My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Oh man, Deadline. This was hands down one of the best books I read in 2011, and I was beyond delighted to see that it was every bit as gripping as book 1 of the Newsflesh Trilogy, Feed.
What can I say about this book that doesn’t involve massive, massive spoilers? Well, first and foremost, if you haven’t read this book yet, you should. Actually, if you haven’t read Feed, you should go back and read that first, and then come and read this one. Because Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire’s worldbuilding continues to astound, and so does her command of pacing and suspense, and book 3 is due out in a couple more months.
Where Feed was a political thriller that happened to contain zombies, Deadline is more of a medical thriller–and in this book, we begin to get a rather clearer and consequently more chilling picture of where exactly those zombies came from. Plus, the protagonist of this book, Shaun Mason, is so thoroughly wrecked by the dire ending of the previous book that I spent just about every page aching for the poor guy. And yet he keeps going, broken as he is, even though the extent of this breaking inevitably has consequences for himself and those he cares about. I ached for him, and I cheered for him, and goddamn, I hope that boy finds some peace.
It would have been very, very difficult to top the sledgehammer punch to the gut that was the ending of Feed, but Deadline does manage to come close. Both my partner and I went OMG OMG OMG at the big reveal at the end of this book. And we’re both eagerly awaiting the third. Five stars.