A decade in the future, humanity thrives in the absence of sickness and disease. We owe our good health to a humble parasite – a genetically engineered tapeworm developed by the pioneering SymboGen Corporation. When implanted, the tapeworm protects us from illness, boosts our immune system – even secretes designer drugs. It’s been successful beyond the scientists’ wildest dreams. Now, years on, almost every human being has a SymboGen tapeworm living within them. But these parasites are getting restless. They want their own lives . . . and will do anything to get them. Sally ‘Sal’ Mitchell owes her life to an Intestinal Bodyguard™, a parasite that has allowed her to recover from a massively traumatic car accident. Without this medical miracle there is no way that Sal would have survived the severe injuries she sustained. Six years after the event and Sally has had to re-learn everything. Her life before the accident is gone, her memories a total blank. I was surprised how much this particular element of the story struck a chord with me. I’ve been in a very similar situation to Sal, minus the tapeworm I’m pleased to say, and I often ponder the person I was…

Please note Blackout is the final book of the Newflesh trilogy and there is good chance that there will be potential spoilers in this review if you haven’t read books one and two, don’t say I didn’t warn you. With that said lets unleash the undead one more time…  Rise up while you can. – Georgia Mason 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. The 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 in, 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…

Please note if you haven’t read Feed, part one of the Newsflesh Trilogy, this review contains some spoilers. Also it’s brilliant and you totally should. Nothing stays buried for long… Shaun Mason is a man without a mission. Not even running the new organisation he built with his sister has the same urgency as it used to. Playing with dead things just doesn’t seem fun when you’ve lost as much as he has. But when a researcher from the Centre for Disease Control fakes her own death and appears on his doorstep with a ravenous pack of zombies in tow, Shaun’s relieved to find a new purpose in his life. Because she brings news: the monster who attacked them may be destroyed, but the conspiracy is far from dead. Now, Shaun hits the road to find what truth can be found at the end of a shotgun. Feed was hands down one of my favourite reads of 2010. It brought new life, if you’ll pardon the pun, to the zombie novel. Pitched somewhere between The West Wing and Day of the Dead it was a terrific read and I have been looking forward to the arrival of it’s sequel, Deadline,…

“The Good News: We Survived. The Bad News: So Did They“. Imagine a world where scientists have cured cancer and defeated the common cold. Sounds idyllic, but what if this medical breakthrough leads to the creation and distribution of a virus that reanimates the dead. In Feed by Mira Grant we find an Earth where humanity has done just that.  The infected are a fact of life and everyone has been forced to live with the constant threat of zombies. In addition everyone has the virus. Unlike most of the other zombie novels I have read this month there is a rather optimistic feeling to the novel’s  opening. The world has changed since the time of the initial outbreak, but humanity has persevered. We have learned to adapt.  Everyone knows to take precautions when venturing outside, and when moving between secure locations regular blood tests are the order of the day. The way people receive information has also changed. When the first outbreak occurred it was the blogging community who were first to raise the alarm. Individuals have moved away from traditional media and get their news direct from web based sources. Distinct types of bloggers have evolved including Newsies who,…