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M.R. Carey

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M.R. Carey

Goodreads Author


Born
in Liverpool, The United Kingdom
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June 2014

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Mike Carey is the acclaimed writer of Lucifer and Hellblazer (now filmed as Constantine). He has recently completed a comics adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, and is the current writer on Marvel's X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four. He has also written the screenplay for a movie, Frost Flowers, which is soon to be produced by Hadaly Films and Bluestar Pictures.

Also writes as Mike Carey
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M.R. Carey Hi Kim. It grew out of a very specific commission. I’d agreed to write a short story for an anthology of dark fantasy and horror on the theme of “scho…moreHi Kim. It grew out of a very specific commission. I’d agreed to write a short story for an anthology of dark fantasy and horror on the theme of “school days”. Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner were editing, and I’d had to back out of their previous collection because of time problems, so I was determined not to miss the boat again.

But having said I’d do it, I couldn’t come up with a single workable idea. The deadline started to loom, and everything that came into my head was sort of a grimdark Harry Potter riff – not the slightest bit original, and not appealing either.

Then I woke up one morning with the idea of Melanie in my mind. There was no story, to start with – there was just her. This little girl sitting in a classroom, writing an essay about what she was going to do when she grew up. Only that was never going to happen because she was already dead and didn’t know it.

Everything flowed from that first image, and it flowed really quickly. I wrote the short story, Iphigenia In Aulis, in four days, and for two of those I was in Norway for a comics convention. It was one of those rare situations where the story obsesses you so much that you use every spare moment to write some more of it down. I was sneaking away to the hotel room in between panels to add a few more paragraphs, and writing in bed before I got up to shower.

And once the short was done, I had the very strong feeling that the story wasn’t. I persuaded my editors at Orbit to vary out my contract so I could write The Girl With All the Gifts. Fortunately they were really flexible and helpful. Of course, it helped that they were sold on the story.
(less)
M.R. Carey I think one of the reasons for that, Vesper, is that I'd just completed a novel where I was co-writing with my wife, Linda, and our daughter Louise. M…moreI think one of the reasons for that, Vesper, is that I'd just completed a novel where I was co-writing with my wife, Linda, and our daughter Louise. Most of the characters in that book, The City of Silk and Steel, are female, and I enjoyed writing the dynamics of those relationships. I was still in that head-space when I came to write GIRL, and choosing a female protagonist and point of view character felt like a natural and unforced choice.

Of course the other half of your question is why a child - and that arises of necessity from the nature of the story. It's really a coming of age narrative as much as anything else, and Melanie's changing perspective on the world and her place in it is a big part of the point.

The hardest part for me was writing the scene in which Dr Caldwell attempts to dissect Melanie. It was challenging in the sense that I found it hard to put that sequence of events into words. My mind wanted to slip away from it.(less)
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Quotes by M.R. Carey  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“you can't save people from the world. There's nowhere else to take them.”
M.R. Carey, The Girl with All the Gifts

“And then like Pandora, opening the great big box of the world and not being afraid, not even caring whether what’s inside is good or bad. Because it’s both. Everything is always both. But you have to open it to find that out.”
M.R. Carey, The Girl With All the Gifts

“Melanie thinks: when your dreams come true, your true has moved. You've already stopped being the person who had the dreams, so it feels more like a weird echo of something that already happened to you a long time ago.”
M.R. Carey, The Girl with All the Gifts

Polls

What book should be our "moderator recommends" book for August 2024?

Lone Women by Victor LaValle
Lone Women
Victor LaValle

Blue skies, empty land—and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and an “absorbing, powerful” ( BuzzFeed ) new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of The Changeling .

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.
 
  12 votes 31.6%

The Girl with All the Gifts (The Girl With All the Gifts, #1) by M.R. Carey
The Girl with All the Gifts
M.R. Carey

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her "our little genius."

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

The Girl with All the Gifts is a sensational thriller, perfect for fans of Stephen King, Justin Cronin, and Neil Gaiman.
 
  12 votes 31.6%

Carrie by Stephen King
Carrie
Stephen King

This year is the 50th anniversary of this book's publication.

A modern classic, Carrie introduced a distinctive new voice in American fiction -- Stephen King. The story of misunderstood high school girl Carrie White, her extraordinary telekinetic powers, and her violent rampage of revenge, remains one of the most barrier-breaking and shocking novels of all time.

Make a date with terror and live the nightmare that is...Carrie
 
  6 votes 15.8%

Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman
Incidents Around the House
Josh Malerman

A chilling horror novel about a haunting told from the perspective of a young girl whose troubled family is targeted by an entity she calls “Other Mommy,” from the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box

To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”

When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the same question, over and over . . . Bela understands that unless she says yes, soon her family must pay.

Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe but other incidents show cracks in her parents' marriage. The safety Bela relies on is on the brink of unraveling.

But Other Mommy needs an answer.

Incidents Around the House is a chilling, wholly unique tale of true horror told by the child Bela. A story about a family as haunted as their home.
 
  6 votes 15.8%

Shadow Man Smoky Barrett, Book 1 by Cody McFadyen
Shadow Man: Smoky Barrett, Book 1
Cody McFadyen

FBI agent Smoky Barrett is no stranger to the darker recesses of the human mind. But nothing could have prepared her for the day she had to watch her husband and daughter die at the hands of a serial killer. She bears the scars, mental and physical. Most people would run -- from work, from life, from everything associated with the pain of a shattered existence. But Smoky doesn't know how to run -- and when the job that has defined her life comes calling once again with the news that her best friend from high school has been brutally murdered, she finds herself back in the firing line, chasing a hidden killer who will stop at nothing to confront her. Face to face.
 
  2 votes 5.3%

38 total votes
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The Seasonal Read...: Best Review Contest (Winter 2013) 8 84 Feb 16, 2014 12:37PM  
The Seasonal Read...: This topic has been closed to new comments. Winter Challenge 2013: Completed Tasks (Do Not Delete Posts) 2478 653 Mar 01, 2014 05:00AM  
Aussie Readers: **Summer Reading Challenge - 2013/2014** 663 338 Mar 05, 2014 04:24AM  
Aussie Readers: **Autumn Reading Challenge - 2014** 541 280 Jul 05, 2014 03:58AM  
Reading with Style: This topic has been closed to new comments. SU 2014 Author Chains 46 159 Aug 02, 2014 11:03PM  
Aussie Readers: July Challenge - Horror/Dark Thriller! 189 98 Aug 06, 2014 06:32AM  
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