Review: Deadline by Mira Grant

First off, let me start by saying I have a big fat writer crush on Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire).  I would read her grocery lists - she's that good.  Every one of her books makes me both love her and hate her.  Love her because she writes books I can fall into and never want to climb out of.  Hate her because when I read her novels I feel like I can never ever write as well as she does.  I get depressed for about a minute at every awesome phrase.  Lucky for me, by the time I'm through, I'm fired up to at least TRY to make my writing as good as hers.  I don't know if I'll ever get there, but I'm trying.

And now that we have that out of the way, let the gushing over Deadline begin.

This book picks up about a year after Feed ends.  (If you haven't read Feed yet, what the hell?  Didn't I gush enough about that last year to make you go forth and inhale it?)  Here we find the brother of Feed's duo of news bloggers trying to cope with the trauma he went through in Feed.  Shaun's more than a little crazy, hearing the voice of his dead sibling, while he tries to keep his news site going as he reports on the continuing zombie apocalypse and uncovers underlying government conspiracies. 

Now, I'm not going to give you specifics.  Suffice it to say, stuff happens that will keep you on the edge of your seat and reading way past the time when you should've taken dinner out of the oven or let the dog outside for a bit of exercise and weedles.  As you sit amidst the smell of burnt lasagna and canine piddle, you find yourself gasping over the unexpected plot twists and gut-wrenching events.  And the end???  No way did I see any of that coming.  Holy shit.

I loved Feed.  Loved loved loved it.  It pales in comparison to Deadline.  Sure, I wanted to pinch the holy crud out of Ms. Grant when she left me at the end wanting so much more.  I got over it.  Now I just want her to write faster so I can read Blackout before my head explodes from all the waiting.

One last thing I should let you all know.  These books aren't about zombies.

Yeah, yeah, I said it was set during a zombie apocalypse.  The Newsflesh series is about zombies in the same way Gone with the Wind was about the Civil War.  Those things are just the backdrop for all the real stuff going on in the books.  With Newsflesh, the zombie apocalypse is just the brilliant way Mira has of showing the political intrigue, backhanded plotting, dirty double-dealing and heartbreaking loss amidst true heroism, friendship, and courage.

And the story behind how the zombie apocalypse came about blows me away every time I read about it.  (In fact, leading up to the release of Deadline, Ms. McGuire (Grant) wrote a series of shorts leading up to the day the world went to hell and posted them on her blog: Rose-Owls and Pumpkin Girls.  Scroll down and start at the beginning.  Even if you haven't read Feed yet, it will blow you away.  And seriously, why are you still not reading Feed?)  This lady has done her research and has created an almost believable scenario for a zombie apocalypse - and I only add the 'almost' because I have a difficult time believing in things like that.  Any disbelief is totally on my part.  She rocks the science part hard without making it dull as dust.

So, if you're looking for a book that will make you gasp and laugh and weep and want to stockpile weapons - you know, just in case - pick up Deadline as soon as your little fingers can toss it into your Amazon cart.  Seriously.  Do it.