View Single Post
Old 04-07-2017, 02:22 PM   #25689
ATDrake
Wizzard
ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 11,517
Karma: 33048258
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Roundworld
Device: Kindle 2 International, Sony PRS-T1, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia
Finished Feedback by Mira Grant, pseudonym of Seanan McGuire, latest in her Newsflesh bloggers vs zombies series, which was due back at the library. This is a remix of the first book in the original trilogy, from the POV of a different blogging team who is instead following the campaign of one of the competing presidential candidates.

While POV remix stories aren't all that rare (a decent chunk of literary fiction does it, usually with public domain stuff), authors revisiting their own work in this way seem to be uncommon. In recent years, I can really only think of Stephenie Meyer's announcement that she was doing the first book of Twilight from the love interest's POV (IIRC this got shelved since she was understandably upset about some chapters from the unfinished manuscript getting leaked), and her imitator E. L. James doing the same with Fifty Shades of Grey. (Interestingly enough, both, like Newsflesh, were originally trilogies.) And of course, Anne McCaffrey did it a couple of times throughout her Pern series, probably mostly because of timeline overlap in the stories she was telling.

Anyway, this was an interesting look at how the major occurrences appear from an outside perspective, as well as adding some new material about the background of the world and just how far-reaching certain deeply-laid plots are. Some of it does feel repetitive with regards to the rest of the universe, not because of repeat material (there actually wasn't all that much overlap, and there was some welcome insight provided into political opponents), but because of what seems to be the basic series theme of people stumbling across a nefarious plot they shouldn't have and then having to go on the run while trying desperately to stay alive.

Overall, I liked this and enjoyed seeing more of the world and how it worked (even if societally-speaking, a lot of it felt like the mid-2000s grafted onto what was supposed to be the 2040s, with extra zombiephobia), and the new characters were fun, if maybe a little generic in personality.
ATDrake is offline   Reply With Quote