Pausing for amazement, and a review of FEED.: seanan

Pausing for amazement, and a review of FEED.

There is a review of Feed in the October issue of SciFi Magazine. This is a major newsstand glossy, produced by the media group that ones the SyFy Channel (you know, where I spend much of my time). The cover story is about Resident Evil: Afterlife. Inside, there are stories about Haven and the new season of Eureka.

And then there is me.

A review of my book. In this magazine.

Sometimes this business of writing continues to astonish me. I know, I know: I worked hard, I worked for a long time, this isn't all being handed to me on platters by magical ponies from the moon (which is really a pity, as I would love to catch me some magical moon ponies of my very own). I don't sit here feeling like I'm getting things I shouldn't have...even if I do occasionally wonder when I'm going to wake up from this astonishingly detailed linear dream.

My book is reviewed in a magazine that includes a review of a Resident Evil movie and a television show based on the works of Stephen King. If there was any actual question of whether or not I may have accidentally sold my soul at the crossroads, this pretty much answers it.

Good thing I keep a fiddler around, huh?

Golly.

***

FEED

Yes, it's another zombie novel. But there's something odd about this one, something that might prick the back of your neck with resonant familiarity. Witness this paragraph from fairly late in the proceedings, as our determined heroine Georgia Mason attends a formal occasion.

"Men's formal attire is sensible: pants, suit coats, cummerbunds. Even ties can be useful, since they work as makeshift tourniquets or garrotes. Women's formal attire, on the other hand, hasn't changed since the Rising; it still seems designed to get the people wearing it killed at the earliest opportunity. Screw that. My dress was custom-made. The skirt is breakaway, the bodice was fitted to allow me to carry a recorder and a gun, and there's a pocket concealed at the waist for extra ammo..."

Sense anything familiar about that matter-of-fact practicality, that flavor of resourcefulness and competence? The "so what" casualness of it all? No? Well, let's underline what we're talking about: Feed, set a couple of decades after the Dead began to rise, is the zombie novel Robert A. Heinlein might have written. The emphasis is not so much on confrontations with shambling rotters—though there are some--but on the efforts of news blogger Georgia, her reckless brother Shaun, and their colleague Buffy, to cover the presidential campaign of one Senator Ryman. The very title, Feed, has more to do with journalists serving the needs of a constant news cycle in a world that has changed beyond recognition than with the ravenous imperative of the undead. It's about new media first, the effect the plague has had on society second, the necessity of putting a bullet in the brain a distant third.

It's inevitable that things go very wrong, and that Georgia finds herself covering the story of her career. As a reader, you'd be surprised if you didn't get something like that, eventually. But the shift in emphasis makes this a zombie novel like few others, a novel that earns its Heinlein resonances. The master would have been proud of what Mira Grant has done. Both masters, come to think of it...if you include George Romero as well.

—Adam-Troy Castro

erinwrites

July 28 2010, 15:31:48 UTC 6 years ago

New comment

That review is so awesome I could cry.

seanan_mcguire

July 28 2010, 15:34:30 UTC 6 years ago

That review is so awesome I kinda did.

6 years ago

July 28 2010, 15:43:34 UTC 6 years ago

!!! I never made the Practical Heroine connection, but... yes! Everything that I ever loved about Heinlein! YOU ROCK! O:D

July 28 2010, 16:44:46 UTC 6 years ago

Thank you!

spectralbovine

July 28 2010, 15:43:57 UTC 6 years ago

Holy Jesus fuck, they compared you to Heinlein. I haven't even read Heinlein, but that is awesome!! I'm so happy to see all the glowing reviews.

jenk

July 28 2010, 15:56:20 UTC 6 years ago

Indeed...and I have read Heinlein. ;)

hanabishirecca

inkedhistorian

More Expand

July 28 2010, 15:48:41 UTC 6 years ago

Now if your publisher can get that quote comparing you to Heinlein onto your book cover you should earn enough to start drinking gold plated cans of DDP.

I'm considering compromising my principles and buying the kindle version. I just wish there was a non-DRM ebook edition I could buy.

dornbeast

July 28 2010, 16:33:22 UTC 6 years ago

"...gold plated cans of DDP."

It's only in my imagination that Seanan's cats protested about not getting cat food served in gold-plated bowls first.

vixyish

July 28 2010, 15:57:20 UTC 6 years ago

!!!!!!!

<3

July 28 2010, 16:45:57 UTC 6 years ago

*swoon*

valdary

July 28 2010, 16:05:54 UTC 6 years ago

That is so incredibly cool.

Didn't Heinlein have a scene where a character was guarded by a ring of women in evening dress precisely because the dresses were tight fitting and nearly naked above waist so they could be sure none of them were the assassin carrying hidden weapons? I'm pretty certain there was a rant in there somewhere.

Pixel is my favourite fictional cat.

But yeah, would be awesome cover quote.

I must hassle the bookshop over where my copy is at.

July 28 2010, 16:46:24 UTC 6 years ago

Verity would argue about the weapon-carrying capacity of nearly naked women. That's her job.

judifilksign

July 28 2010, 16:10:08 UTC 6 years ago

I think your book is genre-changing good. How nice that you are right up next to Heinlein, not only on my bookshelves alphabetically, but also in reviews!

July 28 2010, 16:46:47 UTC 6 years ago

Squee!

amberswansong

kyburg

July 28 2010, 16:15:12 UTC 6 years ago

Yanno, Heinlein was the LAST thing I was thinking about reading that book. (Who I read to death when I was teen because that's what all the really smart big people around me were doing and I was a copycat at that age.)

But this IS the SciFi Magazine, and a frame of reference is essential.

Me? Clavell, Michener (comparison's sake), Bradley, Kurtz, Stout - but I think this is one of the few examples where I truly disliked one of the characters speaking the story in the first person, and that's a new one! (No, nobody else has kept me reading a story when I hated the person telling it. Go you. ^^)

July 28 2010, 16:46:57 UTC 6 years ago

Nice to know.

sweetmusic_27

July 28 2010, 16:38:03 UTC 6 years ago

*beams* S'all true, y'know. And I've got plenty of rosin if a demon comes to call.

July 28 2010, 16:47:14 UTC 6 years ago

Thank Coyote for that.

ladymondegreen

jenjen4280

July 28 2010, 16:39:53 UTC 6 years ago

A great review. I try to face-out Feed and the Toby books whenever I'm in a bookstore. This means they're on the shelf with the cover, rather than the spine showing, which helps snag the casual observer.

BTW, I highly recommend Adam-Troy Castro's books: Emmissaries from the Dead and The Third Claw of God. Both are fantastic books.

July 28 2010, 16:47:24 UTC 6 years ago

Thanks for the tip!

theashgirl

solarbird

July 28 2010, 16:48:10 UTC 6 years ago

Well, let's underline what we're talking about: Feed, set a couple of decades after the Dead began to rise, is the zombie novel Robert A. Heinlein might have written.
HOLY FUCKING FUCK, BATMAN! I didn't know I had so much Heinlein fangirl left in me that I could squee like that. I mean, I thought I was over that shit, but, well, apparently not so much.

Y'know what I am over it enough to say? That the first difference which leaps to mind between you and Heinlein is that you write more than two and a half characters. YEAH I SAID IT XD

July 28 2010, 17:29:46 UTC 6 years ago

HEE!

Deleted comment

July 28 2010, 16:56:24 UTC 6 years ago

Great review!

July 28 2010, 17:29:54 UTC 6 years ago

I'm thrilled.

idancewithlife

ann_totusek

July 28 2010, 17:15:33 UTC 6 years ago

Yay! Excellent review. My daughter, who is a mass communication major with an emphasis in broadcasting and social networking LOVED it, and said it rang really true to her experiences in many ways. Hopefully not where zombies are involved- though they did do a big zombie Nerf-LARP at her school last semester.

July 28 2010, 17:30:07 UTC 6 years ago

As long as she doesn't get eaten, we're good.

cleothyla

July 28 2010, 17:16:08 UTC 6 years ago

As I'm re-listening to Feed, this is so totally awesome. I have read a lot of Heinlein and yes, they are right to compare you favorably. My favorite Heinlein is Door into Summer.

July 28 2010, 17:30:16 UTC 6 years ago

Nice!

July 28 2010, 17:16:31 UTC 6 years ago

Mister Castro here deserves a chocolatey fruit basket, I think. What a shining review!

July 28 2010, 17:30:31 UTC 6 years ago

Now, now. We don't bribe reviewers. ;)

We just adore them.

dormouse_in_tea

deire

July 28 2010, 17:51:38 UTC 6 years ago

Magical moon ponies?! Oooooooooo.

July 28 2010, 19:22:12 UTC 6 years ago

They fly!

July 28 2010, 17:59:25 UTC 6 years ago

Holy cow!

<3 <3 <3

July 28 2010, 19:22:22 UTC 6 years ago

Sacred cheese!

maverick_weirdo

a3starmom

July 28 2010, 18:02:17 UTC 6 years ago

OMFG

July 28 2010, 19:22:36 UTC 6 years ago

...Mom, do you know what the "F" stands for?

July 28 2010, 18:07:07 UTC 6 years ago

"....accidentally sold my soul at the crossroads..."

I can only imagine the paperwork problem that would cause. ("Terrific. We're contractually obligated to provide everything on this list, and we can't collect." "At least she didn't ask for magical moon ponies or an army of velociraptors to do her bidding...")

July 28 2010, 19:23:07 UTC 6 years ago

This is actually why Vixy won't let me have a pony. As long as I don't have a pony, the contract isn't totally fulfilled.

July 28 2010, 19:23:20 UTC 6 years ago

Awwww, thank you!

(Ick. Yes.)

redushab

July 28 2010, 18:14:17 UTC 6 years ago

The review is well deserved! I picked up Feed and...didn't put it down pretty much until I reached the last page. It's probably good that I read it between leaving my job and starting back to school, as otherwise I probably would have been called by an angry manager from work or failed a class.

July 28 2010, 19:23:35 UTC 6 years ago

AWESOME.

sheistheweather

July 28 2010, 18:16:11 UTC 6 years ago

Ee! Wow! So cool!

July 28 2010, 19:24:32 UTC 6 years ago

I'm pleased. :)

bearhand

July 28 2010, 18:18:58 UTC 6 years ago

I've been reading Feed the past couple of days as I've pressed peaches and apples to make home-made cidar, and I've found that I'm really intrigued with the Masons and Buffy and the Man who would be President. The assassination attempt by zombie is pure gold. I like Toby and her world, but the Feed story so far is brilliant.

I'm very impressed with how the zombie-ism has affected every aspect of the world, socially, political, even diet and entertainment. It's very well thought out and consistent.