Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: chipper
  • Music: Vixy and Tony, "Anna."

DEADLINE open thread. Have a party.

To celebrate the release of Deadline [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], here. Have an open thread to discuss the book.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

Seriously. If anyone comments here at all, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. So please don't read and then yell at me because you encountered spoilers. You were warned.

You can also start a book discussion at my website forums, with less need to be concerned that I will see everything you say! In case you wanted, you know, discussion free of authorial influence. I will probably answer a great many comments. I may not answer all of them.

Have fun!
Tags: deadline, mira grant
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  • 842 comments

herefox

June 2 2011, 18:45:35 UTC 6 years ago

I loved the book. When I got to the "She would have gotten better" part I blurted out "What!" much to the he chagrin of the people sitting next to me at the train station.

One thing I didn't quite understand, and it may be a addressed in the text but I missed it because the science sometimes zoomed way over my head but:

The mosquitoes I assume became carriers by biting amplified carriers and then biting other people? So would the insect vector only be a temporary problem or has Kellis Amberlee mutated (been mutated) to survive in insects now? I know the good mad scientist managed to give it to spiders...

Or have I just missed that insects were always a vector in places like Cuba somewhere in the books?

paradisacorbasi

June 2 2011, 19:13:57 UTC 6 years ago

My guess is pretty much what your guess was. Either they bit amplified and then carried live state virus, or somebody worked out a strain that carries via insect since Dr. Abbey could give it to spiders (and maybe millipedes).

vixyish

June 2 2011, 19:45:03 UTC 6 years ago

Or have I just missed that insects were always a vector in places like Cuba somewhere in the books?

You haven't missed anything. There was never an insect vector for K-A before now.

...interesting coincidence, isn't it?

tereshkova2001

June 2 2011, 19:54:16 UTC 6 years ago

Dr. Abbey's far too lovable to be evil. I reject your implications and substitute my own.

vixyish

June 2 2011, 20:26:33 UTC 6 years ago

...huh?

I wasn't implying anything about Dr. Abbey.

tereshkova2001

June 2 2011, 20:40:00 UTC 6 years ago

There was never an insect vector before now, and Dr. Abbey has put KA into insects, so one could draw a conclusion that she's the one who built and released those mosquitoes.
Which I reject.

herefox

June 2 2011, 20:44:19 UTC 6 years ago

If anyone is releasing a new vector of infection I'd assume it was the same people behind the CDC plot, really. They've been releasing new strains from the beginning, it sounds like.

celticdragonfly

6 years ago

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These are my hypotheses...

paradisacorbasi

6 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

6 years ago

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beccastareyes

6 years ago

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jenfullmoon

6 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

6 years ago

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ladymondegreen

6 years ago

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dornbeast

June 3 2011, 02:20:31 UTC 6 years ago

I favor the conclusion that what one person can create, a bureaucracy can duplicate, even if only by accident. My guess on this is that in the process of tinkering with K-A, they created a version that can be carried by mosquitoes, then released it in Cuba for another test run.

Whether they knew this would happen or not is a little past my ability to speculate. I'd like to assume that it wasn't the case, partly because hurricanes aren't something people can schedule. On the other hand, there might have been some researcher watching Fiona's track on The Weather Channel, and swearing fit to break the screen, because she thought everything would be fine...

paradisacorbasi

June 3 2011, 02:32:18 UTC 6 years ago

Nonono.

It's more like "If Dr. Abbey could do it, another scientist could do it too."

vixyish

June 3 2011, 16:20:30 UTC 6 years ago

Nah, that's not what I meant by coincidence. And anyway she didn't put KA into insects. (The spiders yes, the millipedes no.)

The coincidence is the *timing*...

kengr

6 years ago

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admnaismith

6 years ago

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paradisacorbasi

June 3 2011, 03:19:09 UTC 6 years ago

And also, now that the book has had a day to sink in:


AAAAAAAAA CUBAN ZOMBIE PRODUCING MOSQUITOES!!!!


I am allergic to regular mosquitoes. I would never leave the house again.

herefox

June 3 2011, 14:52:11 UTC 6 years ago

*laugh* Yeah, the idea of getting a bug bite that sometimes you might not even notice (obviously you would but...) could make you into a flesh craving 'undead' horror is terrifying, isn't it? At least it wasn't bed bugs or something.

jenrose1

June 3 2011, 19:29:22 UTC 6 years ago

If mosquitos can be a vector, given the endemic nature of the virus in mammals, and given we know spiders can amplify with the right strain... one would assume that it would not take long at all for most insects to become vectors.

Although the idea of shambling undead pillbugs is kind of hilarious, the idea of zombie dust mites... *shudder*

vixyish

June 3 2011, 22:54:36 UTC 6 years ago

I could be wrong here, but I believe the mosquitos aren't supposed to be *infected*, as I understand it. They're not zombie mosquitos. They're *carrying* the virus. They bite people and drink blood. Like with yellow fever in the real world; the mosquitos don't *have* the virus-- they aren't, like symptomatic-- they bite infected people and drink blood, then transmit it.

It never happened before with K-A because the structure of the virus was too large, Shaun tells us.

Makes small practical difference to the humans, but. We wouldn't be talking about all insects everywhere becoming infected. It's still only infecting mammals, to our knowledge. (And one arachnid.)

jenrose1

6 years ago

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azurelunatic

June 6 2011, 00:26:53 UTC 6 years ago

I'm Alaskan. Zombie moose are bad enough. Zombie mosquitoes -- I'm never sleeping again outside of a positive-pressure cleanroom with electrified grating over every airway, and even then I will hear their shrill songs in my uneasy dreams.

paradisacorbasi

June 6 2011, 03:24:54 UTC 6 years ago

And it just hit me -- the irony.

Georgia thought she had been bitten by a mosquito when it was a death dart.

kshandra

June 6 2011, 18:52:41 UTC 6 years ago

*shakes like a wet dog*

Jesus FUCK.

seanan_mcguire

June 6 2011, 19:29:55 UTC 6 years ago

Yup.

branna

June 6 2011, 23:12:41 UTC 6 years ago

Oh, thank you for this. Bed bugs already freak me out, given the amount of travel I've been doing lately...

jenfullmoon

June 11 2011, 01:54:32 UTC 6 years ago

Man, nobody's ever leaving the house again.

Poor Alaric's sister. No hope of rescue or survival there, really.

paradisacorbasi

June 11 2011, 02:24:35 UTC 6 years ago

Maybe they have a car with an indoor garage and she can drive to safety via back roads out of the forsaken zones. It's a longshot but better than no shot at all.

jenfullmoon

June 11 2011, 03:42:11 UTC 6 years ago

That'd be nice, assuming all of the checkpoints are totally destroyed or something and she doesn't have to deal with any people wanting a blood test.

I don't remember how old she is though.

seanan_mcguire

6 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

June 3 2011, 20:00:35 UTC 6 years ago

Insects have never been a vector before. This is genuinely the most terrifying thing people in a post-zombie America can imagine. A second Rising that WON'T EVER STOP.

phoenix_singing

June 6 2011, 19:17:29 UTC 6 years ago

I, for one, will never leave the house again without dousing myself in Skin So Soft. o.o

beccastareyes

June 4 2011, 01:49:16 UTC 6 years ago

I think I uttered a 'Jesus Christ' on the bus. It was quiet, though. Thankfully I was either on the way home or stopping for lunch so I could pick up from there and make sure Shaun didn't do anything rash.