When will you RISE? Available now!

I had not read San Diego 2014. I rushed to read it as soon as I bought the book.

I do NOT have tears in my eyes. It's just dust,

Also?

If Seanan was a zombie, I'm SURE she would be the type to rip your heart out, look you in the eye THEN eat it.

Anyway... I'm on the Australia story, which is surprisingly funny actually....

The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell will break your heart, then Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus will tear it out.

Oh I just finished 'Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell.' GOD that poor woman. Those poor kids.

Heck, poor everyone...

I found Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus to be very satisfying, at the end. But that's me.

Heh. You enjoy making us suffer don't you?

At 11:30, I gave up on pretending I wasn't reading All the Pretty Little Horses and went to lunch.

Thank you.

:)

Fortunately I read fast, so I finished both All the Pretty Little Horses and Coming To You Live during a (longish) lunch. Thank you.

Both surgery and organ transplants in the Newsflesh universe are so much more dangerous than they used to be. The early stages of kidney failure was very like my dad's, which is probably a good sign accuracy-wise.

Guess who had to stay up and read the new novellas... guess who is mainlining coffee this morning.

Oh man. I know the Masons are kind of horrible people, but like...they're the product of their attempt to live with an unimaginably hard situation and it's hard not to sympathize. I'm a mom; I can't imagine I'd do any better if I were in Stacy's position. Very well done.

And I loved Coming to you Live. That ending was so right. <3 everybody.

Congratulations on this collection, and thank you. :)

Oh thank you thank you. Got it last night. Read it through. So so happy to have more.

You rock my world.

Going through How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea, a question occurs to me - what's the breastfeeding rate in the parts of the world where clean water is a reliable utility* post-Rising?



*Meaning that the chief barrier to formula is expense, rather than breastmilk maybe being virus ridden but not likely to give your kids cholera

There are so many words flying around in my head I don't know if I can sort them out. I've been eagerly awaiting this collection, and now that it's here it didn't meet my expectations, it soared far, far beyond them. I got the download just after midnight Tuesday and stayed up all night to read it through, but I needed some time to have any hope of making sense with my comments.

Rise was magnificent, striking so many emotional chords. It was inspiring, heartbreaking, at times humorous and at other times terrifying. I almost hyperventilated when George passed out in Coming to You Live. I could hear the Browncoats singing, and I was singing along with them, eyes blurry with tears.. Mahir's adventure in Australia made me smile (especially the wombat). It was wonderful to see the world through his eyes.

And then there's Foxy. I have always wanted to know more about her, and now that I do I can honestly say my heart has never ached for a fictional character like it does for her. In a just world the fact that she got any of those children out alive would have been heralded as the miraculous, heroic accomplishment it was. And, I think, that probably would have destroyed her. In my opinion she is the strongest character of the Newsflesh world; she's been horribly battered and scarred, but she hasn't been broken, not quite, because she's still going. Finding out she was alive was very bittersweet for me; yes, I was glad that this wonderful, colorful character was back, but that was tempered by the understanding of just how deep her pain is.

I very much appreciated the insight All the Pretty Little Horses gave me into Stacy and Michael. I wasn't a fan of theirs, and this story didn't change that, but I feel like I understand them better. I've always felt great sympathy for their terrible loss, and respect for their heroism during the Rising, and to see them in this light, Stacy broken by what circumstance forced her to do, and Michael so desperate to save the woman he loved, truly made me hurt for them. I understand them much better now, but I still can't find it in myself to forgive them.

I approached Coming to You Live with a great deal of trepidation. I wanted more of Georgia and Shaun as much as anyone else, but I also wanted them to have the happy ending they deserved. I'm eternally grateful that they still have that, even though the tension had me shaking as I read. This story brought a very satisfying closure to their tale. I understand why they felt the need for such a hasty departure, but it did leave their friends dangling in a void. I think what the others failed to appreciate fully was the fact that their desire to disappear wasn't solely due to the events of the novels. They had lived their entire lives at the center of a carefully orchestrated media circus and they just wanted something they had never had before, the freedom to be themselves. I rest in the assurance that this crisis has taught them a valuable lesson, and they'll be making those regular visits to see Dr. Abbey.

There is so much more I could say, but I'm going to stop with a heartfelt thank you, Seanan. You are a treasure.

The last two stories make a really nice diptych* in showing attempts at healing, even if the senior Masons were a terrible idea that just lead to a second generation of hurt. But, dammit, I felt for Michael Mason finding ways to help his wife, even if I was all 'oh, dear, no, don't bring kids into this, even if you convince yourself it's better than state care, stick to things like zombie photojournalism'.

I also like the fact we got to see the late 2010s and exactly how much trouble the Rising caused. It's easy to overlook that in the main series given how much was rebuilt and that our narrators were children who grew up in this world, so don't always think about all the ways things have changed.

* For that matter, the last four stories really convey what it's like to survive a horror movie and end up with a bunch of survival mechanisms that become mental illness because they aren't useful when zombies aren't trying to murder you. And just general 'holy shit, I did those things, what kind of person am I?'.

I work at a school for mentally and physically disabled kids, and when I finished Feed, I went into the lounge just fangirling every which way. Somehow the fangirling turned into a weekly tradition where we gather on our lunch break and talk about the apocalypse going down and our strategies for getting the kids home alive.

So when I read The Day The Dead Came To Show And Tell, I was a MESS. Because on the one hand, ohmygoshwetalkaboutthiseveryweekandshewroteitaaaahhh. But on the other hand, oh my HEART. I sobbed all over the place. Definitely my favorite so far! I'm making all my coworkers read it.

Got my copy yesterday. Stayed up way too late reading the stories I hadn't read before. [whimper] Had to read something else for a while before I could sleep.

But now I can read all the comments without being spoiled.

I love happy endings (middles?), even when they're not perfect; not perfect is the best these folks are going to get. Thank you. :)