb.

Dropping down through the clouds, silent like a spider on a web, is a massive black sphere.

It’s a mile away at least, but even from this distance it dwarfs the neighborhoods below. I brace myself for the horror of watching houses crushed with people inside. But it stops well above the trees, maybe five hundred feet off the ground. It hovers soundlessly.

Dad whispers, “Sweet Jesus.”

He points to another one, farther to the east. Then another.

Within half a minute the entire horizon is dotted with black spheres. Dutch scratches at the glass, oblivious to the scene playing out above his head.

The spheres begin to rotate.

Then, as if on cue, they all start emitting jagged beams of white-blue light. The beams split off into smaller and smaller ones, like twigs off a branch, some into the air, most striking the ground. Two cars are speeding down a fire road on Horse Heaven Hills. A flash of light and they’re both gone. No explosion, no ball of flame. Just gone.

Dad whispers, “Sweet Jesus.”

From Megs:

It finally stops. My whole body is shaking. The car feels like it’s spinning and my ears hurt. I don’t know what to do, so I bury my head in my sleeping bag and hope that it doesn’t happen again.

Where’s Mom? Why me? Am I sick? All these questions are flooding my brain—when there’s another noise.

Sirens.

Not just a couple. Hundreds. I sit up and look around. There are flashes of light, like lightning only without the thunder. Even though Mom said not to, I turn on the radio. It’s just static, no matter what button I push. Then people start running into the parking garage.

First one or two, then a wide-eyed flood. Men in pajamas, women in nightshirts dragging their sobbing kids. A guy wearing only a T-shirt and boxers unlocks the blue car next to ours. He comes out with a gun, sprints to the exit ramp, and starts shooting at the sky. He disappears in a flash of light. Cars start, engines roar. People are trying to leave and other people are trying to stop them. A mom with her two young kids, a boy and girl, run toward the SUV. The little girl drops her stuffed rabbit. She tries to go back, but her mother picks her up and throws her crying into the SUV.

Horns mix with the sirens.

A man trips and falls to the ground.

Cars drive over him like he’s a speed bump. I yell at them to stop, but no one hears me. Then the sound of breaking glass, tearing metal—more people screaming. Cars screech down from the upper levels and ram into cars on the ground floor. The SUV is trying to back out of its parking spot. A speeding truck clips the rear fender, crashing it sideways into another car. Now it’s trapped. Moments later the mom and her kids spill out the passenger side. Blood is streaming down the little girl’s forehead. The mom looks toward the exit. Cars drive out, one after another, and disappear in flashes of light. A red BMW slams on its brakes. It skids halfway into the street and disappears. The mom picks up the girl and they run for the lobby door. The boy stops and turns like he forgot something, but his mom grabs his arm and pulls him away. His face is twisted in a scream.

I smell burning rubber, engine exhaust, gasoline—and then I feel something.

A warm wetness spreads inside my sleeping bag.

Tears stream down my face, they smear on the glass. I feel like I can’t breathe. The sounds outside swallow up everything, even the air. I curl up into a ball on the back seat and close my eyes so tight they hurt. But I still see it—cars driving over the fallen man.

And those awful blinding flashes.

You can read a full excerpt from both of these characters online HERE.

Rating: 8 – Excellent

Reading Next: For the Win by Cory Doctorow

Title: The Passage

Author: Justin Cronin

Genre: Horror, (Post-)Apocalyptic, Fiction, Speculative Fiction

Publisher: Ballatine (US) / Orion (UK)
Publication Date: June 2010 (US & UK)
Hardcover: 784 Pages

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.”

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.

Stand alone or series: Book 1 in a planned trilogy

How did I get this book: ARC from the Publisher

Why did I read this book: You don’t have to search hard to find some sort of promotional material for Justin Cronin’s The Passage – down the street from my apartment, there’s an honest to goodness billboard with an advertisement for the book. At BookExpo America, banners were strewn willy-nilly across the Javits Center, and even press/attendee badges bore advertisements for the book. The Passage has come so highly rated by literary types and genre fiction types alike (hi-yo, Stephen King endorsement!), and given the synopsis of the book (a world overrun by a deadly vampire-like plague, a struggling group of humans fighting for survival in a ravaged post-apocalyptic America, and a girl-that-is-not-a-girl who could save them all)…well, this is has my name all over it. Thea-crack.

Review:

When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’d
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz’d,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.

~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 68

So begins the The Passage – with a fittingly eerie, portent ode to the end of the world. The book begins with the story of a teenage mother, Jeanette, and her beloved daughter whom she names Amy Harper – for Harper Lee, the author of Jeanette’s favorite book. Though Jeanette loves her daughter more than anything else in the world, she finds herself in an impossible situation, and is forced to give young, solemn Amy up, leaving her with a convent of nuns. Sister Lacey immediately feels a connection to Amy, understanding that there is something different, something important, about the six-year old girl, and takes her in, deflecting the questions of the other nuns in the convent. Meanwhile, Doctor Jonas Lear continues his top secret medical research, borne of a dream to find a miraculous cure for mankind’s ailments, under the jurisdiction and protection of the U.S. Army. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is sent to procure the subjects of Dr. Lear’s human trials, twelve deathrow inmates whom Wolgast persuades to sign their lives away. But Wolgast’s final mission has his conscience ill at ease as he and his partner are sent to pick up one final test subject; a six year old girl, abandoned by her prostitute mother. A girl named Amy.

Lear’s research, the twelve variations of the Project NOAH virus, are unleashed on the world in a single night as security is breached and each of the inexplicable, ravenous test subjects escape. Infecting and multiplying, the Virals sweep the North American continent from coast to coast in a wave of blood, horror and death, their only vulnerability exposure to daylight. The survivors – what few survivors remain – band together in isolated fortresses, armed with weapons and shielding their settlements with bright lights from dusk till dawn. But many decades later, when the power stutters and batteries begin to fail in First Colony, its only a matter of time before the lights go out and all is lost. But when a strange young girl with the ability to keep the Virals at bay arrives at the Colony walls, the fate of those precious few human survivors holds a glimmer of hope in a world of endless death.

As I mentioned above, The Passage is one of the most hyped new releases (if not THE most hyped new release) of 2010. And, having been burned by hype this year countless times, it was with a high level of anxiety that I began The Passage.

Well, folks, it is with exuberant, unfaltering joy that I can say, this book is every bit as epic, as horrifying, as magnificent as promised.

From a world-building perspective, the tropes are instantly recognizable, familiar to the genre fiction fan. There’s nothing new about the premise of the book – an apocalypse, born of good intentions gone awry; a pandemic that converts the planet’s population into monsters, the remaining humans defenseless lambs to the slaughter. Justin Cronin’s take on the vampires myth is also somewhat familiar, his mutated “smokes” reminiscent of the recent film version of I Am Legend (not to be confused with Richard Matheson’s original envisioning), and Guillermo del Toror & Chuck Hogan’s more recent The Strain. To those skeptically reading this review, thinking to themselves that this is just another vampire book in a market oversaturated with supposedly “new” takes on vampire lore, what with their Bill Comptons, Edward Cullens, or even Kurt Barlows (for the horror afficionado), rest assured that The Passage is not just another vampire book. Rather (as remarked on Twitter earlier this week), The Passage is “just” another vampire book so much as The Road is “just” another post-apocalypse novel and Dawn of the Dead is “just” another zombie movie.

The Passage is the real deal. It is a book that not only lives up to the gargantuan hype, the impressive scale of its marketing machine, the carrot of its Ridley Scott movie deal – it surpasses expectation because it is just that damn good a story.

While on the one hand these genre tropes are safe and familiar, on the other it’s incredibly smart on author Justin Cronin’s part – these are classic premises for a reason, and Mr. Cronin embellishes his own mythology in just the right places. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, Mr. Cronin blends the familiar, imbued with his own particular take on apocalypse-by-monster. There are secrets and revelations enough to satisfy the scrutinizing apocalyptic aficionado (believe me, I’m one of the most discriminating of the bunch), but more than just worldbuilding or setting, the most impressive thing about The Passage is how effortless the storytelling is. Yes, it’s a doorstopper at 800 pages long – but it’s the best kind of doorstopper. Have you ever read a book that you didn’t want to end? A book that makes you feel the pang of regret, even as you race to the next page? Such is The Passage. The book is very much like Stephen King in its heft, but with one rather sizeable difference – in King’s books, there is a lot of, shall I say, excess. In The Passage, each page, each side-plot, each character history plays a vital, invaluable role in the book.

And I’ve yet to say anything of the characters! The cast of The Passage is large and varied, covering not only an array of human and infected, but across almost 100 years, as well. And for all that, each character is impeccably detailed; from the tragic Jeanette Bellafonte to the faithful Sister Lacey, the hardened Agent Wolgast to the heartbroken Dr. Lear, the self-doubting Peter, always in the shadow of his brother Theo, to the fiery Alicia. Each has their own distinct voice, their intricate and genuine histories, and I found myself profoundly caring for all of them – even the Virals themselves. Because, with the “monsters” and thematically, I think Mr. Cronin does with The Passage what so many dystopian and apocalyptic authors forget matters the most – he keeps hope alive in his story. Instead of villifying and labeling the vampires in his book as monotonously evil, bent only on blood and death, he shows them in a different light (which I won’t spoil for you, dear readers).

Finally, I do think that “the hype” must be formally addressed – especially for a book which has been pushed so much as The Passage. This is undeniably a genre fiction novel, brought to a mainstream audience – and I cannot express how overjoyed am I that an honest-to-goodness horror/post-apocalyptic mashup garnered such a huge marketing campaign and budget. Not to mention the movie option – seriously, throughout the book, I kept wondering, who is Russell Crowe gonna play? Heh. (I’m thinking Agent Wolgast, or a certain Army Major. Heck, why not Babcock? But therein lie spoilers, and I promise not to go there.) With the hype, however, comes the fear – I am a little nervous because this is not an easy blockbuster read such as, say, The DaVinci Code. I can see where reader opinion may vary and why the book’s intimidating length and large-scale approach to time and characters might lose readers – especially casual readers in our instant gratification era of teh internets – but I’m here to tell you that those naysayers? They miss the point. The Passage is a magnificent gift of a novel about the journey, not the answers (bear in mind, this is the first book of a trilogy). Beautifully written on an epic scale, it is a book that transcends genre.

The Passage is undoubtably the best book I have read in 2010. Absolutely recommended for anyone not scared to take on a book that shatters the mold of mass produced, predictable tripe that looks and reads like every other book on the market; for anyone that enjoys a truly Great read; for anyone that wants wants to be swept away in a torrent of flawless storytelling.

The Passage awaits.

Notable Quotes/Parts: Using Random House’s “insight” widget, you can read the first 80 pages of The Passage below.

Additional Thoughts: As I mentioned above, the marketing campaign for this book is nothing short of impressive. For extras and downloads – everything from iPhone Apps to Twitter avatars and screensavers – check out the official book website HERE.

Once you’ve had your fun there, make sure to check out spinoff website Find Subject Zero (a tie-in blog) and enjoy the goodies, including videos, blog posts, tweets, and more. (I’m a huge sucker for these things, so I highly recommend you visit if you’re similarly inclined). For more content, check out Amazon’s Omnivoracious Page, where you can catch Justin Cronin’s podcasts about the book.

Rating: 9 – Damn Near Perfection; and I wait with bated breath for the next book in the trilogy.

Reading Next: The Magician’s Apprentice by Trudi Canavan

Title: Feed

Author: Mira Grant

Genre: Horror, Thriller, Zombies

Publisher: Orbit (US & UK)
Publication Date: April 2010 (US) / May 2010 (UK)
Paperback: 608 pages

EVERYONE HAS SOMEONE ON THE WALL

Shaun and Georgia are orphans of the Rising, the cataclysmic event which left the world reeling in the aftermath of the zombie uprising. Adopted by the Masons and raised in the strange world of the post-Rising media, they’ve spent their lives chasing the next big story, the one that will allow them to break into the big leagues once and for all. Now, in Senator Peter Ryman’s run for the Presidency of the United States, they’ve finally found it.

All they have to do is survive until the election.

In a world filled with the constant threat of both the living and the living dead, it will be all that Shaun and Georgia can do to keep themselves in one piece. Accompanied by the rest of their blogging team, Senator Ryman’s staff, and a whole lot of caffeine, they might succeed…or they might finally answer the big question of their post-Rising world: When will you rise?

Stand alone or series: Book 1 in the Newsflesh Trilogy

How did I get this book: Bought my copy (at the LA Times Festival of Books!)

Why did I read this book: It’s no surprise that I am a fan of Seanan McGuire’s – her October Daye series is one of my current favorites in the Urban Fantasy (sub)genre. SO, when I heard that the lovely Ms. McGuire would be writing an entirely new, totally different series – featuring politics, blogs and zombies – I was ecstatic. Writing under the name Mira Grant, Feed was as irresistible to me as brains are to zombies.

Review:

Kellis-Amberlee – such a pretty name for such a deadly, combined virus.

In the year 2014, a young girl, Amberlee, was cured of her terminal Leukemia. In the same year, one Dr. Kellis created a bold new rhinovirus strain that would cure the common cold. In an unfortunate confluence of events, the two viruses combined, creating an airborne hybrid that quickly replicated and swept across the face of the planet. Sickness was invariably cured – cancer and the sniffles became things of the past. But the new virus, Kellis-Amberlee, also had a peculiar side effect – namely, raising the dead. Those with weaker immune systems, those with direct, fluid contact with high quantities of the virus were the first to reanimate. The virus infected animals (with sufficiently large bodymass) and humans alike, causing a worldwide panic, and an all out war with the undead.

Twenty years later, Kellis-Amberlee is still humanity’s largest threat though it has been beaten back and contained through strict testing and regulatory procedures. In addition to wiping out a large portion of the population and reanimating the dead, KA also caused a shift in power. In the media, traditional outlets were sluggish to respond to “the rising,” bound by their myriad ties to governments and companies hesitant to give heed to crazy accounts. The new media – that is, news bloggers – were faster, more accurate, and helped inform the public how to defend itself in a time when defense and knowledge were sparse – and ever since the summer of the Rising of KA, bloggers have remained the highest rated source for the truth.

Feed follows Georgia “George” Mason (a by the book “newsie”), her foster brother Shaun Mason (a daredevil “Irwin”) and Georgette “Buffy” Mesonnier (a dreamy creative) – a team of successful, highly rated news bloggers who are selected to follow Republican Presidential candidate Senator Peter Ryman on his run for the highest office in the nation. As members of Ryman’s press corp, George and her team have the break of a lifetime. Their ratings skyrocket, and the ever-skeptical and pessimistic George finds herself believing in Senator Ryman’s message. But things are never so simple, and when the Senator’s campaign, his well-being, and his family come under brutal attack, George and her crew will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of the matter and to bring out the truth – even if it means their own lives are at risk.

After all, everyone is already infected with Kellis-Amberlee. It’s only a matter of time before it takes over each and every host on the planet.

When I started Feed, I was under the impression that it was more of a horror novel – which isn’t really true. Feed is more of a thriller – a political thriller, a medical thriller, all wrapped up in one delightful undead package. Instead of copious amounts of gore, flesh-eating, decapitation, etc, the dominant theme in Feed is that of uncovering truth, at any cost. It is undoubtedly a zombie novel, but it’s not a book about killing zombies. It has action in spades, but the true carnage is on the human – not the undead – level. It’s a horror novel, but the terror lies in the actions of human nature, much more so than the supernatural fear of the walking dead. Like the most memorable works in the zombie canon, Feed uses its zombies (those reanimated corpses teeming with Kellis-Amberlee) to examine humanity. And this, dear readers, is really goddamn cool.

More than anything else, I loved the amount of thought Ms. Grant put into writing this book. Feed is INCREDIBLY detailed; George’s world is fleshed out, from the genesis of the deadly pathogen to the constant vigilance required living with this airborne virus. Ms. Grant’s vision of a future American ravaged by KA is grimly complete. Nothing occurs in a vacuum in Feed, and rather than glossing over any details (or creating some stupid hokey explanation for the emergence of the virus *cough*28DaysLater*cough*), Ms. Grant uses George to fully explore all social, scientific and historical aspects of KA. The benefit of having such an intelligent and well-tuned in narrator is the fact that George knows everything that has happened and can explain it all. Historical context, the political game (i.e. tobacco companies’ unabashed rise to power since cigarettes no longer cause cancer), laws concerning animals…Ms. Grant covers it all. I loved the actual detail level of the disease itself, too – for example, mutations are present, and some characters like George suffer different forms of Kellis-Amberlee. In Geroge’s case, she suffers from retinal KA, rendering her pupils permanently dilated (meaning she cannot go anywhere without strong, filtered sunglasses to preserve her retinas; it also means that she cannot pass any retinal scan for KA, as her test results will always come out positive – think of it like living with a positive TB test).

I loved the idea that news bloggers would end up taking over traditional media outlets when the world falls apart (hey, as a blogger, this feels really cool). *As an aside, the whole ‘bloggers being the harbingers for the zombie apocalypse’ thing felt very reminiscent of Romero’s Diary of the Dead – which, while self-indulgent and not a very good movie, is an intriguing concept, and one I think Ms. Grant delivers on exceptionally well.* Plot-wise, Feed also shines. Though it’s pretty easy to guess, ultimately, who is behind the sabotage and attacks on Senator Ryman and the End of Times crew, the pacing is brisk, and the various clues/revelations flow unimpeded to a dramatic – shocking, heartbreaking! – conclusion.

I loved the characters, too – George, her foster brother Shaun and the (odd combination) tech-savant/poet Buffy make a wonderful team that balances each other out perfectly. Note their names too – George for Romero (and in my heart, the beloved George of my Nancy Drew days!), Shaun (of the Dead), and Buffy (the Vampire Slayer). Each balances the other, creating not only a winsome news team, but a cast that readers genuinely care about. I loved the close relationship between George and Shaun, even if it did feel a little bit weird at times (sharing a room together, voluntarily), but it makes sense given all they have been through together.

While there was a lot to love with Feed, one of its greatest strengths also was its greatest hinderance, in this reader’s opinion. Feed is very, very wordy. Very exposition-y. George is knowledgeable and explains everything in her inner narrative – there are literally pages and pages where heroine Geroge is relating details of her world, from Kellis-Amberlee, anecdotes about the Rising, political info, etc – and she does it all without really “talking” to anyone (i.e. this running narrative is completely, solely for the reader’s benefit and understanding). It is cool to see this kind of detail, but these passages could also be a bit wearying, not to mention unrealistic (no one, not even George, recalls all these details to themselves!). The level of detail is really, really awesome, but it comes at a price.

That said, this is a minor flaw in a solid book. I truly enjoyed Feed, and eagerly await the release of Deadline.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

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. As if we didn’t already know what happens when you mess with a zombie: The zombie turns around and bites you, and you become the thing you poked. This isn’t a surprise. It hasn’t been a surprise for more than twenty years, and if you want to get technical, it wasn’t a surprise then.

When the infected first appeared—heralded by screams that the dead were rising and judgment day was at hand—they behaved just like the horror movies had been telling us for decades that they would behave. The only surprise was that this time, it was really happening.

There was no warning before the outbreaks began. One day, things were normal; the next, people who were supposedly dead were getting up and attacking anything that came into range. This was upsetting for everyone involved, except for the infected, who were past being upset about that sort of thing. The initial shock was followed by running and screaming, which eventually devolved into more infection and attacking, that being the way of things. So what do we have now, in this enlightened age twenty-six years after the Rising? We have idiots prodding zombies with sticks, which brings us full circle to my brother and why he probably won’t live a long and fulfilling life.

“Hey, George, check this out!” he shouted, giving the zombie another poke in the chest with his hockey stick. The zombie gave a low moan, swiping at him ineffectually. It had obviously been in a state of full viral amplification for some time and didn’t have the strength or physical dexterity left to knock the stick out of Shaun’s hands. I’ll give Shaun this much: He knows not to bother the fresh ones at close range. “We’re playing patty-cake!”

“Stop antagonizing the locals and get back on the bike,” I said, glaring from behind my sunglasses. His current buddy might be sick enough to be nearing its second, final death, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a healthier pack roaming the area. Santa Cruz is zombie territory. You don’t go there unless you’re suicidal, stupid, or both. There are times when even I can’t guess which of those options applies to Shaun.

“Can’t talk right now! I’m busy making friends with the locals!”

“Shaun Phillip Mason, you get back on this bike right now, or I swear to God, I am going to drive away and leave you here.”

Shaun looked around, eyes bright with sudden interest as he planted the end of his hockey stick at the center of the zombie’s chest to keep it at a safe distance. “Really? You’d do that for me? Because ‘My Sister Abandoned Me in Zombie Country Without a Vehicle’ would make a great article.”

“A posthumous one, maybe,” I snapped. “Get back on the goddamn bike!”

“In a minute!” he said, laughing, and turned back toward his moaning friend.

In retrospect, that’s when everything started going wrong.

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Speaking of awesome, check out the wicked cool website for Feed, courtesy of Orbit. The site has some truly great bonus material related to the book (campaign trail tidbits, Irwin info, etc). Check it out HERE.

Make sure to stop by later in the day as Mira Grant joins us for an Inspirations & Influences post!

Rating: 7 – Very Good, leaning towards an 8

Reading Next: In Her Name: First Contact by Michael Hicks

Title: Epitaph Road

Author: David Patneaude

Genre: Young Adult, Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian

Publisher: Egmont USA
Publication Date: March 2010
Hardcover: 272 pages

2097 is a transformed world. Thirty years earlier, a mysterious plague wiped out 97 percent of the male population, devastating every world system from governments to sports teams, and causing both universal and unimaginable grief. In the face of such massive despair, women were forced to take over control of the planet–and in doing so they eliminated all of Earth’s most pressing issues. Poverty, crime, warfare, hunger . . . all gone.

But there’s a price to pay for this new “utopia,” which fourteen-year-old Kellen is all too familiar with. Every day, he deals with life as part of a tiny minority that is purposefully kept subservient and small in numbers. His career choices and relationship options are severely limited and controlled. He also lives under the threat of scattered recurrences of the plague, which seem to pop up wherever small pockets of men begin to regroup and grow in numbers.

And then one day, his mother’s boss, an iconic political figure, shows up at his home. Kellen overhears something he shouldn’t–another outbreak seems to be headed for Afterlight, the rural community where his father and a small group of men live separately from the female-dominated society. Along with a few other suspicious events, like the mysterious disappearances of Kellen’s progressive teacher and his Aunt Paige, Kellen is starting to wonder whether the plague recurrences are even accidental. No matter what the truth is, Kellen cares only about one thing–he has to save his father.

Stand alone or series: Stand alone novel

How did I get this book: Review Copy from the Publisher

Why did I read this book: It’s no secret that I’m a junkie for (post-)apocalyptic and dystopian fiction. So, when I heard about Epitaph Road, it was only natural that I began getting the excited-happy-shakes and did everything in my power to bug as many people as possible to get the title. I make no apologies.

Review:

Before the highly contagious and fast-acting Elisha’s Bear Virus decimated half the global population in 2067, the world was already under extreme duress. The world’s glaciers had disappeared, its oceans poisoned with plastic and starved of life. San Francisco had been vaporized by a nuclear attack, Los Angeles obliterated shortly after. In the United States alone, men in correctional facilities outnumbered those in the education system. Drug trade flourished as the economy ground to a halt, and war was eminent in countries around the globe.

When Elisha’s Bear, named for the biblical story of the female bears that killed all of Elisha’s taunters, struck, ninety-seven percent of the male population was killed in a span of a few short days. No cure was found, and only those lucky enough to have been in the most remote areas of the wilderness or strangely immune survived. As devastating as Elisha was, killing the old and young, good and wicked without discrimination, the world began to heal and prosper in the aftermath. Wars ended, and the female population created a peaceful, crime, poverty, and hunger-free world.

Growing up as a male in this utopia, however, is a different matter. All children artificially conceived are engineered to be female, and the male population is maintained strictly in a 20-to-1 ratio. For Kellen Dent, a naturally conceived and born male and son of an important bureaucrat in the new world order, it also means that his future is severely limited. As he prepares to take his “trials” (oral exams that every child must pass to determine their role in society), Kellen faces the grim reality that he can never be more than a second-class citizen and he dreams of joining his biological father, a man that one day decided to take off and live on the outskirts of Vancouver on his fishing boat. When he overhears his mother and one of the top ranking political figures speaking of a quarantine in Vancouver, Kellen and his two friends Tia and Sunday uncover a horrifying truth – and embark on a mission to warn Kellen’s father of the impending danger.

So far as concepts go, I loved the idea of Epitaph Road; a wounded world decimated by an extremely discriminating plague, only to rise again as an apparent utopia. I loved the nomenclature too – Elisha’s Bear, the not-so-nice biblical parable, is a perfect name for this devastating virus. I also like the resounding sentiment that it is the young people of the world that will ultimately be the ones to change it – Kellen, Tia and Saturday and their trek north to warn those they care about, and eventually the world at large is an inspiring and fitting message. (Even though, from the epitaphs at the beginning of each chapter, I think they aren’t giving the adults a fair chance – more on that later)

And yet…for all that I wanted to love Epitaph Road, for all that it is a fast-paced, quick-read thriller, it stumbles in the execution department. Epitaph Road is a potential gold mine, thematically. Are women inherently more peaceful, less violent, and better adept at running the world than men? Would violence and hunger and war truly disappear if men did? It hardly seems like an accurate picture, and Mr. Patneaude does explore (very briefly) the issue of ruthlessness across gender, but only in a glancing, cursory way.

The same can be said for the characters: narrator Kellen and his crush, the very intelligent Tia and the spunky Saturday are great characters, but we never really get to know them or what makes them tick. Even more egregious a flaw, however, is how little the actual adult feelings are explored. We don’t really learn about Kellen’s father and his reasoning to leave his son behind while he lives on his fishing boat (presumably he knows the dangers and hardships facing his son,- so why wouldn’t he want to keep Kellen near?? It doesn’t compute). Similarly, Kellen’s mother never really gets her reprieve or any explanation. Why does she do the things she does? What made her change her perspective regarding the world, her husband? Everything is filtered through Kellen’s perspective, so we don’t see the WHY of anything.

Epitaph Road is good, but it’s content to stick with the simple explanations, glossing over any actual depth. We see how the world has fallen apart, we read how Elisha has ravaged the planet, and we see how women have rebuilt things. But the WHYS of the decisions, these provocative moral gray areas unfortunately aren’t examined at all. By using the childrens’ perspectives, it’s almost a cop-out. Because naturally Kellen, Tia and Sunday can be righteous and outraged at their world – they weren’t around earlier and have not had to make any of the choices that their mothers and fathers have. Had there been more explanation, more exploration of motives of the adults involved, now THAT would have been fascinating.

Notable Quotes/Parts: I loved some of the stylistic touches. The Epitaphs at the beginning of each chapter are brilliant, heart-rending things.

Sometimes, now that late autumn’s outstretched shadows and first snowfall have sugarcoated the bitter landscape of reality, now that bare dogwood branches tick against the front window like small knuckles, I imagine you on the porch steps, bouncing on the soft soles of your sneakers, Dr. Seuss in your hand, a joyous smile on your face, waiting for me to answer your home-from-school knock. Sometimes I go to the door, just in case.
~ Epitaph for Basaam Aziz (March 3, 2059 – August 11, 2067), by his mother, Latefa Aziz, November 27, 2068

She chose to tag along, Dad’s lifeless hand in one of hers, his eager pistol in her other. She never trusted him on his own.
~ Epitaph for Molly Vernon (December 22, 2019 – August 14, 2067), by Tami and Sara Vernon, her daughters, December 11, 2068

A lying, cheating, abusive monster – this plague was too good for him, a blessing on me.
~ Anonymous note stapled to the forehead of Henry Poole (2033 – 2067), Discovered August 13, 2067

And my favorite:

Even though Dad always tried his hardest not to give away his feelings, I’m pretty sure he loved Charlie best. But that didn’t make me super sad, really, because Charlie is the firstborn and a boy and he looks a lot like Mom and he’s the best brother in the whole world, even during those tearful times when he’s being colossally stubborn and bossy and rude (I especially don’t care about any of that stuff now, because Elisha’s Bear makes him nervous and not himself most of the time). The sad part, actually, is that I’ll never get another chance to make Dad see that I might have been second to come around, and I might be a girl, but I’m okay, too.

I really am.
~ Entry in the diary of Paige WInters, December 17, 2067

Additional Thoughts: For those that do not know the story, the virus in the novel is named for the biblical story of Elisha and the two bears:

He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.

~2 Kings 2:23-24

Nice guy, that Elisha.

On an unrelated note, I think it’s worth mentioning the covers for this book – the early, ARC cover is gorgeous and true to the story. Compare it to the final cover where the main featured character is a girl – odd, when the protagonist is a male. Ironic, considering the book. I prefer the ARC cover. Any thoughts?

Verdict: Ultimately, I enjoyed Epitaph Road and it was a fast, simple read. I just wish the book could have delved into its potential, morally ambiguous depths instead of taking the simple high road.

Rating: 6 – Good, recommended, but it could have been more.

Reading Next: Spellwright by BLake Charlton

Title: This World We Live In

Author: Susan Beth Pfeffer

Genre: Post-Apocalypse, Dystopia, Young Adult

Publisher: Harcourt
Publication Date: April 2010
Hardcover: 256 pages

It’s been a year since a meteor collided with the moon, catastrophically altering the earth’s climate. For Miranda Evans, life as she knew it no longer exists. Her friends and neighbors are dead, the landscape is frozen, and food is increasingly scarce.

The struggle to survive intensifies when Miranda’s father and stepmother arrive with a baby and three strangers in tow. One of the newcomers is Alex Morales, and as Miranda’s complicated feelings for him turn to love, his plans for his future thwart their relationship. Then a devastating tornado hits the town of Howell, and Miranda makes a decision that will change their lives forever.

Stand alone or series: Book 3 in the “Last Survivors” (formerly referred to as the “Moon Crush”) trilogy

How did I get this book: Bought

Why did I read this book: This is one of my all-time favorite series’ period. Life As We Knew It is one of my favorite novels, and was far and away the best book I had read in 2008. Its companion novel, the dead and the gone was a close second. Needless to say, I anxiously awaited this third and final volume in the series with bated breath. I. Love. This. Series.

Review:

It has been a full year since the moon was struck by an asteroid, pushing its orbit closer to the Earth and unleashing a string of natural disasters. The increased gravitational pull meant tidal waves, extreme weather, and volcanic eruptions on Earth, leading to a global atmosphere of ash that prevents any sunlight from penetrating. In turn, this caused temperatures plummet, crops to fail, and famine and outbreaks of disease became commonplace. In the months following the moon impact, Miranda and her family have undergone a dramatic change in lifestyle in their desperate struggle to survive in the Pennsylvania countryside, as detailed in Life As We Knew It. In the dead and the gone, these same catastrophic events are observed through the eyes of a young man named Alex, and his struggle to protect his younger sisters, search for his missing parents, and stay alive in a drowning New York City.

This World We Live In shifts the timeline of the trilogy forward as it completes the story of both prior protagonists. Miranda narrates the tale once again, relating day to day events through her diary. The one year mark brings dramatic changes to life at home as their family grows in members – both older, familiar faces and some new ones are thrown into the mix. As Miranda and her family try to adjust to the increase in people, they also must worry about their future together as a unit – especially when food begins to run low, and weekly distributions from the town may dry up.

This World We Live In is a terrifying return to a dying world, ravaged by starvation, choked in a blanket of relentless gray. And part of the reason why it, and its predecessors, works so well as a novel is because of the strength and unexpected beauty of Ms. Pfeffer’s writing style, and her flawed, tested, painfully genuine characters. What I loved a whole bunch about the first two books in this series was observing the catastrophic disaster of the moon through narrator Miranda and Alex’s eyes – in Life as we Knew It, the consequences of the impact piled up unexpectedly, hypnotically, whereas in the dead and the gone, we got to see those same events occur in a much more devastating setting (New York City). Ms. Pfeffer’s characters are the standouts in this book, as the shock and novelty of her apocalypse takes a backseat. I do have to say that I missed the initial fear and chaos, the novelty of the disaster that played such a large role in both prior books and was (understandably) not present in this third book. That said, the continued explication of characters is what sets this book apart and makes it work.

Miranda, in her return to narration, has grown and changed in many ways since she was the basically carefree girl of sixteen in Life as We Knew it. Her narrative voice, as read through her journal entries, is searing, soul-searching stuff. She’s brutally honest about her emotions (because if you can’t be in a journal, where can you be?). It’s interesting too because the journal also means everything’s a little skewed, slanted and filtered through Miranda’s perspective. Her struggles in this third book are significant and poignant – especially in her interactions and strained interactions with her mother.

After reading Alex’s story, however, I should mention that it becomes painfully clear just how good Miranda has it, even though her life is by no means ideal – and as such, her conflicts and problems seem more trivial and immature in comparison. Which, I suppose, was Ms. Pfeffer’s point as we readers of the series know, things for Miranda and her family could be much, much horrendous. This is in part what makes Miranda such a realistic character – because isn’t it human nature to think of one’s own situation before anyone else’s? Even after meeting Alex and Julie as they are brought to the home thanks to Miranda’s father and stepmother, no one in the Evans family truly knows the horror of what Alex has been through.

One other thing I loved so far as characters are concerned was how the relationships in this third book evolved and reflect a gritty sense of realism with regard to the setting. Tensions within the Evans household are understandably high, almost all the time. And I love that even though there is “romance” in this book, it’s not the type of teen romance so often read about in YA novels (especially of the teen vampire/paranormal variety). Like everything else in this post-apocalyptic world, “love” has evolved and developed a new definition. Matt and Syl, and Miranda and Alex take what they can get, while they can get it – as Miranda remarks at one point in the book, this may be her only chance at happiness, and she’s not going to waste it. I really, really liked that. No love triangles, no pointless fluffy angst or silliness. Just brutal honesty.

While I did love each of the characters and was moved by Miranda’s narration, This World We Live In was not of the caliber of its predecessors. The introduction to new characters all a bit to nice and well-tempered and easy. There’s little animosity towards these newcomers, which strikes me as false, especially considering the dire food situation. Also, there’s the lack of description or explanation as to how the troupe of Miranda’s Dad, Lisa, baby Gabriel, Charlie, Alex, and Julie have traveled HUNDREDS of miles on foot and in amazingly good time across a barren, unforgiven, foodless, presumably bandit-laden landscape. It reads a little off – at the very least, I would’ve liked to have read more about it.

Another major issue I had with this novel was how quickly all the big things occur. The second half (actually, the last third) of the book feels incredibly rushed. For example, in the (completely misleading) blurb, the tornado mentioned does not appear until the last few pages of the book! The meat and potatoes of the plot – the big decisions each character makes are barely discussed and simply accepted as givens on the next page. The aftermath of the tornado in particular was hard to swallow because it felt so rushed, and thereby rang as exploitative and unnecessary. But that’s just my personal opinion.

Most importantly, however, I was sorely disappointed that we didn’t get Alex’s perspective at any point in this third novel. As a fellow diligent journal keeper, it would have been awesome to have his narrative juxtaposed with Miranda’s – and since we didn’t get his voice, I felt like Alex was a different, remote character in this book. I’ll say it again: NO ONE knows what he and Julie have been through. I also felt there was a tiny bit of a lapse in continuity – while Miranda talks about Mrs. Nesbitt at length, she never mentions or even thinks about her friend Megan from the first novel. Similarly, because we are deprived of Alex’s narrative, we never hear about poor Brianna (Alex’s sister, who passed away in book 2). Alex has some deep, resounding darkness because of everything he’s been through and his desire to get Julie to safety is all the more understandable because of the family’s past – and I wish we could have seen that.

Notable Quotes/Parts:

After a while you get used to being cold, and hungry, and living in the dark.

But you can’t get used to losing people. Or if you can, I don’t want to. So many people in the past year, people I’ve loved, have vanished from my life. Some have died; others have moved on. It almost doesn’t matter. Gone is gone.

You can read more about This World We Live In at Susan Beth Pfeffer’s blog for the book, and on the book’s official Harcourt page.

Additional Thoughts: On one final note, this has something that’s been bugging me in the blurb for the book and in reviews I’ve seen. There’s an important difference between an asteroid, a meteoroid and a meteor – the object that hits the moon in these books is either an asteroid or a meteoroid. Meteors are small particles from an asteroid or comet orbiting the sun that are observed as they burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere (i.e. a shooting star). Hence, the astral body impacting the moon – by definition – cannot be a meteor. It is either an asteroid (that is, a relatively small, inactive body, composed of rock, carbon or metal, which is orbiting the Sun) or a meteoroid (that is, a small particle from a comet or asteroid orbiting the Sun).

Just a point of clarification from an astro-nerd! (If you want to read more about the difference between asteroids, meteors, meteoroids, meteorites, and comets, check out the handy FAQ NASA has online)

Verdict: Overall, This World We Live In is another potent, harrowing, and very dark story that makes for a fitting, dramatic end to the trilogy. There’s room for more and future narratives (I, for one, would love to read baby Gabriel’s story set much later in a future book), but if it all ends here, that’s ok with me too. While This World We Live In might not be as resonating as the first book, nor as haunting as the second, it’s still an awesome read that I wholeheartedly recommend to all.

Rating: 8 – Excellent

Reading Next: Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs

Today marks the second stop on the official Blog Tour for author Carrie Ryan’s newest release, The Dead-Tossed Waves – book 2 in her planned trilogy documenting a world ravaged by the zombie apocalypse. You can check out the first stop on the tour over atCynsations and her interview with Carrie yesterday.

Poignant. Memorable. Heartbreaking. These are words that describe Carrie Ryan’s work – and The Dead-Tossed Waves is no exception.

We are proud to have the incredibly talented Carrie Ryan over for a chat about her book, and to talk about her own favorite zombie books/comics/movies. Without further ado, we give you the awesome Carrie!

The Book Smugglers: Ever since delighting and terrifying mainstream audiences vis-a-vis George A. Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, zombies have been an iconic “monster” in popular culture. Some authors and films use zombies for the obvious schlock, horror and gore…but some authors, like yourself, use the zombie story as an insightful critique of human nature. To you, what does the zombie represent? Why do you write about humans living in a zombie-plagued world?

Carrie: Wow, great question! I think the zombie can represent so many things: the inevitable and inescapable march of death, fear of the future, nihilism, uncertainty about the world. In my stories I think the zombie often represents existence for existence sake — the idea of plodding through time for no other reason than to occupy space. This is something that I think we all wonder about at some point — the idea of why am I here, what do I contribute to those around me, what will I do with my life?

As for why I write about humans in a zombie-plagued world, I think I’ve just always been fascinated by the idea of survival and the extremes people will go through to stay alive. I’ve always been fascinated by books like Hatchet or movies like Alive. The zombie apocalypse is something that the world wouldn’t recover from quickly and I really enjoy pondering the question of what you do when everything you’ve ever known so radically changes?

The Book Smugglers: There are some striking themes in THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH and THE DEAD-TOSSED WAVES – the loss (and restriction) of knowledge, fear of the known and unknown, and in the midst of this oppressing fear, love and the will to survive. Instead of overwhelming bleakness (i.e. Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD and other post-apocalyptic novels), there is the light of hope in your books – can you tell us why you choose this path for your stories? Are you an optimist?

Carrie: I’m glad you see the hope in my stories because to me it’s definitely there! I think that since the dawn of time people have had to struggle to survive and carve out a place in the world but even in the most daunting of circumstances, they find time for love, friendship, companionship. To me this is what life is about — it’s sort of the phrase you always hear that life isn’t about the destination but the journey. My characters could focus only on getting through the life they’ve been given or they can choose to take advantage of the calm moments.

I like to think of myself as an optimist though I think I have an uncanny knack for coming up with the worst-case scenarios (which served me well as a lawyer).

The Book Smugglers: Another resonant image in both of your books is that of fences and barriers. These enclosures keep inhabitants safe from The Unconsecrated/Mudo, but simultaneously imprison them – not only are the walls obstacles, but their fear and lack of knowledge shackles them too. Do you think these barriers are more harmful than helpful? If you were faced with the decision to stay safe behind the fences or risk the outside world, what would you choose?

Carrie: I definitely think the lack of knowledge is more harmful than helpful — I think that it’s hard to ask someone to make a decision about their life without giving them all the tools they need to make that decision, including all relevant information. At the same time, I think Sister Tabitha withheld knowledge purely out of love (you learn a lot more about her in my short story Hare Moon coming this summer in the Kiss My Deadly anthology edited by Trisha Telep).

To use another quote I had in my “quote journal” growing up: “a ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not why ships are built” (William Shedd). This is how I see Gabry in The Dead-Tossed Waves. I think it’s easy to want to stick with the status quo and avoid scary/hard to take risks. I remember the first time I had to go to court and I was terrified. My initial reaction was to say no but if I wanted to learn, I had to overcome the fear (yes, my fly was down when I stood up in front of the judge so I figured it could only get better from there).

That’s a great question, what would I choose? I think there are a lot of people who live very happy and fulfilled lives in my books — people content in Mary’s village and in Gabry’s town and so I don’t think they made bad choices for wanting to stay behind their barriers. At the same time, I know Mary would never be content to stay safe and Gabry made her decisions out of fear which constantly held her back. I’d like to think that I don’t make decisions out of fear, but that I’m also not reckless — that I appreciate what I have.

The Book Smugglers: Why did you decide to write Young Adult novels, as opposed to any other genre or category?

Carrie: When I was in high school I read about a romance author who said she sat down to write after reading a book and thinking “I can do that!” Reading those words I thought to myself “if she can do that, I can too!” And I think that because I was reading romance at the time I always assumed I’d write romance when I grew up. For a couple of years after college I did write romance and then after law school when I dedicated myself to writing again I realized that what really inspired me were young adult books. These are the books that taught me to love reading, to escape in other worlds and kept me up late speed reading to the end. The idea that I could join those ranks was just too tempting for me to give up!

I also really love that young adult books are all shelved in one mass — you can combine romance and sci fi and fantasy and horror and anything else and not worry about where you’ll get shelved in the bookstore.

The Book Smugglers: What books do you recommend for readers, ravenous for more books like yours after they have devoured THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH and THE DEAD-TOSSED WAVES?

Carrie: Anyone interested in the zombie apocalypse would probably enjoy World War Z by Max Brooks. For tense dystopia I’d recommend The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. For action Diana Peterfreund’s Rampant and for romance Graceling by Kristin Cashore and The Season by Sarah MacLean.

And now, for Carrie’s Favorite Zombie/Post-Apocalypse/Dystopia Books/Comics/Movies!

1. World War Z. Max Brooks is just a genius with this book — not only does he go through the zombie apocalypse step by step but he creates a huge cast of very distinct voices and stories along the way. Utterly absorbing.

2. Dawn of the Dead. I know most people hate the remake, but it will always have a place in my heart as the movie that started it all.

3. Night of the Living Dead. George Romero’s movie that really created the modern zombie (though they weren’t called zombies in the film). I actually really hated this movie the first time I saw it because I was so frustrated at the characters inability to get it together to survive. But then I heard Romero talk about the point of the movie which was society’s inability ot get their act together to solve really big issues in the world like poverty, hunger, war, etc. This made me love the movie.

4. Shawn of the Dead. This zombie flick perfectly nails the kitch humor of zombies and then the utter pathos and despaire that can come along with it. I don’t think I’ve laughed as hard at a movie or been more moved.

5. The Walking Dead. Robert Kirkman notes that his goal with this graphic novel series is that it has no end — there’s not set story arc but instead he just wanted to explore what happens to people constantly trying to survive after a zombie apocalypse.

6. Left 4 Dead (1 and 2). Brilliant video game with lots of zombie killing.

7. Zombie Fluxx is a fun little card game where the rules are constantly changing. And one rule is that every time you draw a zombie card you have to groan like a zombie – best rule ever!

8. 28 Days Later. Sure some zombie purists don’t count this as a zombie flick, but these fast zombies are utterly terrifying.

Born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, Carrie Ryan is a graduate of Williams College and Duke University School of Law. A former litigator, she now writes full time. She lives with her writer/lawyer fiancé, two fat cats and one large puppy in Charlotte, North Carolina. They are not at all prepared for the zombie apocalypse.

You can read more about Carrie on her website HERE, or her blog HERE.

A huge thank you to Carrie Ryan! And make sure to check out the next stop on The Dead-Tossed Waves blog tour! Tomorrow, she’s at MTVNews.com’s “Hollywood Crush”.

Title: The Dead-Tossed Waves

Author: Carrie Ryan

Genre: Horror, Post-Apocalypse/Dystopia, Young Adult

Publisher: Delacorte
Publication Date: March 2010
Hardcover: 416 Pages

Gabry lives a quiet life, secure in her town next to the sea and behind the Barrier. She’s content to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast while she watches from the top of her lighthouse. Home is all she’s ever known, and all she needs for happiness.

But life after the Return is never safe, and there are threats even the Barrier can’t hold back.

Gabry’s mother thought she left her secrets behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, but like the dead in their world, secrets don’t stay buried. And now, Gabry’s world is crumbling.

One night beyond the Barrier…

One boy Gabry’s known forever and one veiled in mystery…

One reckless moment, and half of Gabry’s generation is dead, the other half imprisoned.

Gabry knows only one thing: if she is to have any hope of a future, she must face the forest of her mother’s past.

Stand alone or series: Book 2 in a planned trilogy, however can be read as a stand alone novel.

How did I get this book: Review Copy from the publisher

Why did I read this book: I am a huge Carrie Ryan fangirl. Her first novel, The Forest of Hands and Teeth was one of my Top 10 Reads of 2009 – needless to say, I was chomping at the bit (ho-ho!) for the chance to read The Dead-Tossed Waves.

Review:

On the shore of a horizon-spanning placid ocean is a lighthouse, its beacon a lone, strong light in the night, cutting through the darkness that enshrouds the seaside town of Vista. With her mother, Mary, Gabrielle tends to the shore, living a life of relative calm and security. When the Mudo wash up on the shore following high tides, Gabry helps her mother decapitate and dispatch of them, as is their duty as keepers in the small town. Gabry has always known a life of safety behind the village barriers; a beloved daughter, a dear best friend, and maybe even one day, someone’s girlfriend. When her friends decide to sneak over the barrier for a night in the rundown amusement park just outside the walls, Gabry is terrified. She has never broken the rules and does not wish to step beyond the safety of her world; especially not into a place where the insatiable Mudo could be lurking. But, urged on by her best friend Cira and the boy that makes her heart race, Catcher, Gabry sneaks out with the others into the ruins. It is here that she shares her first kiss with Catcher, and revels in the promise that her life holds. All of those dreams and hopes, however, come crashing down – a “breaker” senses the humans nearby, and sprints towards the group of teens, infecting and killing three of the group, Catcher among them. In an instant, Gabrielle’s life, and her friends’ lives, have been turned upside down. While Gabry is able to escape, her surviving friends aren’t so lucky, and are sentenced to service with the Recruiters – the force that patrols and protects the villages of the loose confederation from the Mudo threat – but without reward of citizenship at the end of their two year term. To Gabry’s mind, this is a death sentence – and still shocked by the loss of Catcher to infection, she’s also losing everyone she’s ever known. When Cira begs her to find out, to follow her brother Catcher until his demise, Gabry cannot refuse – and so she makes her way across the sea of the dead, and beyond the barriers of her safe, now shattered, world.

Well, wow. The Dead-Tossed Waves was my numero uno; my absolute MOST highly anticipated novel of 2010. In other words, The Dead-Tossed Waves had quite a bill to live up to – and, for the most part, I am happy to report that it does.

There’s a strength of plot and of continuity with The Dead-Tossed Waves. We readers get ANSWERS in this book. We learn why some of the Mudo/Unconsecrated are fast, and some are slow; we finally see the origins of Mary’s village in the forest of hands and teeth; we learn about the outside world, how it is governed, and what future is available to the living, surviving amongst the undead.

Beyond the strengths in terms of plotting, The Dead-Tossed Waves works so well because of how tragically flawed and heartrendingly human all of its characters are. This novel is a continuation of The Forest of Hands and Teeth, but instead of following protagonist Mary, the novel follows Mary’s daughter in an interesting twist. Inevitably, this invites a whole bunch of comparisons between Mary and Gabry, as heroines and narrators. Gabry is not as winsome as her mother – but that’s a tough legacy to live up to. Heck, even Gabrielle knows this, as she constantly compares herself to her mother! Countless times, she extrapolates about her lack of strength, her lack of curiosity and lack of a sense of adventure – especially since her mother was willing to risk so much on a mere dream. Though, Gabry is much more like her mother than she gives herself credit for – she too makes a number of impulsive, not-so-hot decisions yet is strong in her own, different way. It should be said, however, that Gabry is ever-so-slightly irritating with her emotional equivocating between two devoted boys (seriously, where do YA heroines find these guys?), and in her tendency to put blame on herself for EVERYTHING (which reads as slightly ego-centric).

But… isn’t that what people are really like?

Not always brave and strong, not always right, not always knowing what they want, not in tune with where their hearts lie? I loved that Gabry was terrified, paralyzed by fear, and unlike Mary. In stark contrast to her mother, who grew up with dreams bigger than her village’s fences could contain and who lost her family to the Unconsecrated, Gabry has grown up in love, and in a home sheltered in safety. Does that make her “weak”? I don’t think so. In fact, it makes it harder for her, because she has so much more to lose. And the most endearing thing about Gabry is the fact that she is so afraid of the outside world, and in spite of that fear, she does take the risk and lives, challenging the barriers that have held the Unconsecrated/Mudo out, but also trapping her in, too. And that, dear readers, is really, really freaking cool.

Beyond the first-person protagonist, the other characters of The Dead-Tossed Waves are similarly endearing. Elias, the boy shrouded in mystery, is awesome. He is a shadowed, uncertain figure; an outsider that uses Gabry’s mother’s terminology to describe the Mudo – Unconsecrated. Then there’s Catcher, Gabry’s first love interest – who also is a very interesting character, connected to Gabry in a way that Elias never really can be.

All this said, The Dead-Tossed Waves is by no means a perfect novel. It falls short of its predecessor, straying towards the melodramatic in its last few chapters, with plot twists thrown in to tear apart characters for the sole reason of emotional exploitation. There’s also the familiar YA syndrome of two dreamy dudes head-over-heels in love with the same girl, and you know how that song goes. Yet, despite these minor drawbacks, The Dead-Tossed Waves is a beautiful, heartwrenching novel. These are very genuine characters, in an impossible, terrifying reality, confronted with the choice to survive, or to live.

And that, my friends, makes all the difference in the world.

You’ve got to love (or at least respect) an author that does not shy away from heartache. When you live in a forest of jagged teeth and sickly moans, on the shores of a sea teeming with bloated, ever-hungry corpses, you are unquestionably surrounded by death. Death is inevitable. And for all this sorrow and bitterness, The Dead-Tossed Waves is tempered with hope, and with love. That’s a wonderful, rare thing. Written throughout with Carrie Ryan’s dazzling, almost poetic, poignant prose, The Dead-Tossed Waves is a novel to be read over and over again.

I loved it. And I cannot wait for more from this incredibly talented author.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From the first chapter:

The story goes that even after the Return they tried to keep the roller coasters going. They said it reminded them of the before time. When they didn’t have to worry about people rising from the dead, when they didn’t have to build fences and walls and barriers to protect themselves from the masses of Mudo constantly seeking human flesh. When the living weren’t forever hunted.

They said it made them feel normal.

And so even while the Mudo—neighbors and friends who’d been infected, died and Returned—pulled at the fences surrounding the amusement park, they kept the rides moving.

Even after the Forest was shut off, one last gasp at sequestering the infection and containing the Mudo, the carousel kept turning, the coasters kept rumbling, the teacups kept spinning. Though my town of Vista was far away from the core of the Protectorate, they hoped people would come fly along the coasters. Would still want to forget.

But then travel became too difficult. People were concerned with trying to survive and little could make them forget the reality of the world they lived in. The coasters slowly crumbled outside the old city perched at the tip of a long treacherous road along the coast. Everyone simply forgot about them, one other aspect of pre-Return life that gradually dimmed in the memories and stories passed down from year to year.

I never really thought about them until tonight—when my best friend’s older brother invites us to sneak past the Barriers and into the ruins of the amusement park with him and his friends.

“Come on, Gabry,” Cira whines, dancing around me. I can almost feel the energy and excitement buzzing off her skin. We stand next to the Barrier that separates Vista from the ruins of the old city, the thick wooden wall keeping the dangers of the world out and us safely in. Already a few of the older kids have skimmed over the top, their feet a flash against the night sky. I rub my palms against my legs, my heart a thrum in my chest.

There are a thousand reasons why I don’t want to go with them into the ruins, not the least of which is that it’s forbidden. But there’s one reason I do want to take the risk. I glance past Cira to her brother and his eyes catch mine. I can’t stop the seep of heat crawling up my neck as I dart my gaze away, hoping he didn’t notice me looking and at the same time desperately wishing he did.

“Gabry?” he asks, his head tilted to the side. From his lips my name curls around my ears. An invitation.

Afraid of the tangle of words twisting around my own tongue, I swallow and place my hand against the thick wood of the Barrier. I’ve never been past it before. It’s against the rules to leave the town without permission and it’s also risky. While mostof the ruins are bordered by old fences from after the Return, Mudo can still get through them. They can still attack us.

“We shouldn’t,” I say, more to myself than to Cira or Catcher. Cira just rolls her eyes; she’s already jumping with desire to join the others. She grabs my arm with a barely repressed squeal.

“This is our chance,” she whispers to me. I don’t tell her what I’ve been thinking—that it’s our chance to get in trouble at best and I don’t want to think about what could happen at worst.

But she knows me well enough to read my thoughts. “No one’s been infected in years,” she says, trying to convince me. “Catcher and them go out there all the time. It’s totally safe.”

Safe—a relative term. A word my mother always uses with a hard edge to her voice.

Additional Thoughts: Delacorte has released new covers for both The Forest of Hands and Teeth (for the paperback version), and the current cover of The Dead-Tossed Waves is another replacement for an earlier model. I, for one, prefer the older covers. The new ones are still rather pretty, but more…commercial. I suppose that’s a good thing for a book, but those first covers are so hauntingly gorgeous! Any thoughts?

Also, make sure to stop by later today as we host a stop on the official blog tour for Carrie Ryan’s release!

Rating: 8 – Excellent

Reading Next: A Local Habitation by Seanan McGuire

Title: Impact

Author: Douglas Preston

Genre: Science Fiction, Thriller

Publisher: Forge
Publication Date: January 2010
Hardcover: 368 pages

Wyman Ford is tapped for a secret expedition to Cambodia… to locate the source of strangely beautiful gemstones that do not appear to be of this world.

A brilliant meteor lights up the Maine coast… and two young women borrow a boat and set out for a distant island to find the impact crater.

A scientist at the National Propulsion Facility discovers an inexplicable source of gamma rays in the outer Solar System. He is found decapitated, the data missing.

High resolution NASA images reveal an unnatural feature hidden in the depths of a crater on Mars… and it appears to have been activated.

Sixty hours and counting.

Stand alone or series: Stand alone novel (although a protagonist from this novel has been seen in a prior Douglas Preston novel)

How did I get this book: Review Copy from the publisher

Why did I read this book: I’m sticking to my vow to read more of different genres, and this sci-fi thriller was a good way to continue fulfilling that resolution. It’s a pre-apocalyptic type story about some crazyass gamma rays being beamed at Earth. How could I NOT be excited about this book?

Review:

One starry night in a small Maine fishing town, a meteorite races across the dark sky in a brilliant streak. The newspapers theorize that the meteorite hit somewhere in the Atlantic, and while a physically stunning event, is nothing more than another mundane space rock falling to earth. Abbey Straw, an intelligent, enterprising young woman, however, has other ideas. Out photographing the Andromeda Galaxy with her new Celestron six-inch Cassegrain telescope, she captures the meteroite on film – and using that image, she extrapolates the meteroite’s impact location, which was not in the ocean, but on a small island off the coast. Eagerly, Abbey sets out to find the meteroite, with the intent to sell it to the highest bidder. On the other side of the globe, ex-CIA agent Wyman Ford signs on for a contract job to Cambodia to find the whereabouts of a mysterious new mine, responsible for flooding the international market with new, and extremely deadly, gemstones called “honeys.” Meanwhile, an ambitious and intelligent scientist named Mark Corzo has just received a promotion to head a division of the National Propulsion Facility’s Mars Mapping Orbiter project, following the professional demise and murder of his former mentor. When Corzo receives a package in the mail from that same mentor, sent just days before his death, Corzo becomes consumed with shocking new data concerning gamma rays – originating from Mars. Abbey, Ford and Corzo’s lives are on a collision course, with one of the most important and most dangerous discoveries in the history of mankind.

I hadn’t had the chance to read any of Douglas Preston’s work – neither on his solo work nor his popular co-authored books with Lincoln Child (I have, however, seen and loved Relic). Impact marked my first exposure to the bestselling mainstream thriller/speculative fiction author, and, while I’m not jumping out of my seat, I generally had a positive experience with this novel. The prose is clean (if somewhat simple), and the story fast-paced and easy to keep straight, following the standard separate characters whose fates eventually merge storytelling technique to build tension. What I liked the most about Impact – what caught my eye in the first place – was the premise (unidentified object falling to earth) and the overall idea for the story (well, at least the science fiction element). Rather than being another meteorite/asteroid/comet on the way to decimate life on earth as seen in many apocalyptic works (see Additional Thoughts below for a list), Impact takes a slightly different, unexpected route. The object seen streaking across the Maine sky is no mere clump of ancient space rock, but something infinitely more sinister. While the SF and actual science on the whole is more than a little wobbly (e.g. the open acceptance of miniature black holes rampaging through our solar system and more than a few questionable applications of astrophysics), it’s not really that big a deal as Impact is far more of a summer blockbuster movie than hard science fiction tome. Which is perfectly cool by me.

With the good, however, comes a lot of the mediocre. The characters are decidedly flat and really stretch the limits of credulity. Abbey, the small town adventurer girl, is also a pre-med Princeton dropout (forced to leave after losing her scholarship when she failed Organic Chem) who “took a few astronomy classes” and knows how to calculate the origin and trajectory of any body from outer space (amongst myriad other technical and scientific skills), in addition to being a master sailor and intrepid adventurer. Then there’s Ford, the ex-CIA op who is your typical Jason Bourne-grade badass (with a heart and troubled conscience) – smart, dashing, dangerous, unbeatable in hand to hand combat, etc, etc, etc. There’s also a huge plausibility problem in terms of timing (how did the gem mining in Cambodia become so lucrative in such a short period of time, just days after the meteorite strike?), in the chain of command seen at the NPF (the fictional equivalent of JPL) and in the US government in general. There are more than a few Jerry Bruckheimer-esque scenes involving the president and policy makers -heck, the whole book is very Armageddon! Which isn’t always a bad thing, but unfortunately it just did not work for me here in book form because…well, the thing that disappointed the most with Impact was how there was so much time spent on mindless and almost completely unnecessary action scenes, with barely any focus on the only true interesting part of the book (that would be the science fiction element). The questions that the gamma ray analysis raises, the implications of these scientific findings are brushed away in a few scant conversations, replaced instead with car chases, flooding boats, and bar shootouts. It’s just not really my thing, and I found myself getting impatient with each chase scene.

That said, I should mention that I loved the ending – which was a bit anticlimactic, but in a good way (at least in my opinion). While I was disappointed in the disproportionate nature of the book, with the interesting parts only filling about a third of the final product, the writing is solid and I can understand why adrenaline junkies or more action-craving readers would be thrilled with Impact.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

The trick would be to slip in the side door and get the box up the back stairs without making a sound. The house was two hundred years old and you could hardly take a step without a ?urry of creaks and groans. Abbey Straw eased the back door shut and tiptoed across the carpeted hallway to the landing. She could hear her father puttering around the kitchen, Red Sox game low on the radio.

Her arms hugging the box, she set her foot on the ?rst step, eased down her weight, then the next step, and the next. She skipped the fourth step—it shrieked like a banshee—and put her weight on the ?fth, the sixth, the
seventh…. And just as she thought she was home free, the step let out a crack like a gunshot, followed by a long, dying groan.

Damn.

You can read the first two chapters online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Though Impact doesn’t really qualify, there are quite a few books and films that embrace the ‘celestial bodies slamming into the Earth’ (or the Moon, or some Earthly neighbor) apocalypse. If you’re looking for some books in this, I highly recommend Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s Lucifer’s Hammer (comet slamming into Earth).

Other books worth checking out are “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion” by Edgar Allan Poe (short story again about a comet), When Worlds Collide by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer (death of Earth by rogue planet), and of course, one of my personal favorites, YA novels Life As We Knew It and the dead and the gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer (in which an asteroid hits the moon and changes its orbit, unleashing disastrous, apocalyptic effects on Earth).

Verdict: Great premise and original idea, but somewhat lacking in the execution. Still, I enjoyed some parts of Impact and recommend it to any thriller fans looking for a light dose of science fiction.

Rating: 6 – Good

Reading Next: Blackbringer by Laini Taylor