Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire

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It's time for a little...FEEDBACK.

Feedback, by Mira Grant (me) is now available from fine bookstores and e-retailers in North America and the United Kingdom! This standalone entry in the Newsflesh world follows a new blogging team through a new adventure...and a very familiar period in time. Feedback begins the day Feed begins; it ends the day Feed ends.

It's everything in the middle that's new.

So come. Meet Ash, our Irwin narrator and Irish immigrant. Meet Ben, her Newsie companion and husband-on-paper, who's seen a less privileged side of the post-Rising world. Meet Audrey, Fictional, artist, and girlfriend, who's getting a little tired of waiting for Ash to get her life together. Meet Mat, makeup and maker blogger. Meet a lot of people, and find out how many of them will walk away.

Because Feedback provides a new angle on the original trilogy, I do not recommend picking it up until you've read Feed at the minimum, and hopefully Deadline and Blackout as well. But I hope you'll come to my party. I have so many stories to tell you.

This will serve as your discussion post; expect spoilers in the comments.
Tags: discussion post, feedback, mira grant, pandemic time, zombies
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  • 38 comments
OMG, it just hit my kindle!!!!!

SO excited, SO happy. SO giddy.

Also, totally reading this tonight. Thank you.

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There were definitely snerks among the machete squad, I can tell you.
Wooo! My copy just came in at the library. Hopefully, they'll let me do a review for it!
Welp, that was an immediate "grab it and stuff it in the e-reader" moment. Thank you - I can't wait to read more in the Newsflesh universe!

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Yay! I got it in the mail yesterday. :)
Oooh, book store trip this weekend! Yay!

morvoren

October 5 2016, 02:09:15 UTC 8 months ago Edited:  October 5 2016, 04:23:16 UTC

You remain incredibly good at breaking my heart. More articulate things than that won't surface until the next few read-throughs. Thank you, and ow.

No, sorry, one more thought: more. I want so, so much more of this series and all the people in it. I am ridiculously attached. You are amazing at that.
Well, I just finished Feedback, and just as I expected, I feel emotionally drained. I loved the team, though I do have to admit there were a few times I wished I could tell Ash how wrong she was about Georgia and Shaun. I had to remind myself that she didn't know them like I do. I thought I knew where the story was going several times, but with the exception of them meeting Dr. Abbey, I was wrong every time. I really, really enjoyed getting to know Congresswoman Wagman better, and I ended up with a great deal of respect for her.

I think this crew made the right choice. Like Ash said, it wasn't worth it. I imagine she'd be surprised to learn that Georgia would have agreed with her.

jenk

October 5 2016, 19:52:17 UTC 8 months ago Edited:  October 5 2016, 19:52:59 UTC

Haven't finished yet, but one of my takeaways is that Ash and Georgia are very different people. Witness Georgia grumbling but going along with security requirements and Ash arguing a lot, or how Georgia's "seeing the world in black & white" informs their different views of Wagman.

jenfullmoon

8 months ago

bree_ramsey314

8 months ago

This made me so happy. It's they, it's casual ASL, it's the awesome conversation about the Congresswoman etc. It's *knowing* that Clive wasn't going to rape Ash because I know that you, as an author, won't do that. That was really, really awesome to have. I *knew* that it wasn't going there. Just I can't even say how valuable that was to me.
THIS about the scenes with Clive, I started getting uncomfortable reading it and started to put it down for a while and then I remembered what Seanan said and I was able to dive in it without having to steel myself for the attack.
I knew this was coming, but didn't realise until yesterday that it was out this week. So just ordered. But it is timely as I am already re-reading Feed.
I'm looking forward to this one.

PS, I picked up another book with your writing in it that came out just the other week. Loose Lips. I heard about it on the All the Books podcast last week, and didn't realize that you were a contributor until I picked it up at the store.
I liked seeing people like Dr. Abbey and Jill and Dr. Lake, and Rick before he met the Masons. And seeing the Masons from the outside: because they were private people. I like how Ash and George's assessment of Congresswoman Wagman was totally different but made total sense in their personalities*, and I kind of adore Wagman and adore the idea that she is marking the extreme left wing of the Republican Party of 2040 and people like Tate are apparently a marginal fraction. Even if Ryman is still the sort of person who wouldn't draft a blog team made of a poly triad including an immigrant and a genderfluid person. (It would make some striking campaign art showing both teams.)

It was also nice to see what was happening in the wings: that all the major candidates got attacked, and the Rymans' was a set-up for interest**. And that the CDC wasn't so much setting up Ryman as making sure the climate was fertile for their goals and weeding out anyone they couldn't control. (I get the impression that if the Democrats won, they had contingency plans.)

I also liked the idea that either George's team or Ash's could have been the whistleblowers, but that, again, both our protagonists made a call that fit their personalities. Georgia Prime was a terrier for the news (and everyone knew it, which is why her stunt worked) and I don't even know if the EIS could get her to walk away***. Ash decided her family was worth more than being a martyr to the cause.

(Also Beth and her dog: I understood that reference!)

* I wonder if Shaun disagreed with George (if he cared enough) or if male Irwin stagecraft is a different enough craft than female Irwin stagecraft (or the choice Ash made; I think Becks also had some leanings that way).
** I think FEED implied the ranch attack was (I need to reread), but Easly was played a lot more straight. But, again that fits Georgia: why assume an attack was to set up a narrative of Brave Senator Ryman when the basic logic of 'zombies kill people, using zombies is terrorism' makes assassination simpler?
*** Georgia II did, but that was after both she and Shaun had been through enough shit to make them consider their life choices.
It occurred to me while reading this that Shaun and Georgia avoid local friends probably in case anyone picks up on their relationship.

I think male Irwin stagecraft would be different--Ash comments on their wardrobe choices too.

I did laugh at "Tate wants to build a wall!" Was that written before or after Trump's wall?

I do wonder how well it's going to go for Ash to RETURN to Ireland, which wanted her pregnant and/or in an institution previously.

beccastareyes

8 months ago

jenfullmoon

8 months ago

I loved seeing Congresswoman Wagman get some page time, and the friendship between her and Kilburn.
I loved how Kilburn had friends everywhere. We don't see cross-party friendships any more, darn it. I really wanted her and Wagman to (be able to) team up in the future.
I loved Feedback. It was fascinating, seeing the campaign from another viewpoint. I loved the characters, and the friendship between Kilburn and Wagman. It was almost as scary as our current presidential campaign, and more heartbreaking.

By the way, I swear I saw a poster today for a local church, with "The Rising" in big letters across the top. Between things like that, and the Zika virus, I'm watching constantly for walking dead, and it's all your fault.
But at least you'll be prepared, right??

anne_d

8 months ago

Wooo whoo!

Mat. Oh Mat. <3

The reference to San Diego 2014 nearly made me cry. That's my favorite Newsflesh novella.

Appearances by Dr. Abbey, Jill, Dr. Lake, and pre-Masons Rick :D

You introduced us to the real Kirsten Wagman and she is now a favorite. Next time I read about her in Feed, it'll be with a completely different perception. And her friendship with Kilburn was wonderful. I love you for giving us Wagman, Kilburn, and a supportive friendship in what we all know is a pretty cutthroat career path.

It's also interesting to see how Ash and her team viewed the Masons. It honestly makes me sad for George and Shaun, with how they were raised and how very different their family was from the image Stacy and Michael worked so hard to project and how they had to live to keep their relationship hidden...and then I think, you know, maybe they'd have been happier (and less willing to pursue the story at all costs) if they'd opened themselves up to other people and friendships and relationships instead of sealing themselves off. Lots to think about.

Finally, the wider view of what was going on with the lesser-known campaigns and the overarching goal was fascinatingly horrible. As far as conspiracies go, this is a nasty, devious one, and it's been great fun to read.

In short, this book gave me Strong Feelings and I'm looking forward to rereading all four books. Cornkitty approved! <3
Oh poor Mat. Sweetest character in the book too.

phoenix_singing

8 months ago

I read this utterly backwards from how you meant I think. Feedback first, then the rest of the universe, the shorter stuff in Rise first (but skipping the day the dead came to show and tell because it was late at night and I had a bad feeling). Then the rest of the novels, then circling back for the rest of Foxy's story. The warning level you used on her story was juuuuuuuuuuuuuust right. I'm glad I read it, but also glad the warnings were that damn clear.

I've bounced off Feed before a couple times, but after Feedback it works. I love Ash's POV and I could cheerfully have about 6 more books of her. She's easier for me to get on with than George, not because she's better or nicer but her world view is a better match for mine. It's probably the residual Catholic, I swear nothing gets rid of it. You did a really good job showing her argument with the Church without making it feel like the only one. And the sundresses and resolute certainty that nobody is gonna see Ash's undies without permission. Very very very relatable.

I'm also really liking how the world building gets more solid as I read more, not less. I have about a zillion questions about Kellis-Amberlee transmission (wait, hot air hand dryers DON'T spread it? Wha?) and a few zillion more about agriculture, life with animals, food processing and food shipping. Teacup bulldogs? Bulldogs are 40-50 lbs, breeding to get 'en under the threshold should be a piece of cake? (You don't have to answer, I'm pretty sure these are all spoilery or ought to be and every time I ran into an answer via story I liked the story better than a pat answer)
You keep making me cry.

I miss Mat so much already.

I loved this book so much. I wish I could read it for the first time again. But I know that I will enjoy many rereads to come. I've reread the rest of the Newsflesh books and stories time and again, so this will be no exception.
Oh that was a good book. Picked it up last weekend, started reading and finished it in two days.

I actually dreaded that NONE of them would make it out alive, considering it was set in the past and they don't appear in other stories. Was glad to see some of them manage.

Poor Mat tho. They were, in my opinion, the nicest character in the book.

I'm hoping we'll see more of them, eventually....
It took me a bit to get to it because I THOUGHT I had it preordered and then three days later when it hadn't arrived I went and checked and I hadn't.

I was really worried going in that it was going to be a rocks fall everybody dies book. I was happy it wasn't though I was extremely sad about Mat.

Loved Wagman...after how much of a joke as she's treated in Feed it was nice to see that she was a bit of a force to be reckoned with (and it really illustrates George's prejudices in some ways; gives her character even more depth than she had originally had and it's not like she was a shallow character to begin with.

I realize that part of the reason some of the events here weren't mentioned were that they hadn't been conceived of during the originally triliogy but when rereading Feed after it was surprising some of it wasn't. Thought I could have sworn there was a mention of Kilburn committing suicide somewhere. I felt terrible for her :-/
Finally finished Feedback.

I loved the team - not only because yay! Diversity!, but because they're a great mixture of characters.
I loved the world-building - or rather, the different angles we got for the world Newsflash takes place in.
I loved that we got some more glances at faces that we have already seen in the trilogy and in Rise - like getting to know who that asshole Clive was.
I also loved getting another look at congresswoman Wagman, because she seems like a particularly interesting kind of politician - and a strong and interesting person.

The story did not keep me glued to the page the way Feed did though - I guess part of that was because I already knew where it would end, and that this team would not publsih anything grundbraking about the overall CDC plot.
I did fine up until the point were our team became a ... less active player in that whole mess. I completely understand their decision though - it makes much more sense to me than Georgias stubborn hunt for the truth.
I felt a little weird about said truth and team Georgia's fight for it once Ash's team learned what they did - because I knew they wouldn't get it out. Almost disappointed.
As I said, weird.

All in all, I'd probably give the book a 3 star review on amazon, because I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the other ones. I am personally very fond of 3 star reviews, because they tend to give me an honest and balanced look at stuff between all those 5 star 'OMG this is the best you have to buy this!' and 1-2 star 'Thise is utter crap and whoever likes this is stupid' reviews.
Agreed, i was kinda... 'What.' when they cut and run. Perfectly understandable, mind you. Country wide maybe GLOBAL conspiracy vs 3 people, I'd run too. But it was a bit off too.
I just finished and OW MY HEART. I love Ash and Audrey and Mat very much. Didn't get quite so close a view of Ben, but he seemed decent and Ash's affection for him seemed real.

I re-read the trilogy last week, and there were lots of little technical questions which were addressed in Feedback, like how door mounted testing units were sterilized between each use, which made me happy.

Very nice to see our favourite mad scientist and also a small appearance from Dr. Lake.
i am over a month late to the party.

i am still beside myself with love and happiness. it was not a happy story, and i didn't expect it to be, but OMG MAT EXISTING GIVES ME LIFE FOR SO MANY REASONS.

I really liked the end. It's not as rile-you-up-to-tell-the-truth as FEED was but I don't need it to be. Ash being determined to get the people she loves to safety and leave the job of dealing with the shit they learned to someone willing to risk it was something that I really identified with, tbh, because I know that's exactly where I would be. I like to think I'd be a Georgia, or at least a Shaun, but I wouldn't be. I would be Ash, getting my family to safety. And I love that she isn't condemned for that.