Feed

Feed offers a distinctive take on a postapocalyptic zombified world by viewing it through the eyes of three young bloggers. Do you think blogs will ever overtake mainstream media—without the assistance of a zombie plague?

I think it’s already happening. Newspapers are adapting and moving online, but much like how more and more people are looking to Jon Stewart and The Daily Show for their news, I think more and more online readers are looking to the blog community. Once you figure out the signal-to-noise ratio, it’s a great way to get your news. I think what we’re getting here in the real world is much more organic than the functions of blogger society in Feed because they were actually forced to organize, while here, the blog society is allowed to evolve.

At one point Georgia explains to the readers how the infrastructure of the blogging world is set up: Newsies, Stewarts, Irwins, and Fictionals. What kind of blogger do you think you’d be in their zombie-infested world?

I’d be a Fictional. A seemingly suicidal Fictional, given that I have a lot of Irwin tendencies—my first reaction to something horrible is usually “Ooo, let me see” and reaching for the stick—but I’d totally spend most of my time writing epic poetry about the movement of viral bodies.

Is there any particular scene in Feed that you love?

That’s like asking me to pick my favorite zombie kitten! I have several favorites, but at the end of the day, I think I have to go with Georgia and Shaun in the van, after Rick leaves, and through her blog entry. I cried like a baby the day I wrote that. I actually hadn’t realized how hard it would be until I had to do it.

Zombies aside, is there anything (fictional or otherwise) that sends you screaming in the other direction?

I can’t stand leeches or slugs—anything without bones just creeps me out completely. Also, I can’t take things being pulled out of people. That horror movie standard where the infected character starts pulling out their teeth or pulling off their fingernails? Yeah, that’s where I go for popcorn. I freak out.

At the same time, if you have something horrific and decayed, I am so there.

Any interesting tidbit or teaser you can share about the next book in the Newsflesh series: Blackout?

Well, as you probably gathered from the end of Feed, Shaun’s now the main narrator, and he’s trying to cope with living in a world that doesn’t have Georgia in it, which is something he just isn’t equipped for. So he talks to her, and she talks back. Georgia is, in fact, still a main character because she’s constantly advising Shaun and communicating with him—and if you tell him he can’t talk to his dead sister, he’ll hurt you.

Blackout is really focused on Shaun looking for revenge. He wants to know just how far the conspiracy goes because he wants to make absolutely everyone who was involved pay for taking her away from him. The After the End Times team isn’t new, exactly—they were all in the first book—but they weren’t in the field with the Ryman campaign, and they aren’t entirely sure how to handle what’s ahead of them.

Also, there are epileptic teacup bulldogs.

A Preview of Blackout Introducing If you enjoyed FEED, look out for BLACKOUT BOOK 2 OF THE NEWSFLESH TRILOGY by Mira Grant

Sometimes you need the lies to stay alive.

—SHAUN MASON

Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-seven years: with an idiot—in this case, Rebecca Atherton, the head of the After the End Times Irwins, three-time winner of the Golden Steve-o Award for valor in the face of the undead—deciding it would be a good idea to go out and poke a zombie with a stick to see what happens. Because, hey, there’s always the chance that this time, maybe things will go differently. I know I always thought it would be different for me. George told me I was an idiot, but I had faith.

At least Becks was being smart about her stupidity and was using a crowbar to poke the zombie, which greatly improved her chances of survival. She’d managed to sink the clawed end under the zombie’s collarbone, which made it a pretty effective defensive measure. It would eventually figure out that it couldn’t move forward. When that happened, it would pull away, either yanking the crowbar out of her hands or dislocating its own collarbone, and then it would try coming at her from another angle. Given the intelligence of your average zombie, I figured she had about an hour before she really needed to be concerned. Plenty of time.

It was a thrilling scene. Woman versus zombie, locked in a visceral conflict that’s basically ground into our cultural DNA by this point. And I didn’t give a damn.

The guy standing next to her looked a whole lot less sanguine about the situation, maybe because he’d never been that close to a zombie in his life. The latest literature says we’re supposed to call them “post-Kellis- Amberlee amplification manifestation syndrome humans,” but fuck that. If they really wanted some fancy new term for “zombie” to catch on, they should have made it easy to shout at the top of your lungs, or at least made sure it formed a catchy acronym. They’re zombies. They’re brainless meat puppets controlled by a virus and driven by the endless need to spread their infection. All the fancy names in the world won’t change that.

Anyway, Alaric had never been a field situation kind of a guy. He was a natural Newsie, one of those people who is most comfortable when sitting somewhere far away from the action, talking about cause and motivation. Unfortunately for him, he’d finally decided that he wanted to go after some bigger stories, and that meant he needed to test for his Class-A journalism license. To get your Class-A, you have to prove that you can handle life in the field. Becks had been trying to help him for almost a week, and I was rapidly coming to believe that the kid was hopeless. He was destined for a life of sitting around the office compiling reports from people who had the balls to pass their exams.

You’re being hard on him, Georgia chided.

“Don’t really care,” I replied, under my breath.

“Shaun?” Dave looked up from his screen, squinting as he turned in my direction. “Did you say something?”

“Not a thing.” I shook my head, reaching for my half-empty Coke. “Five gets you ten he fails his practicals again.”

“No bet,” said Dave. “He’s gonna pass this time.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why are you so sure?”

“Becks is out there with him. He wants to impress her.”

“Does he now?” I returned my attention to the screen, more interested now. “Think she likes him back? It’d explain why she keeps wearing skirts to the office…”

“Maybe,” said Dave, judiciously.

On the screen, Becks was trying to get Alaric to take the crowbar and have his own shot at holding off the zombie. No big deal, especially for someone as seasoned as Becks. At least, it wouldn’t have been a big deal if there hadn’t been six more infected lurching into view on the left-hand monitor. I flipped a switch to turn on the sound. Not a thing. They weren’t moaning.

“… the fuck?” I murmured. Flipping another switch to turn on the two-way intercom, I said, “Becks, check your perimeter.”

“What are you talking about?” She turned to scan her surroundings, raising one hand to shield her eyes. “Our perimeter is—” Catching sight of the infected lurching closer by the second, she froze, eyes going wide. “Oh, fuck me.”