Blackout

Newsflesh #3

by Mira Grant

The explosive conclusion to the Newsflesh trilogy from New York Times bestseller Mira Grant — a saga of zombies, geeks, politics, social media, and the virus that runs through them all.

The year was 2014. The year we cured cancer. The year we cured the common cold. And the year the dead started to walk. The year of the Rising.

The year was 2039. The world didn't end when the zombies came, it just got worse. Georgia and Shaun Mason set out on the biggest story of their generation. They uncovered the biggest conspiracy since the Rising and realized that to tell the truth, sacrifices have to be made.

Now, the year is 2041, and the investigation that began with the election of President Ryman is much bigger than anyone had assumed. With too much left to do and not much time left to do it, the surviving staff of After the End Times must face mad scientists, zombie bears, rogue government agencies-and if there's one thing they know is true in post-zombie America, it's this:

Things can always get worse.

 
More from Mira Grant:
 
Newsflesh
Feed
Deadline
Blackout
Feedback
 
Rise
 
 
Praise for Feed:
"It's a novel with as much brains as heart, and both are filling and delicious."― The A. V. Club
 
"Gripping, thrilling, and brutal... McGuire has crafted a masterpiece of suspense with engaging, appealing characters who conduct a soul-shredding examination of what's true and what's reported."― Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
 
“Feed is a proper thriller with zombies.” —SFX

Genres: Zombies, Horror, Science Fiction, Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Dystopia, Young Adult

Audiobook

First published May 22, 2012

About the author

Mira also writes as Seanan McGuire.

Born and raised in Northern California, Mira Grant has made a lifelong study of horror movies, horrible viruses, and the inevitable threat of the living dead. In college, she was voted Most Likely to Summon Something Horrible in the Cornfield, and was a founding member of the Horror Movie Sleep-Away Survival Camp, where her record for time survived in the Swamp Cannibals scenario remains unchallenged.

Mira lives in a crumbling farmhouse with an assortment of cats, horror movies, comics, and books about horrible diseases. When not writing, she splits her time between travel, auditing college virology courses, and watching more horror movies than is strictly good for you. Favorite vacation spots include Seattle, London, and a large haunted corn maze just outside of Huntsville, Alabama.

Mira sleeps with a machete under her bed, and highly suggests that you do the same.

Reviews

[Kemper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here’s a book called Blackout that seems hugely popular with critics and the Goodreads crowd, but that I thought had serious flaws despite a cool premise. Now I’ve written a long review going in depth into what irritated me so much. Hmm… I wonder why I’ve got this odd feeling of deja vu?

This is the third book in the Newsflesh trilogy after Feed and Deadline in which Mira Grant* created a future world set about twenty-five years after mutated viruses created zombies. In this future, where dying by any means causes the dormant virus to go active and turn any corpse into a potential brain eater, large parts of the world have been ceded to the undead while the so-called safe zones are made up of fortified locations and rigid security measures.

* A pen name for Seanan McGuire.

Bloggers have become the most trusted source of news since traditional media did nothing to inform people about the danger or what to do during the initial zombie uprising. The story revolves around some of these on-line journalists who got thrown in the middle of a vast political conspiracy that has cost them dearly.

To find an example of one of my biggest problems with these books I need to look no further than the zombie bear in this one. In Grant’s version of the future, the large mammals like horses, cows and bigger dogs can also turn into zombies, and we get the potential for an awesome scene when a couple of the main characters run across a zombie bear while traveling, and they have no choice but to take it down. If you’re the kind of person who has dedicated a significant amount of time to reading over 1700 total pages of a zombie story, the idea of a fight with a zombie bear should fill you with glee and anticipation.

What Grant does is some foreshadowing about the appearance of a zombie bear, then has the zombie bear show and get two characters all revved up to fight it. They grab their guns and jump out of their vehicle to take on this goddamn zombie bear, and then……

She cuts to the next chapter where something else is going on. Later on we get a brief blog post from one of the characters saying that he killed a zombie bear and it was fun.

This incident makes me pretty sure that Mira Grant isn’t from Missouri. You know, the SHOW-ME STATE. If there was one of the fifty that was a I'LL-STRONGLY-HINT-THAT-SOMETHING-AWESOME-IS-ABOUT-TO-HAPPEN-REPEATEDLY-BUT-NEVER-QUITE-PAY-IT-OFF STATE, that’s where Mira Grant would be from. (But that motto would probably be tough to fit on a license plate.)

I gotta a lot of other problems with this book and the entire trilogy. In order to maximize my bitching, I’ve broken them into these categories that are spoiler free:

The Grant Repetition Principle - Apparently Mira Grant thinks all of her readers have the same condition as Guy Pierce in Memento and that none of us are capable of producing short term memories because she repeats shit constantly to either remind us of things or reuse the same plot points, scenes or dialogue over and over again. If the Internet hasn’t completely devastated your attention span, this gets annoying in a hurry. This repetition causes the other issues I had with the book to become even more irritating because if she does something that annoys you once, you can bet it’s going to happen about fifty more times over the course of the three books.

Mira Grant Wants To Suck Your Blood! - If I had a nickel for every blood screening that happens in these books, I could make Bill Gates my pool boy. Yes, this is a society locked down and living in fear because of a virus, but that doesn’t mean that the details of all those tests have to be repeated. Even worse is that Grant gets stuck on certain phrases and descriptions. The subject almost always “Slaps my palm on the panel.” and then they wince as “The needles bit into my skin.”

First off, if it’s a blood test with needles, why would you ‘Slap my palm on the panel’? Why not “Place my palm gently on the panel.”?

Secondly, I’ve got a cat with diabetes who has required two injections of insulin a day for five years or so. That means I’ve injected him over 3600 times. In all of those, I have never once ‘bit’ him with a needle. I’ve ‘jabbed’ him with a needle. I’ve ‘poked’ him with a needle. I’ve ‘pierced’ him with a needle. I’ve ‘stung’ him with a needle. But no ‘biting’.

It’s called a thesaurus, Mira. Look into it. Or better yet, just cut down on the blood tests.

Have A Coke And A Smile - I’m pretty sure that Coca-Cola must have paid some kind of product placement fee because there’s no other way to figure out why it seems like someone is drinking one on every other page. Since Mira is also assuming that none of us can remember what a Coke tastes like, she lets us know how sweet it is every time.

Particularly bad was this exchange on page 511 which I think is Coke # 2465 in this book:

“How are you feeling?”

“Exhausted. I need a Coke.”

I was never going to get tired of hearing those words.

That’s when I realized that Mira Grant has got to be fucking with us.

Where Are All The Zombies? And What Do They Look Like? - Blackout has 632 pages. Of this, only about 40 actually feature any kind of encounters with zombies. That’s about 6% of the book, and that ratio is about the same for the other two. And whenever zombies do show up, there is an almost complete lack of description of them. They are just ‘zombies’. No mention of age, gender, clothing, state of decay or anything else. I know that giving detailed descriptions of zombie hordes would be impossible, but if you don’t describe at least a few of them, then it’s just this nebulous vague threat.

Maybe if we could have had a few less blood tests and Cokes, there would have been time for some more zombie fightin’ action and maybe a couple of descriptions to let us know what they looked like.

Are You Threatening Me? - Our heroes love to threaten people. They threaten both their enemies and friends constantly. Following the Grant Repetition Principle, most of these threats are pretty similar. Someone is always A) Going to get shot. Or B) Going to be punched in the face.

These threats are doled out in conversation and in the blog posts that lead off every chapters, but don’t worry if you get told that you’re going to be punched or shot. These guys talk a good game, but they never really follow through on anything.

In fact, they are given to make bold pronouncements of how they’re about to unleash hell on somebody. Never happens. Probably because they all appear to be manic depressives as illustrated in our next category.

Game Over, Man! Game Fucking Over! - When not telling everyone how they’re gonna shoot them or punch them in the face, our heroes tend to get pessimistic. Once again, we can look to the Grant Repetition Principle to get countless instances of someone confidently asserting that they’re all going to die soon. It does not so much build up a state of fear and dread for their future as it bores the shit out me.

Here are more categories with spoilers. I am giving up major plot points from all books as well as the ending of this one so do not read if you don’t want to know.



Send In The Clones - One of the strongest moments of the series was when our first person narrator George was deliberately infected with the virus which forced her brother Shaun to shoot and kill her as she made her final blog entry. That scene pushed Feed up several notches for me as well as making me think that Mira Grant may have some pretty bold tricks up her sleeve.

Turns out the trick was to have a clone of George introduced in this one. That dropped my opinion of the entire story because now George’s ‘death’ was just emotional manipulation of the reader that had no true consequences. So there’s both a tragic death to let everyone break their hankies out, but still a happy ending to cheer.

Bullshit.

Shaun Mason Is A Douche Bag - I don’t know if Mira Grant has ever actually talked to any men or not, but if this is her view of what we’re like, then I feel like our entire gender has been insulted.

As the daredevil Irwin who ‘pokes dead things with sticks’ (Yet another example of the Grant Repetition Principle), Shaun was just a loyal but brainless minion to George in the first book. George’s death could have forced him into being an interesting character in the second one. Instead what we got was a self-absorbed abusive fuck who would punch his own employees if they dared mention his sacred sister’s name in a way he disapproved of and who preferred to go crazy town banana pants rather than deal with the here and now.

Fuck him.

Oops, I didn’t mean literally, George!

Incest! - I gather there’s a bit of controversy about the whole thing of George and Shaun being lovers. Since it was well established that they were adopted and not related by blood, then I didn’t have a problem with it.

What I did think was beyond creepy was that they continued to refer to each other as brother and sister rather than girlfriend, boyfriend, lover, sweet patootie, etc.

Yeah, I know George’s bullshit explanation about how they had to keep it secret because of their public image. Uh…No. Have a press conference and explain that you fell in love with the person you’ve known and trusted longer than anyone and stress that you are not actually related. Most people would probably be cool with that, but if they find out you’re secretly sleeping with someone you still refer to as your brother?

Yuck.

The Romeo And Juliet Factor - So George was dead for a while and it made Shaun into an asshole as well as crazy. We’re told over and over (The GRP again.) how he was always meant to outlive George, and how when he finally settles up with the vast conspiracy, he’s going to go off and just live with Ghost George in his head and be completely shit-your-pants-crazy. When George comes back from the dead, she mentions several times that they always thought that Shaun would die first, and after he did, she would bury him and then kill herself.

Obsessive, unhealthy love affairs that end in madness and/or suicide are not what I’m looking for in my zombie books.

The CDC Needs New Locks - In Deadline Shaun and company make two long and dangerous journeys to confront the CDC in two different cities. Both times end in disaster. In this one, they actually have a plan that makes some sense, but have to turn around and come back to Seattle before completing any of it.

And then they break into the CDC again.

Seriously, Mira?

The Stupidest Conspiracy Story Since The X-Files Went Off The Air - So the evil CDC was controlling the President by holding his wife and kids hostage while giving him a clone wife for the cameras. George was cloned by the CDC so that a programmed version could be used to manipulate and betray Shaun, but the underground elements led by the Vice-President used that to get a ‘good’ George and break the story about the virus to the world. Because George’s credibility is so fucking awesome that even showing up after being dead in a world full of blood thirsty zombies, people would instantly believe her.

The first stage of the plan? Have the president’s family freed in ten minutes by using secret elements the good guys already had in position.(Another action that we’re only told about, but don‘t get any details on.) George gets a gun and goes to the room with the Prez and evil CDC guy, tells everyone that the jig is up and then a Secret Sevice guy kills the CDC dude. After escaping the zombie outbreak, the files get sent out by their news site and George does a video telling everyone to listen to the President who tells everyone what’s been going on.

Sooooooooo…… Why exactly were George and Shaun so important again? Supposedly their credibility was vital to the plans of both sides. Maybe if instead of fucking around for over a year while trying to clone George, the VP and the loyal Secret Service agents could have just freed the President’s family, which apparently could have happened at any time since it was so easy that it was done in ten minutes after one phone call, and then just put him on TV to say that the CDC is EEEEVVVIIIIIIILLLLLL!

No one would have listened to the goddamn President of the United States if he said that his family was held hostage by the CDC? The only person that anyone in the world will believe is Georgia Mason? Christ, if people are that cynical in 2040 than just go ahead and clone Walter Cronkite to break the news.

I guess that wouldn’t work because….

George & Shaun Mason Are The Only People That Matter In The World! - Yeah, there’s some lip service paid to other people on their team, but by shifting the first person narration between two people who really only care about each other, it makes the books completely about them.

And if you’re trying to create a story that involves a vast political conspiracy and a worldwide plague of zombies, the scope needs to be wider than two people utterly obsessed with each other.

Part of the reason that I don’t buy the idea that George is the only journalist in the world who will be believed is that we never once saw what kind of impact her writing had. Yes, we were once again told how it got the President elected and all that, and they sometimes talked about their high ratings in Feed, but we never got a viewpoint from anyone else as to what their reporting meant to anyone reading it.

Over the course of these books, Oakland got firebombed and Florida was supposedly lost to hurricanes and zombie mosquitoes, and yet all of it was told to us third hand. Somewhere in these 1700 pages there should have been room to let us know what people outside of the George & Shaun bubble thought was going on.



I’ve spent so much time breaking this down because these three books ended up seeming like a wasted opportunity to me. Mira Grant came up with an intriguing twist on the zombie genre. Despite the flaws, she’s also got a compulsively readable style at times. When she remembered that she was writing a zombie novel and threw in some action, she actually did a pretty good job of it. There’s two tense and action filled conflicts with the undead in this that are top notch, but as I’ve pointed out here, that made up a very small portion of the overall story.

Instead of delivering on the potential of the world she created, she focused instead on the inner lives and emotional state of a couple of characters that became boring and irritating when she couldn’t think of enough stuff for them to do and just repeated the same crap over and over again.

Here endth the rant.

[Wendy Darling · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review is spoiler-free, and safe even for those who haven't read the first two books in the series.

Forget everything you ever assumed about science fiction novels or zombie thrillers: the Newsflesh trilogy defies all expectations. The story that began with a turbulent political campaign in a post-apocalyptic Feed escalates here as the blogger journalists from After the End of Times continue their quest to uncover the truth behind the deadly Kellis-Amberlee virus that has decimated civilization--one that is now mutating and spreading faster than ever before. The breakneck action and intrigue in Blackout is intense as a dangerous rescue mission, disease-carrying mosquitoes, zombie bears, tangled family drama, and a mysterious patient known as Subject 7B all complicate what is already hell on earth.

It's funny that my favorite zombie series actually has the least amount of zombie action in it, but Newsflesh hasn't ever been about the undead anyway--it's about the human response to it. As with The Reapers Are the Angels and Warm Bodies, this series is fascinating to me because it explores the idea of personal integrity within extreme circumstances. What would you do when the world ends? If you're Shaun and Georgia Mason, adopted siblings whose closeness forms an unbreakable team, you lead your fellow bloggers into an unrelenting search for truth--no matter what the cost. Or at least, that's how their story began. But now that the stakes are higher than they've ever been and those they love most are at risk, the focus has shifted to a very human need to hold onto the connections that matter most.

Blackout seamlessly combines medical thriller, political intrigue, and pulse-pounding action sequences with unforgettable human drama. How you feel about this series will very much depend on how you feel about the characters in general--if you love the Masons, Alaric, Becks, Mahir, and Maggie, you'll most likely have a fantastic time with Newsflesh. It doesn't mean the characters are perfect, of course; Shaun in particular is mourning a huge loss, and his reckless, desperate behavior in the second book caused a lot of criticism from a lot of readers. For me, I felt his pain so keenly, however, that his torment became mine--and I understood, too, the unconventional, defiant ways in which he grasped for some semblance of happiness as the world around him was destroyed. In books and in real life, I respond very strongly to loyalty, honesty, and the determination to do what's right. Shaun and Georgia, as well as their superbly realized supporting cast, embody those traits in a big way. Because they also are slammed with unbelievable suffering throughout these books that require a brutal amount of self-sacrifice, it isn't any wonder that I feel such fiercely protective love for them, as well as for the ideals they represent.

The author's writing gets better and better in each book, with well-researched scientific dilemmas and brilliant recaps that engage the reader without resorting to long info-dumps. Her brisk, matter-of-fact style of writing suits the story perfectly, and the sophisticated plot is exceptionally well-paced, with shifts from furious action to moments of stark stillness and contemplation handled beautifully. Whether we're getting worked up over red herrings, watching someone facing her own mortality, or respectfully acknowledging fallen comrades, the emotional pitch throughout the book felt utterly right, which is something that is very hard to pull off when there are so many ethical issues at stake.

A few random thoughts with REAL spoilers, because there's no other way to discuss them:

Subject 7B's realization of who and what she is is totally kickass. I loved how very true to her character this whole scenario was, and how believably all the cloning issues were integrated with our human need to recognize this person.

The scenes where 7B looks on the 8s made me really sad. :(

I'm so glad that one of the major plot points wasn't rescuing Georgia, because I cannot imagine any situation less likely to happen. The way she escapes and the way everyone reacts to seeing her was pitch-perfect.

I am SO happy to have Georgia back. Sheesh, I missed her so much! And it's nice to have a break from all the crazy of being in Shaun's head, hah.

I'm glad that Shaun and Georgia got to ride off into the sunset a bit, though I'm still sad for the brave, original Georgia who died in such a devastating way.

There were certainly some plot lines that I saw coming, and although I'm a little surprised that we got a HEA, obviously this didn't hinder my enjoyment of the book at all. The way it was handled felt just right.

I don't know that I've ever read another series where the emotion it evoked was so intense--Feed left me crying so hard I could hardly see the keyboard, Deadline had me literally whimpering with pain in the middle of the night, and Blackout made me want to scream with excitement and agony and worry all at once. If you'd told me that a science fiction trilogy with zombies could be so searingly emotional or feel so incredibly personal, I'd have told you it was impossible. And I've never been happier to be proven wrong. I know most true fans of this series will race through the pages just like I did, with the same urgency and dread and excitement.

While I'm so sad that this particular story is over (although there are two more Newsflesh novellas coming this year) and I dearly wish they could all turn into zombies so this story could live on forever, I'm happy with the way the story ended. I'm sure Mira Grant's new forthcoming novels Parasitology and Symbiogenesis will be absolutely spectacular.

This review also appears in The Midnight Garden. An advance copy was provided by the publisher.

P.S. For more proof of the power of Mira Grant's writing, read the alternate ending to FEED, Fed, at the bottom of the review on our blog which is ONLY safe for those who have already read the first book. Holy frak, that woman is an evil genius.

[karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

more, please.
i don't want it to be over.

review when i stop hyperventilating.

.......................................................................

so, yeah. the only way to review this book is to squee over it like a little girl. because it's the final book in a trilogy - whatever i write here isn't going to make anyone who hasn't read the first two run right out and buy it, because these books build - there is no way to only read the third book and feel like you have made a good decision. and if you have read the first two books, obviously you are going to read the third one, so my review isn't going to be what convinces you to find out how it all ends, right?

so - commence the squee...

and i will be very very careful to avoid spoilers.
because i would have murdered anyone who had dared spoil it for me.

i thought this was a perfect conclusion to a trilogy. sure, there were some moments when i rolled my eyes a little: shaun's endless witty remarks, becks' behavior towards you-know-who in some of the scenes was a little much, and ditto with the fox. but both of them redeemed themselves, and performed such wonderful heroic acts, that my heart swelled repeatedly. but as far as tying up loose ends and giving her characters believable endings and leaving the reader with complete satisfaction in the world of her creation.... an easy five stars.

mira grant is just so masterful. the blog-excerpt chapter-openers are some of the best examples of reader-manipulation i have ever seen. she has a perfect sense of rallying the reader, you know what i mean? emotionally, they run the gamut from humorous, poignant, cheesy (that poetry...), and just flat-out triumphant - they made me want to rise along with them. it's a neat trick she accomplished, and a great way to supply additional depth to her characters.

one of my favorites:

kill me once, shame on you.
kill me twice, shame on me.
kill my brother? oh, it's on. and you are not going to enjoy it

because i shouldn't really like the george character. she is so...earnest and driven and honest and sincere, usually a character like that would make me feel queasy. and we all know what happens to characters who are too noble for their surroundings, right?

this is not a spoiler for this book, but for a very popular series by george r r martin, so stay away, nerds:



but george (not martin) is great, and i don't know what it is about her that rescues her from my eye-rolling, except that she is just perfectly written; she is not some cookie-cutter character standing in for "all that is good and right and just", she is beaten and defiant and oh, god karen - don't use that picture again... oh god, you are going to, aren't you??


.

yup, it can't be helped...

and add her to shaun, and oh my god. a terrific explosion of capable badassery that just never lets up.

i love every little thing about this book. the attention to detail, the science that sounds pretty terrifyingly plausible to me, the nuance to characters, the way everyone has their own damage and their own coping mechanisms... it just feels right , all of it. it feels like i am not really reading it, but that i am immersed in something. and that is rare for me, with reading. i love reading, i do it all the time, but it is rare for me to experience this level of envelopment in a story. i was there, man...

yeah, it's a zombie book - get over it, it is also a book about the indomitable human spirit. and it fucking kicks ass.

alariiiiiiiic!!!

come to my blog!

[Ari · Rating 4 out of 5]

[SAFE TO READ] And so the story ends..


I've never missed some characters the way I miss these guys, and yeah - I already miss them like crazy.

You know what?... If you want to know how this all ends you’ll just have to read the story and find on your own. What you’re reading now is my heart bleeding all over my keyboard, because this is how it feels letting this story go.

Damn you Mira Grant, for making me love your world as much as I do, for making me cry for a fictional story and some freaking amazing characters that don’t even exist, for making me read a zombie book when I don’t even like zombies. Damn you for being such an amazing writer!

I wish I’d know how to say goodbye, how to close the book with a smile on my lips and not to feel this ache in my heart, I wish there was more to this story .. I find it so hard to get closer to writing the last line about the Masons, so hard to think that I will never again enjoy new adventures with them, so hard not to wait for another book in the series to come out.. It’s all simply too hard even though I understand that at some point we had to get to an ending.

"Anyone coming within a hundred yards of my happy ending had better pray that they’re immune to bullets"
~ Shaun Mason

In terms of concept and world building, this story doesn’t add much to the awesomeness of the series. I think that all the mind-blowing details about this world have been squeezed into Deadline and Feed.
This is just how the story ends. This is how all the pieces are put together and the characters get to the point of really knowing the truth and deciding what to do with it. It is not a perfect ending, it is not a happily ever after for everyone, it still holds some questions and uncertainty, but it is as close to perfect as it can get to be.

I don't know if I am sad that it is really over, or if I am sad because of the way it all ended. I wanted more time with them, one more chapter, one more scene, one more joke, one more zombie to poke with a stick.



I am not sure if you've ever been in love with the characters in a story.. Like really loving them all, like never getting enough of them and wanting at least one more scene with them and missing them like crazy after you've turned the last page of the book.
I don't know if you usually cry when a dear character dies, or if you do it on special occasions like I do, but damn, how I hated every time one of my beloved book-character-friends had passed away, how I wanted to turn back the page and rewrite their ending, how they still haunt my memory and I remember them being so awesome and so funny, and brave, and (oh!) how I’ll miss them every time I’ll thing about this story.

My heart aches.. I am sitting here with my iPad on my lap, trying to say all the things that have been left unspoken, but I can't seem to find the right words.
This review was supposed to be full of spoilers, because I tried so much to hold back so many things about our character in the first 2 books that I deserved to let it all out at the very ending.. But I won’t because there's nothing I could possibly say that could match the awesomeness of this story, and telling you about how great these characters are won’t ever be enough.

Don't be fooled by the star (half star) missing from my rating though.. This story is as amazing as the whole series is; only Blackout is my least favorite of the 3 of them (a bit less funny, with not as much action, but tying nicely all the loose ends and giving these characters what they deserve).
I started reading it late in the evening, I didn't stop all night and I finished it after only 3 hours of sleep in the morning.. Maybe that's why my review notes didn't make much sense when I read them.

So, this is my goodbye for them.. And there’s nothing else I could say, other than the fact that I will really, really.. really miss them all.

I will miss the crazy cute Shaun, who used to think only about another stupid way to poke the dead with a stick for the ratings and who could make me laugh like crazy. I will miss his craziness and the way he could love with all his heart.



I will miss Georgia and her devotion for unraveling the truth, I will miss her black-or-white point of view, I will miss the way she was so sure that she will be the one burying her brother.

I will, miss Becks and her sarcasm, the way she enjoyed being an Irwin, the way she wanted a solid proof before believing something. (and I’ll always think of her when I’ll drink a beer with her name on it)

I will miss Mahir, Maggie, and Alaric, how supportive they’ve been, how devoted to the Masons and their mission, how they’ve risked their lives so many times for the truth to come out, for being there for Shaun when he was going crazy, for supporting him even when he did stupid things, for missing Georgia and for being (together) the best bloggers in the zombie world.

And I will miss Buffy and Dave and all the other people that have died protecting the truth or trying to get it out, I will miss every single character in the story, even some unrealistic evil characters with their annoying way of telling their 'master plan' before dying.

Goodbye, my dears!




CONCLUSION:
I will probably get to read other books by Mira Grant/ Seanan McGuire, but I will always miss this story in a way I’d never missed another one before.




One favorite quote from the many:
Because we chose to tell the truth
(The cool of age, the rage of youth)
And stand against the lies of old
(The whispers soft, the tales untold)
We find ourselves the walking dead
(The loves unkept, the words unsaid)
And in the crypt of all we've known
(The broken blade, the breaking stone)
We know that we were in the right
(The coming dawn, the ending night).
So here is when we stop the lies.
The time is come. We have to Rise.

~From Dandelion Mine, the blog of Magdalene Grace Garcia, August 7, 2041.



This review can also be found at ReadingAfterMidnight.com

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Pre-reading thoughts:
Well if this didn't make an impression on you, I might need to try plan B:

Come on!.. I could be turned into a zombie in a year, we don't want that to happen, right? :D

[Maja (The Nocturnal Library) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worry not, my dears, this review is spoiler-free.

There are three things in this world I truly believe in. That the truth will set us free; that lies are the prisons we build for ourselves; and that Shaun loves me. Everything else is just details.
- Georgia Mason

There's not much I can say about the Newsflesh trilogy that I haven't said a million times before, nothing spoiler-free at least, and I refuse to spoil even the smallest detail for any of you. As a result, this will be more of an emotional outburst than an actual review, so feel free to abandon ship if you’re not a fan of my all-too-frequent displays of sentimentality. I apologize in advance.

How do you bring down a massive government conspiracy? You don’t. You do what the crew of After the End Times does: you run for your life, save a few people, bury more than a few, tell the truth, and make sure to get it all on camera. Oh, and you pay attention when the villain starts explaining his actions because there might me more to it than he’s ready to admit. And when you stop to think about it and realize that it’s not worth it at all, you keep doing it because there’s nothing else you can do, and you hope for the best.

I didn’t dream of funerals this time. Instead, I dreamed of me and Shaun, walking hand in hand through the empty hall where the Republican National Convention was held, and nothing was trying to kill us. Nothing was trying to kill us at all.

As the story progressed and the science in it became more and more wild, I kept expecting to reach the point where I’d stop believing it, where it would be too much, but I never did. Therein lies the talent of Seanan McGuire – she is able to make the craziest things sound entirely convincing. It helps that her sense of pacing is nothing short of extraordinary, not to mention her ability to emotionally manipulate her readers. It’s not easy to keep people engaged and utterly fascinated through more than 500 pages, and yet Seanan McGuire accomplished it no less than three times.

I could (and should) say that the Newsflesh trilogy has ended with Blackout, but it hasn’t for me, not really. After 1800 pages, so much laughter, countless tears and a few frustrated screams, I know I’ll be back to reread it often. In fact, I’d already reread both Feed and Deadline more than once. Why would Blackout deserve any less? In any case, I’ve gained more from this experience than just a book I can label as my all-time favorite. I’ve bonded with people over it, and today I have the privilege of calling some of them my friends. We are a diverse group, but we started with this one thing we had in common, and in time, we developed some more. Therefore, it seems vastly unfair to call this just another trilogy. For me, it was much more than that. It was a chapter of my life and a truly life-changing experience.

Aside from the already released Countdown, Mira Grant will write two more novellas in the Newslesh universe, San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats, and How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea. Seanan McGuire will also launch another duology with Orbit: Parasitology and Symbiogenesis, as Mira Grant. The story will have nothing to do with the Masons, but I’m sure it will be amazing. I guess we still have something to look forward to after all.

We know that we were in the right
(The coming dawn, the ending night).
So here is when we stop the lies.
The time is come. We have to Rise.
-From Dandelion Mine, the blog of Magdalene Grace Garcia, August 7, 2041.

Also posted at The Nocturnal Library

[Michelle, the Bookshelf Stalker · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's up...

She answers our questions.....

The Mira Grant Interview

You know you want to know about Shaun and George. We ask her!

http://badassbookreviews.com/intervie...

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the conclusion to the trilogy and it went out with a bang just like I had hoped.

Georgia has been cloned and that clone was waking up right at the end of the previous book. The beginning of this one has her trying to figure out what is going on, where she is and if she can trust any of the people around her.
Meanwhile, Shaun is spiralling out of control more and more but at least he's got a plan on what to do before it's too late for him.
The problem? The government, which is to say the CDC, has ramped up their game as well.
Thus, the reader finally sees more of the true scale of this conspiracy and learns about what is scientifically possible in this near future.

Almost unexpectedly, I was actually touched and looking forward to seeing Georgia and Shaun finally meeting up again. True, the whole plot point felt a liiiiiittle like a cop-out so I remained suspicious and I'm still not sure it was a good idea to have Georgia and Shaun be secret lovers all the while because most people growing up together aren't interested in one another that way, but the characters were quite likeable so I have no trouble admitting I had a little "aaawww" moment.

We continue to follow people for who news isn't just a way of getting more readers or better ratings, but who take the truth seriously and believe in accountability. So we are talking about idealists. Nevertheless, it was done in a pretty good way and used to highlight all the things power can corrupt. As such, the set-up still worked. However, it wouldn't have worked this well without the science (though the cloning taking care of the MC's "defect" wasn't actually a good message for me personally) and action, the break-ins and break-outs as well as all kinds of twisted animals (both zombie bears and gigantic mosquitos). The reunion with characters we've known since book 1 but lost touch with, was nice as well, bringing it all together the way it should.

It was heartbreaking to see the world so many years after the zombie apocalypse and to see that it could actually get worse. That it was realistic to all go so wrong, in fact. Many of the themes here are, of course, real-life problems we have already created for ourselves. Like practically being addicted to being afraid. Like people being addicted to being the firsts to report about something and facts be damned. Like most people only reading headlines. Like the news (no matter from which side of the spectrum) trying to influence and even steer events. Like the road to hell being paved with good intentions. Like protection turning into imprisonment.
Just as heartbreaking was the revelation right at the end about the virus and Emily having been replaced by a clone so the real Emily could be used to keep the President under the CDC's control - which makes you wonder how many clones are roaming this Earth.

A very good series, highly atmospheric and with a fresh look at an old(er) genre.

[TheBookSmugglers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally reviewed on The Book Smugglers

**WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS UNAVOIDABLE SPOILERS FOR FEED AND DEADLINE. If you have not read the first two books in the trilogy and want to remain unspoiled, look away! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.**

At the conclusion of Deadline, there have been some rather drastic revelations: Shaun is immune to Kellis-Amberlee, Georgia has been cloned by the CDC (oh, yeah, and the adopted brother and sister have had a longstanding sexual relationship). Blackout opens with a bang, much in the same way as its predecessor. Georgia finds herself an unwitting patient of the CDC, and while she knows immediately that she must be a clone (given the memory of her death and the fact that she no longer has retinal KA), she doesn't know why she has been cloned or what the CDC's endgame is. All she knows is that it must have to do with her brother, and it must have to do with a truth that someone very desperately wants to keep covered up. Not so far away, Shaun and the After the End Times team (Mahir, Alaric, Mags, and Becks) are dispatched on a crazy dangerous mission - Kellis-Amberlee has mutated and now can be carried by insect vectors, and after the last tropical storm deadly zombie-making mosquitoes are now on the large and the entire state of Florida is nanoseconds away from being declared officially lost. Shaun - still mourning for his lost sister and hanging onto sanity by a mere thread - and the crew must save Alaric's sister, capture a live mosquito sample for testing, and figure out why the virus mutated - be the cause natural, or manmade.

Alternating points-of-view between Shaun's narrative and Georgia's, Blackout chronicles the last chapter of the Newsflesh trilogy as the Masons paths collide and together they fight to rip the lid off of a conspiracy so huge, it will rock the foundation of the post-Rising world.

I am kind of at a loss when it comes to Blackout. I *loved* Feed. I loved the heavy exposition, the fascinating medical procedural tied to the political thriller. I loved Georgia's frank narration, and I loved how honest and forthright she was throughout. I loved this vision of a post-apocalyptic, zombie-filled world, and the steps humanity has taken to adapt, survive, and to rise.

Needless to say, when I got through Deadline, I was a little less enthused. I still loved the world building and the underlying main storyline, but so many of the things I was so enamoured with in the first book were absent in the second. Most glaringly, Shaun is not half the narrator his sister was. There was also a ton of repetition (not just of pointless story exposition that leads nowhere, but also of key phrases - Shaun drinking a coke, muttering to himself/Georgia's ghost, grinning like a maniac and wanting to punch people in the face, etc) that detracted from the overall efficacy of the story. The political and medical thriller, the underlying conspiracy, is pushed to the backburner in favor of Shaun's (very quickly tiresome) glib narrative as he grapples with grief.

In Blackout, I wanted so desperately for the book to return to the series' Feed roots, but alas. Blackout is better than Deadline, but failed to wow, shock or awe. I liked the alternating narrator conceit, tying the first two books together nicely in an attempt to bring both Georgia and Shaun back together again. That said, I found myself wanting to skip Shaun's narrative entirely - as to me it felt largely pointless and filled with the same tedious repetition I had to slog through in Deadline. The good news is that Georgia's narrative is as wonderful as I remembered from Feed but this time is rife with more internal struggle as she fights to form and understand a sense of self and identity within her new flesh, whilst simultaneously fighting and exposing the Umbrella Corporation-esque corruption of the CDC, and finding a way to escape and get back to her brother. As far as narrators go, Georgia remains one of the coolest, smartest, most capable protagonists I have had the pleasure of reading in a good long while. With regard to the other characters, my main complaint is how similar the majority of the characters sound to each other. Most everyone is a smarmy, fast-talking wiseguy with a mile-wide melodramatic streak, from the doctors to the Newsies. I like the additions to the cast this go-around, but the lack of distinct voices makes for a monotonous reading experience. [1. What's that old adage? When everyone's a wisecracking snarkist, no one is.]

On the story and actual writing front, Blackout also leaves a girl wanting more. Well, actually, wanting less. The biggest issue with Blackout is its unnecessary length - the underlying conspiracy that runs through the trilogy, the truth that Georgia, Shaun and the gang are fighting so desperately to unveil? WE'VE KNOWN ABOUT IT SINCE BOOK 1 (and the beginning portion of book 2)! There is absolutely no need for the book to be half as long as it is, chock-full of repetitive action, driving scenes, medical tests, and so on that have no baring on the actual progression of the story or development of the characters.[2. Especially coming off reading such a fantastically taught and expertly written short novel in Nancy Kress's After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Blackout's many excesses were all the more glaring!] Even the little epigraphs preceding each chapter - and I shouldn't call them "little" because there are at least 2 each time, and usually span at least a paragraph a pop - became tiresome and repetitive.[3. On a side note, that's a shame because some of the epigraphs were actually pertinent and reveal more to the story at large - but because 90% of them are pointless filler, the tendency is to want to skip them altogether.] That said, the actual conspiracy itself is a fantastic twist (well, not so twisty since we've kind of known about it for a while), and once the action and story proper actually starts moving along, Blackout becomes a much more enjoyable read.

I can't write this review without addressing the two other significant detractors for me, personally, though. These are the two huge Jump the Shark moments from Blackout: 1. The Relationship between Georgia and Shaun; and 2. The Cloning/Pseudoscience/Shaun's Immunity Revelations. First, regarding the relationship between brother and sister, I simply cannot buy it. Not even in this book, not even with Georgia's 'explanation' (which feels very much like an editorial response to criticism of book 2 and that revelation). I don't care if the nature of their relationship is something that Georgia and Shaun never wrote down - the fact that we are living inside both Georgia and Shaun's heads for the full trilogy means that at some point, in Feed, Georgia could have/should have made some sort of reference to her very intimate, soulmate bond with her non-biological brother. I simply do not buy it (your mileage may vary, of course, but to me this revelation and attempt at rationalization felt inauthentic).

Regarding the second, Shaun's immunity to KA and Georgia's cloning are also 'explained', and while these explanations are within the realm of possibility (this IS a zombie novel, after all), I still can't help but feel a little, well, unhappy with the way things turn out. The reason why Feed was such a powerful, resonant novel is because of its grounding in more tangible science, its taut political relevance, and the medical thriller aspect to the book. We lose that in Deadline and Blackout, which turns to fringe scifi with neural/synapse photography/memory imprinting and cloning of a fully grown human (still not sure how that worked so quickly). Mira Grant does a phenomenal job with making these applied phlebotinum technologies and sciences work, but it's a far cry from the more sturdy applications in Feed (again, your mileage may vary).

All these criticisms voiced, I still finished Blackout and enjoyed the experience, for both the novel and for the series as a whole. The Newsflesh books have tremendous crossover genre potential - I hesitate to label them zombie books because the zombies play such a tangential, minor role to the characters and the true villains of the piece (not to mention the virus itself). While I wasn't wholly satisfied with the way things turned out, and Feed is clearly the vastly superior novel of the trilogy, Blackout is a solid read. And if you've come this far in the trilogy, you're gonna have to finish it. Right? Recommended...albeit with reservations.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

'This is as close as we could get to an ending. The world goes on. Zombies or no zombies, political conspiracy or no political conspiracy, the world goes on.
I think I like it that way.'

Ah, the end is finally here. Blackout: the highly anticipated final book in the Newsflesh trilogy. For those of you that have yet to read this series feel free to continue - no spoilers!

When I first heard about Feed, I dismissed it immediately when 'political intrigue' and 'zombies' were put into the same descriptive sentence. I mean, really? How on earth could that possibly work without some serious eye-rolling? Well, Mira/Seanan managed to make it work and it was amazing. Seriously, these are the most well-written books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Exciting, intense, emotional and positively sensational.

The single most thing that I love about this entire series is the obvious amount of research that was put into these. There will be pages where the book goes into detail about viruses and immunity and spontaneous amplification and I'll think I'm reading some sort of textbook... the most awesome textbook in existence. In the Acknowledgment section she thanks medical professional (human and animals), gun experts and even epidemiologists (medical scientists that study in the transmission and control of diseases - thanks Google!) that assisted her with the necessary research for these novels. That extreme detail makes this hands down the most believable zombie book/series in existence.

I could go on for days about my love for this series but I'm going to restrain myself. I'm extremely sad that the series is over yet at the same time I'm extremely pleased with how well all the loose ends were tied up. The end was less than perfect but more than appropriate. I think fans of this series will be pleased.

Mira/Seanan? Thank you.

[Justine · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I enjoyed this, but maybe not quite as much as the previous two. Some parts of the story felt a tiny bit muddled for me, which detracted from my enjoyment somewhat.

Overall though, I still feel this is one of the better and more intelligently written series of zombie genre books out there.

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 Stars for Blackout: Newsflesh Series, Book 3 (audiobook) by Mira Grant read by Paula Christensen and Michael Goldstorm.

This might be my favorite book in the series. It’s packed full of action and it has a great plot twist. It’s a great finally for the series. Although I noticed that there is a short prequel that I’m going to have to listen to.

[Lucy · Rating 1 out of 5]

My friend apparently really looooved a line that threatened a romantic murder-suicide. I'm rethinking that friendship.

Anyway, this book is more of the same bullshit from the last book. The main character's importance is overwhelmingly overestimated because the author likes to cuddle her darlings rather than being remotely realistic about what their places in the world building really are. I don't know if I have the energy to write a full review of all the reasons I hated this book, but I'm definitely beginning to see that a great deal of it was the smugness with which the characters were written. The author Mary Sues it up to such an extreme with the main characters that I'm EXTREMELY SURPRISED more reviews aren't calling her out on it.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-Read

Pretty awesome conclusion to the tale. Moral? The truth will set you free.

Maybe not from zombies crashing down your doors or zombie bears making a mess of your day or massive conspiracies regarding the zombie virus being transmitted by tons of mosquitos...

But at least the conspiracy will EVENTUALLY have its day. Maybe. Because, you know, the truth and all.

:)

This is easily one of the most interesting zombie books out there, and while it doesn't have the same impact as the first two, it does conclude the tale in grand style. This book is better as part of the whole trilogy.

I love the light writing style. But then, this is Mira Grant. (Seanan McGuire) :) There's a reason she's become an auto-read for me. :)

[Regina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fanflippingtastic! The best in the series. I just finished and I am shaking. I don't think there will be anything this good for me, ever again. This is not a review, lol, I will be back to write a more coherent and better put together thoughts. Mira Grant is a brilliant writer.

**
I was in love with this book from the beginning. I should say upfront, I liked Feed but not as much as Deadline, which I loved and not as much as Blackout, which is my favorite. For me, Mira really hit her stride with Blackout. The alternating points of view were very effective and I loved the blog posts from the various team members. The way Mira tells her story, both in first person point of view from various characters and in a journal format via quotes and blog excerpts, really worked for me. It gave the story a multi-layered feel.

Blackout was non-stop struggle, fight and chase from the beginning. The action never stopped but it was my favorite kind of action. I skim or close my eyes during fight scenes and car chase sequences but the action in Blackout had me hooked. I did not miss a word. I wondered about people’s motives, I worried that there would be unresolved issues and I worried about my favorite characters. I shouldn’t have worried. Not everyone can live or survive in a world like this one, but the characters are dealt with fairly and I was satisfied with the outcome.

A book about a zombie plague that affected the world’s mammal population and a future dytsopia setting is bound to have its unbelievable moments, but for me this never happened. Mira Grant writes this book in such a way that it is believable. A lingering question at the end of every zombie book is –how did the zombie plague happen? Well, in Newsflesh Mira Grant lays it out for the readers. We know why it happened. She provides enough detail to readers so that the science is acceptable. Her world building is not just in boundaries and political alignments, but is is also done with science.

Political plots can be a real yawner. Ther are some books with political plotlines that I liked (Kushiel’s Dart and Game of Thrones are some examples), but I prefer an action based plot or a character driven plot — Blackout manages to have both and has politics intertwined and somehow is still. There is political intrigue, backstabbing and power hungry grabbers. But there are other political elements as well. One of the political themes that I picked up on, is the idea that citizens should not trust a government or authority that derives its power from fear. Mira touches on this theme very subtly and effectively but does not hit the reader over the head with it. But what I thought was interesting, but questioning the government on the issue of fear and safety, she is calling into question the premise of the world she has constructed. Are those multiple blood tests really necessary? Necessary or not, they play a key role in the books but there is a hint that these blood tests may be used as a method of pacification and mollification rather than simply a safety measure.

While reading the first two books I often wondered — what about the people who live off the grid? Was that even possible? Mira takes the readers off the grid in Deadline; we get to see people who have walked away from the fences and the government protection. While the first two books had more of a dystopia setting feel by showing us the off-the grid folks it was evident that the apocalypse was still going on. And that is downright scary. It really isn’t under control but what the government is doing to maintain the problem isn’t working. There are so many issues addressed in this book — power, greed, love, desparation …..

Ugh, I am so sad this trilogy is over. I would love to have more stories about these characters. I am hoping Mira Grant considers returning to this world. She has created something so unique in the zombie genre that deserves to be revisited.

To read an interview with Mira Grant and for more of this review and others, check out www.badassbookreviews.com.

[Kimberley doruyter · Rating 3 out of 5]

oh MY ...............

it really is a good thing she's writing more books, this world is too good to let go to waste.

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book number 537 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project

Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire, what were your parents like? I have to wonder, after the depiction of Shaun and Georgia’s adoptive parents, the Masons, in this trilogy plus the many dysfunctional families in your Wayward Children series.

As zombie stories go, I like this series better than most. The science felt believable, like something that could actually happen. I suppose conspiracy theories are the bane of our times. Everyone seems to be suspicious of everything nowadays. I'm a little fatigued with those assumptions, for the record. The ironic part is that I'm pretty sure that, under the current American administration, I don't trust anything coming from the CDC. It's like reality has started to imitate fiction and not in a good way.

The biggest suspension of disbelief required in this third volume is Georgia Mason's resurrection as Clone 7c. That was quite the bolus to swallow, but Grant managed to sell it to me. Once convinced, I was ready to roll with it, just as Shaun was. I was somewhat taken aback when the nature of Shaun and Georgia’s relationship emerged. (It reminded me strongly of Charlaine Harris' Harper Connelly series.)

I liked part of the ending a lot. Mahir is back in his very civilised UK, cuddling his sweet little daughter and threatening to turn his wife loose on persistent phone calls from journalists. Perfect for the foreign civilian on the Mason team. I was a little less happy with the assumption that everything in the United States was going to work out eventually and that the people in charge could be relied on. Grant shut down the novel quickly at that point, leaving readers to hope that it's true. Someone recently told me that American readers demand that everything tie up in a neat bow at the end of a book or series. So perhaps it's my non-Americanness that leads me to seeing many uncertainties in the final pages.

I admit to preferring the author's Seanan McGuire books to her Mira Grant offerings. I'll be heading back to October Daye now!

[Isamlq · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book!

No, seriously, this book…! I’d sworn to take it slow and sure I was keeping to said goal, but once I reached the 20% mark, well there was no looking back for me. I didn’t even bother to hide the fact that I was reading this at work. So picture me thus: nose buried in kindle, more often than not, with palm over mouth to keep from screaming. It was that good.

Details. I can only imagine the research that must have gone into this one. I am very impressed with how she put in all those details yet still managing to make all of it smooth enough, plausible enough to have the story simply flowing with nary a hitch. Then consider that all that’s been woven into this thrill filled mix of politics, journalism and zombies … and my brain would have/could have said ‘ouch,’ but not once did it do so. Instead, I was all gimme gimme gimme.

Characters. They’re none them the ones I first loved in Feed or Deadline but it’s Shaun in particular who had me teary. All that pain and all that awareness, then all that resignation had me following him alongside his mini family. I like him; I have this massive book crush on him. The first books showed this none serious type with a suicidal tendency, events in those books simply stripped him down leaving him simply suicidal. And he knew it too, as did the team, YET they stuck to it nonetheless… yes, things got uncomfortable and twisted and sad, but sweet too. So much so that said mini-family thing was just one more thing in it that drew me in a little more. And let me not fail to add, Georgia. There she was. Aware of who she was BUT also aware of who she wasn’t. Mind bending and complicated? Why, yes. Yes, it was.

Each of them saw things as they were; sure some were more suspicious than others but that each of them had their own things to deal with yet they stuck around and that fact positively warmed me. Don’t get me wrong this is all about the Masons’ but with the likes of Becks, Mahir and Alaric and Maggie, well, I love this book just a smidge more because of them. Add that all of them had done some sort of reevaluating about where they were and where they were headed with each of them coming to their own conclusions… so that you could smell the change coming. It just made things feel even more charged. See? This book…!

Sticky bits. And all those questions and sticky what if’s and what about’s that I’d basically swept past in Feed and Deadline because I just couldn’t deal? Well, they’re dealt with here. And while initially jarring, (all those hints not withstanding,) I did grasp where they were coming from. I even appreciate that it’s all eventually laid out for the world to see. Even if a tad unconventional, I might even holler out a ’Y ay!’ for them... because they deserve it, (given all the death and convoluted conspiracies, after all.)

While my favorite may be Feed that’s mainly because I’d never read anything quite like it before. Deadline and Blackout are tied in second because damn it… they both had me bawling like an idiot. Considering that all three are a bag of zombies, blogging and political what’s-it, well me bawling at all is quite a feat.

Love.love.love
5/5

[Giselle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't love it "quite" as much as the others but the series as a whole is the mother of amazeballs! I think I found this one a bit long--not boring; NEVER boring--just longer, maybe slower? Or maybe I was just impatient for POV A to meet POV B already! >.< It could be because it was on audio this time, too. Anyways, epic series!

My favorite remains book 2! (Yes, it's important for you to know! :P)

Now I will go cry in a corner because it's over :(

[Milda Page Runner · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Impossible” is something that stopped having any staying power when the dead started to rise. Trust me on this one. I’m a scientist.
—From the journal of Dr. Shannon Abbey, date unknown.

I'm done with it! Finally! Phew...

...and yeah it's bordering on the impossible so much that it goes beyond my believe.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, here we are again. Mira Grant is back for one last kick at the Hugo novel can with Blackout, the last in her Newsflesh trilogy. All the mysteries are cleared up, all the questions answered. Georgia and Shaun Mason are reunited to kick zombie butt one last time and fight back against the government corruption that has put the entire world at risk. Sort of. I think.

Actually, this book is kind of a mess.

My opinion of the Newsflesh series has much in common with another very popular science-fiction series, The Hunger Games: each successive book has been less satisfying and less coherent. There's no question that Grant is trying hard or that she has a story to tell, but what she has produced here leaves much to be desired.

This book is far too long. This in and of itself is not a cardinal sin. You know what is? Making your book too long because you have pages upon pages where nothing is happening. I was lucky enough to read this in electronic form, albeit a PDF of a print version that was apparently 630 pages or so. It took me a few days, because I had trouble gaining traction. A book set in a post-apocalyptic zombie universe should be fast-paced and gripping. A political thriller about a conspiracy to conceal the truth behind a deadly pandemic should be tense. And the truly terrible thing about Blackout is that, for a few shining moments, it manages to be all these things. Grant demonstrates, sporadically, she is capable of the backstabbing betrayal, the cliffhanger smash cuts to another character, the heart-to-hearts prior to a massive sacrifice. But just when you think the book is finding its footing and about to really get started, it stumbles, and all the tension fizzles.

I'd be interested in seeing an inverted image of Blackout, a negative-space version of the book. That is, I'd like to see all the scenes that happen off the page and none of the scenes actually on the page. Because I kind of think the former might be more interesting than the latter. Case in point: towards the end of the book, we learn that the evil megalomaniacs at the CDC are keeping the President in check by holding his wife and kids hostage. But it's OK, because the Secret Service has a plan to rescue them when Georgia and Shaun are ready to help expose the conspiracy. George says, "Do it" and then marches off to confront the CDC baddie. A few pages later, the Secret Service reports that it has been done.

Earlier in the book, it takes hundreds of pages for the gang not to make it to Florida and capture some live mosquitoes for their resident mad scientist. We get pages upon pages of the gang driving their van through Seattle. When it comes time for them to break into the CDC building there, we don't see it. We see the ending and the aftermath, but the actual break-in is a handwave off the page. Similarly, when it comes time for the Secret Service to launch their rescue op, we see none of it, and it goes off without a hitch. Consequently, such an easy time of it made me feel like the resolution to Blackout was more contrived than it should have been. I'm not saying it is contrived, but that's what it feels like because of the way Grant handwaves what should, by all rights, be a conflict-ridden and difficult operation. (If it weren't, why did the Secret Service wait all this time to do it?)

This weird inversion of action and exposition is a problem throughout the book. There isn't much actual zombie combat in Blackout. We hear about a lot of zombie combat, but again, we don't get to see much of it. Instead, the characters prefer to spend their time chewing the scenery and yelling at each other. I've never seen such a dysfunctional group of people who nevertheless insist upon letting a crazy guy lead them and who only relieve him of the duty of command after the crazy guy's sister actually comes back from the dead to speak to him instead of just speaking to him as a voice in his head. If these are the people we need to depend upon to save the world, I am not optimistic for our chances.

The lack of zombie combat is problematic, because my appreciation of the Otherness of this world deteriorated as a result. Grant goes on ad nauseum about the necessity for blood tests and decontamination and how everyone lives in fear. Yet by not actually showing us much in the way of threatening zombies, she sends mixed messages. The constant threat of danger that was suspended over the characters' heads in Feed isn't present here. The world has become boring, a known quantity, and Grant does nothing to raise the stakes to change that. (Because those freakish mosquitoes that can act as a vector for the zombie virus? Yeah, that all happens off page.)

In fact, the more I pick at the 2041 of Blackout, the more problems I have with it. In my review of Deadline, I remarked that the series makes a mistake in "not going full cyberpunk". That is to say, Grant takes the importance of the Internet in a post-zombie apocalypse world as a given. She elevates and speciates bloggers, making them the heralds of the brave new world. Yet she never quite conveys how blogging has evolved in thirty years. I understand that, having suffered a zombie apocalypse, innovation might be slower and technology might not change as swiftly. But if human society has truly taken refuge online to the extent that bloggers are eclipsing old media, there should be social and mimetic differences from the Web of today.

This doesn't seem to be the case: Grant uses blogging as a plot device, with pithy epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter. She fails to explore how blogging as a medium has evolved--and I'm not talking about the new requirements to pass firearms tests to become a journalist. In the past few years, cyberpunk has emerged as somewhat of an unrealistic projection of where technology might take society. Regardless, what it did really well was envision a world so different that it is a little bit alien. Blackout doesn't achieve this. Instead, 2041 is unbelievably like 2013, but with zombies.

And we only really have Shaun and Georgia's word on all this. What I mean is, Grant remarkably restricts our exposure to different viewpoints in this new world. We never get a sense of the bigger picture; there is seldom a minor character who isn't mixed up in this conspiracy who can simply offer a slightly different perspective on events. Grant tells us (there's that verb again) time and again that bloggers in general, and Shaun and George's crew specifically, are influential. Apparently George is so important that the CDC simply has to bring her back from the dead with some incredibly expensive cloning. We are told that "the people" are outraged when the Masons expose some government wrongdoing or when Shaun and George make a broadcast from the battlefield. Somehow, though, amidst all these pages of nothing happening, Grant doesn't actually find time to show us any of this outrage.

It's such a shame, because this is not an awful series. There is a good story in here struggling to escape a very convoluted and often contrived plot that makes only a little more sense than the characters who ostensibly drive it. Blackout should have been the triumphant conclusion to a thrilling zombie trilogy. Instead, it seems to have inherited all of its predecessors' problems and very few of their strengths. The result is a book that doesn't deliver what it promises. Sadly, this is all too representative of the series as a whole, which dreams big but never quite manages to achieve the heights to which it aspires.

My reviews of the Newsflesh trilogy:
← Deadline

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

"Sometimes the hardest thing about the truth is putting down the misassumptions, falsehoods, and half-truths that stand between it and you. Sometimes that's the last thing that anybody wants to do. And sometimes it's the only thing we can do." - Georgia Mason.

When I write book reviews, I usually save my recommendation of the book until the end. But Blackout, and the Newsflesh trilogy itself, should not be put off until the end. Feed, the first book in the series, is a novel that I would recommend to almost anybody - the book and the entire series encompasses zombies, blogging, politics, and a gamut of themes and morals. It's absolutely amazing. So, before I get into Blackout, I highly recommend that you check out Feed, if you haven't already. It will blow your mind.

Mira Grant does not lose any steam in this final installment of the Newsflesh trilogy. She continues the story seamlessly from the chilling ending of Deadline, and grabs readers all the way to the gripping finale. Her thickening of the plot and her masterful use of foreshadowing via cleverly-dropped hints does not disappoint, and made it difficult for me to resist picking up the book even when I had work to do.

Her characters were wonderful, as always. The reemergence of Georgia's cool and collected voice and the continuation of Shaun's somewhat crazy narration provided for an interesting mix, and the side characters were fleshed out to the point that I hesitate to even call them side characters. In most books there are certain characters who fade into tasteless black, but each of Grant's gave the story more spice and color.

Like Georgia, Grant's attention to detail amazed me. All of the minute intricacies and convoluted plot complications were handled and resolved deftly. The chilling cloning procedures and revolutionary scientific aspects of the story were rendered plausible, which, while scary, made the book even more believable.

The only reason I don't give Blackout a full five stars is because it did not entrench me as emotionally as I would have liked it to. I felt the tears approach once, but they did not actually arrive like they did when I read Feed. I did feel more of a connection than I did in Deadline, though, so it was a step-up from the second book in the series.

Once again, if the plot summary of the first book sounds even barely intriguing to you, I highly recommend you pick it up. This series is different than anything I've read before. And, like the Masons did, I'm only telling you the truth.

*review cross-posted from my blog, the quiet voice.

[Lori · Rating 2 out of 5]

This entire review contains spoilers.

Shaun (with an insane Georgia in his head) and Georgia (who is now a clone resurrected from the dead) are back at it again! Fighting zombies! Drinking coca-cola! Dabbling in politics! Briefly mourning all their friends who are dying for them! ... Um, great.

Seriously, though. Shaun is now immune to the disease. He is the ONLY KNOWN PERSON who is immune to the zombie disease, and it's because "he was close to Georgia". What, is that something sexual that I have to read between the lines for? Or are you implying that by breathing the same air as Georgia he is now suddenly somehow immune? Science doesn't matter in this book, as long as you have an over-active imagination and no desire to learn FACTS. Which these main characters claim is the most important thing ever. Too bad we don't get any in this book. Once again, Shaun mentioned several times: "They started to explain the science behind it, but I wasn't listening." Really, Mira Grant? Really? That's the best you can do?

Also, Georgia is a test subject, whom the government spent billions of dollars on trying to correctly clone. Her other clones (numbering in the thousands or millions) have been terminated for not being a perfect match that they can manipulate. Georgia is the rebel- she's fierce and just like her original self! (My voice, I must add, is dripping with sarcasm and agony). But wait, even though there are super evil doctors working on her, she enjoys killing them all because her good friend Rick ordered for her to be cloned. But Rick is spared a bullet at the end, because he's her friend. Right. Why was this girl so important for the government to spend billions of dollars on her cloning process? So that she can tell the truth, of course! Wait, what? Can't Rick do that? Rick, the new VP of the country, who was also previously a blogger, can't crack down this information, upload it to the Internet, and report it? Nope- we have to spend BILLIONS OF DOLLARS so that the poor, poor souls who enjoy reading this drivel can have their heroine back. Because seriously, the author wanted that happy ending and by golly she was gonna get it.

This book is filled with more sacrifices of secondary characters- one of whom being the girl that Shaun slept with in the last book- for which Shaun and Georgia offer some sarcastic "we're tired of writing eulogies, they're dead" comment on their blog. It's pretty much how Mira Grant handles all secondary characters- they are all disposable, except for Shaun and Georgia. I mean, Georgia 2.0. "The living dead girl" as she calls herself. I'd like to point out an interesting difference here. George R.R. Martin has a habit of killing of his characters, but their deaths mean something. You know, like, it adds to a plot point. Mira Grant kills off characters because, when all else fails, the book needs zombies and government conspiracies. And where there are zombies and government conspiracies, there should also be death. Preferably the death of side characters, because Mira Grant is WAY too into the whole necrophiliac incestuous relationship going on to kill off Shaun and Georgia 2.0.

Oh, the plot. It hurts my head. There isn't a cure, but we can adapt, but the government doesn't want us to adapt, so the government kills people with reservoir conditions, but doesn't tell people about there not being a cure because they want people to hope, but meanwhile they are busy killing all the people, because the virus can be mutated in a lab with genetically created mosquitoes, so that the government can unleash them on the population to stop a blogger from posting on her blog. WHAT? Oh my goodness gracious. Can we please just have a zombie book that does NOT involve the President, the Head of the CDC and some RIDICULOUS conspiracy theory? This was so half-assed with plot holes as big as the sun that it's not even worth thinking about.

Oh, and everyone's totally cool with the whole incest thing. It's like, not even an issue. Let's just make out in front of everyone. OH. MY. GOOD. GRACIOUS. "There's only one way for me to truly know that you, a clone, are my sister" "But Shaun- We've never-" "Please, you must. I need to know" . UGH. For all their endless supplies of ammo and weaponry, I hope they saved enough for everyone in the audience to be put out of their misery.

The President, having signed death warrants, approvals for the Southeast to be wiped out by the plague that he created, and funded unethical scientific research, is EXONERATED and SEEN AS A HERO- because his family was being held hostage and he was scared. Oh, boo-hoo. I guess no one cares that you killed thousands of other families out there, as long as you did it with good reason. No plot holes here, no sirree.

That being said. The author writes a suspenseful story. When she's not busy repeating herself. My goodness, every few chapters she repeats the story thus far. And then repeats it from a different character's point of view. And then uses the SAME WORDS and phrases to say something. About 15 times. It's clear how she came up with her "brilliant alternate ending"- she just loves to copy/paste.

Wait, was I trying to say something good about the book? Yes, that's right. This book gets 2 stars partially because I'm so glad it's finally over, but also partially because the book continued to keep me reading. I hated almost every second of it, but I still couldn't put it down. It was a compelling, if completely bat-shit-insane-full-of-plot-holes-and-extremely-poorly-written book.

For what I consider to be a very thorough and fabulous review of this last book, please see this review .

[Kristalia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Final rating: 5/5 stars

“It's the oldest story in the world. Boy loves girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back thanks to the unethical behavior of megalomaniacal mad scientists who never met a corpse they wouldn't try to resurrect. Anyone coming within a hundred yards of my happy ending had better pray that they're immune to bullets.”

I freaking loved it! IT was just fantastic, amazing and utterly badass! ♥ This trilogy must not be ignored, it MUST BE READ. trust me on this - i gave all three books of this trilogy 5 stars. And it was worth it.

I will so going to miss these books. Especially because of the characters. After all, this series proved to be great in characterization and good in story. I loved how the story concluded. I was not disappointed and now i am utterly happy.


Anyway, do not read this review if you haven't read Feed & Deadline...(p.s. stuff under spoilers can be really heavy)

I just knew it from the start that George and Shaun were in relationship, real one. I approve of that because they were not blood related but it also saved Shaun's life he is immune because he had sex with Georgia........hm......nice .

That was the one thing we never wrote down—the one thing we couldn’t write down, because no file or server is ever totally secure, and it would have gotten out. No one would have cared that we weren’t biologically related, or that we’d gone in for genetic testing when we turned sixteen, just to be absolutely sure. No one would have cared that we didn’t trust anyone else enough to let them be there while we slept. No. The media loves a scandal, and we’d been raised as siblings in the public eye. It would have destroyed our ratings, and then the Masons would have destroyed us, for blackening the family name.

There were a few people who’d guessed over the years. I’m pretty sure that Buffy knew. But we never, never wrote it down.

I loved all of the people from After the end Times, especially Becks and Mahir. Dave was cool too :D

I am just said that Becks didn't get any chance with Shaun, when she clearly was in love with him. I liked her a lot.
I was really said when she decided to blow herself up to save them all T_T

“Last guy I was interested in turned out to be an incestuous necrophiliac," she said. "So no, not currently dating, and definitely not doing any more shopping in the 'sociopath' category”

The ending was just what i wanted it to be. Concluded and explained. Thankfully they didn't bore with politics and they more focused on Kellis-Amberlee and other events.

spoilers for the end of the book => In the end, we conclude that government wanted to control people with a zombie apocalypse, through fear. And all because they couldn't find the cure. Even though they knew that people with Retinal KA were starting to get immune to virus, they killed them to hush that. It was really wrong and i am glad that that solved at the end. Also Shaun & Georgia getting a happy end too. If only Mira Grant made another chapter with what they are doing, IT WOULD BE AMAZEBALLS

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MY NEWSFLESH REVIEWS:

◉ Feed (Newsflesh Trilogy, #1)
◉ Deadline (Newsflesh Trilogy, #2)
◉ Blackout (Newsflesh Trilogy, #3)
◉ How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea (Newsflesh Trilogy #3.5)

This review can be found on my blog: infinity-of-time.blogspot.com also known as...

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

The End. *sigh*

I held on, savored, and remained in Mira Grant’s Blackout as long as I possibly could. Stretched out the love and experience for weeks. But I guess I had to hit the last page eventually. Leaving the book home for the first time the other day, hell—made me feel naked! And left a true ache in my heart.

Blackout is filled with government conspiracies, mad scientists, zombie bits, running, and the ever present battle for the truth. If you have read Feed and Deadline, then I have no doubt this book will end up on your to-read list and pile very soon. If you have not started this trilogy yet--go, GO now! :)

These characters—George, Shaun, Maggie, Becks, Mahir, Buffy, Aleric, and more—made a home in my heart and soul. Grant’s world is unforgettable. Her words have made me think, left me in awe, cry like a baby, and laugh out loud. A small smile and smirk crosses my face whenever I think of Shaun. Crazy, cute, loveable, did I say crazy already?—Shaun! Like an old friend who stole a piece of my heart, I believe Shaun and the whole gang will always make me smile. I miss them all already.

One of my favorite aspects of this book and series is the fact that the dead are never forgotten. Some for obvious zombie reasons. ;) But the dead shouldn’t be. Sometimes in life, people try to ignore the pain and grief by closing up or not talking about loved ones they have lost. But I felt this series, Blackout especially, showed how individuals can impact and influence our lives in good and bad ways long after they are gone. The dead do live on in our hearts and minds to inspire and influence. Of course, the issue of grieving and letting go is a whole other sad, haunted tale and message. A sad message that broke my heart, but also one I took to heart.

These pages also inspired me to crack open my first can of Coke in a very looooong time! I buckled! The temptation was too much. It really is like liquid crack! :D

So….Cans in the air….To the end. To the truth. To life, love & death. Whether you poke things with a stick or type away behind a screen—hope you find what makes your heart happy!

Cheers! :)

*******************************************************************

Who said that? :D

What? I pulled a lot of quotes. Hehe…Had to do something with them. :) Not everyone is included in the game. It does not mean a thing. These quotes are not spoilery. They really just reveal my twisted sense of humor. Hehe…Have fun!

Who said this?

1.
“The scary part, the really scary part, the legitimately terrifying part, or the part that makes suicide sound like an awesome way to spend an evening?”

Maggie! :D

2.
“Less talky more shooty”

“Looks like we’ve both been having an interesting time. I’ll see your luxury hotel, and raise you one zombie bear.”

The man stole my heart way back in Feed and squeezed the hell out of it in Deadline. Shaun “poke it with a stick” Mason! I just adore the man. Want to keep him safe and warm.

3.
“Yes, because allowing the crazy people to set the rules is absolutely always the way to ensure one’s survival in a hostile situation.”

“Well, that’s that, then. We’re all going to die. Charming.”

“I haven’t been ‘cool’ since arriving in this godforsaken hellhole you persist in claiming is a civilized nation. I am, however, ready to go violate a few more laws.”


Mahir. That one was easy. His voice is so distinct and hilarious mixed in with everyone else’s style. I love Shaun and Mahir’s chemistry. They always made my heart smile and ache. :)

4.
”Is there a reason we keep winding up in places that should have stayed in their horror movies?”

”So no, not currently dating, and definitely not doing any more shopping in the ‘sociopath’ category.”

That would be my woman, Becks! She can go toe to toe with the best of them. Hell, most of the time the men hide behind her! :)


Just a little fun to hide my pain and grief. I need a re-read of this series ASAP! :)

[Scott Hitchcock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book 1: 3.5*
Book 2: 3.5*
Book 3: 3.5*

This is definitely one of those guilty pleasure series. It's unique within the zombie genre which is why I like it but overall the story doesn't offer many surprises. The characters are often stereotypical. Yet the story flows and is enjoyable. It's like one of those trashy Fox/CW series my wife will get into and I'll end up watching by default and to my horror I actually like the cheese.

If you're looking for something laid back and enjoyable this could be your series.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 Stars

This is an incredible zombie series that is geared for both the young adult and the adult crowd. I loved how relevant it is to todays in your face media and in your face Facebook culture. Mira Grant has taken the uber popular post-apocalyptic genre and laid it down in a way that would be relevant in today’s headlines. The characters and the format of the writing is what make the Newslflesh trilogy stand out among the best of this genre.

I am not going to give any spoilers away, nor am I going to rehash the plot points. I want to take a few of your minutes and tell you why you should read this series, if you have not already read books one and two.
First, Mira Grant has crafted a zombie story that would play out in today’s society if things like this could really happen. Our heroes and heroines are all internet bloggers and computer geeks that live to put their daily events, “Their Truths”, on the web, every minute of every day. Georgia and Shaun (adopted siblings) happen to run one of the biggest and most popular internet blogs in the world thanks to their rich and ambitious foster parents. The blogging and the uncovering of Truths are the driving plot points in this series. The zombies are simply a state of their world at their time. They exploit the undead for ratings ( Shaun is a spotlight junkie that loves taking risks, showing off, and killing lots of our former living.), live their lives in the spotlight, and of course become entwined in a massive cover up and conspiracy. All this sound so familiar to our media frenzy culture that we have today.

The blogs at the start of every chapter are meaningful, creative, at times hilarious, and they are the icing on this wonderful cake.

““Times like this make me think my mother was right when she told me I should aspire to be a trophy wife. At least that would have reduced the odds of my winding up hiding in a renegade virology lab, hunting zombies for a certifiable mad scientist.
Then again, maybe not.
—From Charming Not Sincere, the blog of Rebecca Atherton, July 16, 2041. Unpublished”



““Impossible” is something that stopped having any staying power when the dead started to rise. Trust me on this one. I’m a scientist.
—From the journal of Dr. Shannon Abbey, date unknown.”



““I have no idea what it means. It’s just the stupid flag. What did the bear mean? ‘Come to California; you won’t have to wait for the zombies if you’re looking to get eaten’?” Becks shot me a glare, expression challenging.
I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh.
“What? What’s so funny?”
“We’re on the run from the Centers for Disease Control, heading for a gas station that caters to drug-runners and mad scientists, and we’re fighting about the meaning of state flags.””


The characters are the second best thing about this book. I cannot help but compare this cast to that of my beloved Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In this, we have an extremely colorful cast of offbeat characters that are witty, awkward, and lovable. Hah, one of the main characters is actually named Buffy. Humor, funny dialogue, sexual tension, and the general kick ass state of being, are all similarities between these pop culture homages. There is not a single good guy or bad guy in either series that is not flawed in some way. They are nearly cartoon like, as has been said before they are like a “Scooby Gang”. One of our heroines is a certifiable lunatic mad scientist. Another hears and talks to his dead sister, a voice in his head, all the while he remains the boss of his business and the one responsible for many people’s lives. Awkward introverts, creative computer geeks, trigger happy ass-kickers, and many more are all part of the Newsflesh “Scooby Gang”. I loved them all.

Finally, this is a zombie story that is rooted in some serious science. I loved the way she tried to formulate a realistic approach to how an undead holocaust could occur. The novella gives the rising great detail and meaning. The science that she describes also lock in place the future of their world and dictate the direction that it must head in. The irony behind the rising is awesome. I love zombie books in all shapes and forms, but I really enjoy ones that try to gives us a mechanism behind it….Great Stuff.

Finally, The Newsflesh Trilogy is too much damn fun to read for anyone to miss out on. There is a lot to like for many different types of readers….Go and get it!

[Jammies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why have I spent every free minute of the last four days reading the same book twice? Because it's a sci-fi / horror / political thriller / love story / action movie novel all rolled into one, and it is intense.

Okay, thing one about this review--spoilers. I'm not going to put them in individual spoiler tags, I'm going to spoil-code everything after thing two and if you keep reading, on your head be it.

Thing two--you need to read these books in order. If you haven't read Feed and Deadline, stop reading this review, get your butt to the library or bookstore and read them. Come back here in a week, when you've read both books and then had a meal, a shower and some sleep. Trust me, you will only take time away from these books with great reluctance.

Spoilers ahoy!

First of all, as good as both Feed and Deadline were, Blackout surpasses them. Almost all of the characters are fully realized human beings, whether they're natually born or cloned. I cried when Maggie left her dogs, when Georgia and Shaun were reunited, when Becks died, when Mahir held his daughter.

Second, the action was adrenaline-inducing, top-notch and perfectly paced. The moments of calm throughout the novel gave me a chance to catch my breath, which I needed almost as much as the characters.

Third, Ms. Grant's science is completely believable, clearly well-researched and yet does not wind up being either dry or dumbed-down.

Fourth, there are delicate little love notes to geekery scattered throughout the book.

Fifth, the humor in this book is intensely funny, just as black and twisted as I was raised to enjoy, and it rang true to the characters and the situations.

Sixth, the surprises, oh my dog, the surprises! I had no idea about Shaun and George being a couple. They hid it from the world and Ms. Grant hid it from the reader for two and a half books! On my second reading of Blackout, I found a clue or two, but I sure didn't notice them the first time. And the fact that the CDC managed to take the President's wife and children hostage was another shocker.

Seventh, the number of quotable lines is driving me crazy. I need someone else to read this so I can share quotes. If I say "No more Mr. Nice, Heavily Armed, Pissed-Off Journalist" here in my blog, it doesn't mean a thing. Or "Listen to the dead girl." I could go on and on and on and on...

Eighth and finally, the language is impeccable. Yes, I found a whole six typographical errors, I can't help it, I have a typesetter's brain. However, I found nothing wrong in the entire book in terms of word choice, order or rhythm. Ms. Grant wrote 632 pages full of lightning rather than lightning bugs, and I am thankful that she was willing to share them with us, and thankful that Orbit helped her do so.

P.S. I bought an inscribed copy from www.borderlandsbooks.com and Ms. Grant drew a chainsaw after her name--how cool is that?

[Ruby Tombstone Lives! · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do love the Newsflesh books. The backdrop is a really fascinating pandemic scenario, set after the world has had chance to get over the initial apocalyptic outbreak and make the first attempts to re-establish itself. Life goes on, but so do the zombies. People live alongside the zombies, but they do it in a constant state of fear and paranoia. There's a strong focus on the role of new media and tech which, like the virus backstory itself, is based on solid, credible science. Grant (aka Seanan McGuire) is a really clean, sharp writer which helps, and the dialogue is witty too. What's more, it's the only series in a long-time that has had me fangirling all over the internet in breathless anticipation of the next release. It is well worth reading the whole series (3 novels, two e-novellas) for these factors alone.

Sadly, this book still isn't as good as the first in the series, Feed, and it does have a few niggling flaws...which necessitate the use of frequent spoilers and foul language to explain...

The ending was a little too neat, convenient and customer-friendly. This only further reinforces the impression I got from the spectacularly disrespectful way the second book (Deadline) ended: Mira Grant is out to be commercially successful. And she will fuck with me to do it. I think we all expected that somebody would die in this book, this being the big finale. I was steeling myself for it to be Shaun or George again, or at least one of the best-loved characters. Instead, Grant took the easy way out by making Becks as antagonistic and unlikeable as possible throughout the book, and then killing her off. In short, she pussied out and that sucks. Joss Whedon would've killed somebody more important.

This book took the cheesier, more sloganistic and commercial aspects of the first two and ramped them up to eleven. Yeah, yeah. We get it: Rise up, all we have is the truth, Shaun says "fuck" and punches stuff [insert flippant zombie one-liner here]..... blah blah blah. Don't get me wrong - these elements have worked well for the books, but at some point they started feeling calculated and stale. Grant even references how unlikely it is that her previous two villains decided to gloat publicly about their evil scheme..... just before she does it a third time. Which brings me back to my earlier point: Mira Grant is out to be commercially successful. And she will fuck with me to do it.

The plot got just a little bit too clever, to the point where I am now no longer convinced that it actually made logical sense. There are only so many times a plot can twist in on itself before it becomes an irredeemable mess, and I think she may have reached that point in this book. Still, this was not a blatant attempt to fuck with me, so I will let it go.

As for the big shocking reveal....... was anyone really caught unawares by this? Did anyone read the first book and NOT think, That brother and sister are just a little TOO close..? It was nice to have that finally out in the open though. And to be fair, Mira Grant took a commercial risk in going with that idea, so bravo to her for not dropping it and slinking away quietly. Thank you, Mira Grant, for not fucking with me in this instance!

As sad as I am that the series is over, I do think it's best that it didn't carry on any further. I really couldn't take being fucked with again.

[edit] I forgot to mention earlier, if any other American writers out there are considering using the phrase, "for the nonce" (Ch.34), you should be aware that in the UK and certain other English-speaking countries, the word "nonce" means "paedophile". You're welcome.

[Holly (The GrimDragon) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"She turned to face the glass, a smile on her face, zombies looming up hard and fast behind her. We couldn't hear them moaning anymore, or the sound her gun made when it hit the ground. She raised her free hand in a perfect pageant wave, seemingly oblivious to the hands reaching out to grab her hair. Then she went over backward, vanishing into the teeming river of infected flesh."

In my review for Deadline from last month, I mentioned how difficult it was for me to write while avoiding ALL THE SPOILERS!!! Well, fuck. This is the third book and what a grand finale it is! Which makes this review that much harder to write.

I will say that I fucking loved Blackout! So goddamn much. This was my absolute favorite in the trilogy! Whatever issues I had with the previous book, this installment fixed them and surpassed any expectations of how I thought this would end. This was a truly brilliant ending to what is such a fascinating series.

In 2014, we cured cancer and the common cold. However, the two viruses developed to end these illnesses combined in a drastic way and formed the Kellis-Amberlee virus. This virus is fucking deadly and will attack any mammal over a certain size. What happens when this virus takes over? Zombies, of course! 

A few years go by and the virus stops spreading. Sure, much of the land is inhabitable and a shit ton of people have died, but life goes on living. We as a species continue to exist. People are born, people die. The zombies are just a part of the regular everyday now. Bloggers have become journalists seeking the truth about the virus and government conspiracies. Revelations are uncovered, corruption is suspected, new villains are made.

That's just a quick summary because damn. The Newsflesh trilogy is.. complicated. It defies assumptions of your typical zombie story. It's this amalgamation of horror/zombie/medical/political/thriller. There are mad scientists, clones, bloggers that are journalists, government conspiracies, MOTHERFUCKING ZOMBIE BEARS!! It's brilliantly bonkers and truthfully, probably not that far off from actually happening. 

"It's been happening more and more often. Just those little moments where something slips, and it becomes possible, for one beautiful, horrible moment, to lie to myself about the world. I won't pretend that I mind them, or that I'm sorry when they end. I also won't pretend that I'm not afraid."

That I read these final books in this series while the real world is currently burning down around us in a dumpster fire has not been lost on me. As if my brain subconsciously grabbed for this story in a time of need. An eerie, yet almost therapeutic coincidence.

"Rise up while you can.."

Seanan McGuire is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors! I just want to ram all of her 4893782 books into my skull!

[Tim Mercer · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. I love this world. I think it is the best zombie themed world ever created. I thought the first book was a bit slow as it went into all the detail of life in 2041 but once that was framed Mira Grant moved onto characters that completely took over. This final book is fast paced and wraps up the story with some more twists that I did NOT see coming. Again as much as this has some unique zombie fighting action it is still more about journalism, ethics and the characters. Got to go and read all the in between books for the series now!