[Briar King]

Deleted

This post has been edited by .-‘: 06 October 2021 - 02:45 PM
Reason for edit: thread split

[JPK]

Andorion, on 15 March 2017 - 05:19 PM, said:

About 33% into Girl with all the Gifts. Things are getting very interesting.

I think I know where you are and I want to discuss it, but would you throw up a spoiler indicating current events I story so I can avoids spoiling it for you?

[Abyss]

Abyss, on 15 March 2017 - 05:59 PM, said:

...

About 33% into Girl with all the Gifts. Things are getting very interesting.

JPK, on 15 March 2017 - 05:36 PM, said:

Andorion, on 15 March 2017 - 05:19 PM, said:

About 33% into Girl with all the Gifts. Things are getting very interesting.

I think I know where you are and I want to discuss it, but would you throw up a spoiler indicating current events I story so I can avoids spoiling it for you?

Abyss said:

about 20min left and loving it.
do we need a ded-thread?

JPK, on 15 March 2017 - 06:08 PM, said:

I don't think that'd be a bad idea Abyss.

...

et voila.


Let's be clear re spoilers and use blocks at least to start. Some of us aren't finished the book yet.

[JPK]

To be safe, wait until you've finished to read:

Spoiler

Ok, I enjoyed this book overall, but I had some issues with the middle. Carey brilliantly set up the beginning third of the book with a rather unique premise. I can't say I'd seen a military compound holding hyper-intelligent zombie children that didn't know they've been turned, guiding both psychological and biological experiments. That was NEW.

Then it hit Walking Dead syndome with the junkers. Wild men who are worse than the zombies themselves, who exist in the story solely to push the party out of the safezone and out them on the run. Damn, I don't think I've ever seen a story like that before. Nope. Never.

I damn near stopped listening at that point. There were two things that kept me interested.
1- cordyceps. That shit is fucking terrifying IRL and the imagery he paints of starved zombies sprouting giant mushroom fruits to continue their life -cycle and infection was amazing.
2- The wild band of infected children pulled it back out of Walking Dead repetition territory and added an appropriate level of cyclical justice to the work that I really really appreciated.

One last thought. The "hungries" was just fucking stupid. Call them what they are and stop trying to be cute. I'd have accepted the infected or maybe (Let's get crazy here) ZOMBIES just fine.

[Andorion]

Right

I have reached until

Spoiler

The hungries have attacked the camp after being driven by the Junkers
Sergaent Parks and Pirvate Gallagher manged to flee with Ms Justineu(sp?) Dr Cauldwell and Melanie.

The car is in bad condition and they are debating what to do.

Now that they are out of the lab environment, I am extremely curious about how Melanie will handle things. Already the way she is mediating her appetite and her desire to protect Ms Justineu is fascinating. Also Ms Justineu seems to be completely ignoring any and all physical evidence regarding Melanie and is determined to treat her like a human.

[LadyMTL]

I've read this book twice, and I enjoyed it much more the second time around. I won't go into any details because I know not everyone has finished it, but I agree with what JPK said about the middle. I loved the beginning and thought the ending was well done, but the middle section just didn't do it for me.

[worry]

Vague full books spoilers:

Spoiler

I think the middle works because it covers some typical (but still well-written) zombie/post-apocalypse fic territory. Like the final act is that much better because of how it extrapolates uniquely from the stuff set up in the middle. Plus Carey does a lot of the character work in that middle section. I'd argue it's a smart use of storytelling space.

[polishgenius]

I liked the book, didn't love it, in part perhaps because upon release the fact that it was a zombie book was kept secret like some kind of fucking shock twist so when it became apparent I was disappointed.



Another thing that bugged me as a local lad to the area its set in was that

Spoiler

it perfectly set up a fantastic potential set-piece- traveling down the A1M, being very careful not to wake the still hungries, would have been perfect for a scene where they have to travel through the mile-long Hatfield Tunnel and get ambushed in the middle, but despite following the road straight down where it would be it's never even mentioned.

But, you know, it's a decent book.

[stone monkey]

I think the zombie thing is not a reveal at all, the blurb of the book (or at least the edition I have) all but gives it away. It's a reveal to the character concerned though.

[polishgenius]

stone monkey, on 19 March 2017 - 12:44 PM, said:

I think the zombie thing is not a reveal at all, the blurb of the book (or at least the edition I have) all but gives it away. It's a reveal to the character concerned though.

It was definitely a reveal at the time of the release of the book. This is the blurb I had:

Spoiler

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her 'our little genius'.

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favourite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

A terrible, wonderful, heart-breaking story about hope and humanity and a young girl who wants to save the world.

And I know I'm not the only one who was disappointed to find out that it was zombies all along.

[Abyss]

Thought the reference to 'hungries' in the first or second chapter was pretty clearly zombies. It's not like the book was trying to make that the big secret of the story.

[polishgenius]

Yeah, I'm not saying the mystery lasted particularly long once I started to read it. Just that there was a certain effort to keep it hidden in the marketing.

[Abyss]

polishgenius, on 20 March 2017 - 01:08 PM, said:

Yeah, I'm not saying the mystery lasted particularly long once I started to read it. Just that there was a certain effort to keep it hidden in the marketing.

That's just it, i don't think there really was, beyond a very basic 'dont spoil the book too much' effort. The blurb might leave it open to be vampires or something instead of zombies specifically, but the reveal of the reason for the apocalypse is basically background included early in the text. It's Melanie who is the real source of anything worth not spoiling.

[polishgenius]

Well, it's not a hill I need to die on, but basically my point was that I didn't know it was a zombie novel on release and I was disappointed to find that it was.

Kind of an odd situation with both this and The Quick by Lauren Owen (a vampire novel out at about the same time that begins by pretending its not- much moreso than this but playing a similar essential vagueness at the start) where I'd have undoubtedly enjoyed both more if I had realised their nature before reading them, but would have been much less likely to have actually read them. Though I suspect I'd have got around to Girl, Gifts eventually, since it is a Mike Carey book.

[Abyss]

Interesting aside... in the book, Melanie is Black and Ms J is Caucasian.
In the movie they reverse the ethnicity.

Also interesting - Carey wrote the script at the same time as he wrote the book, but there are some key differences between the two versions.


SPOILERS FOR BOTH

Spoiler

from wikipedia....

"We went a slightly different way in the movie, especially when it came to point of view. Where the novel moves between the five main characters and lets us see what’s going on in all of their heads, the movie sticks with Melanie all the way. And there are no Junkers in the movie. The base falls to a hungry attack. But it’s a case of two different paths through the same narrative space. The ending is absolutely faithful to the book."

[Abyss]

Speaking of unusual zombie stories.... http://chinamieville...ailer-the-crawl

[JPK]

Abyss, on 21 March 2017 - 08:13 PM, said:

Speaking of unusual zombie stories.... http://chinamieville...ailer-the-crawl

I want this movie. Yesterday.

[Abyss]

JPK, on 21 March 2017 - 08:35 PM, said:

Abyss, on 21 March 2017 - 08:13 PM, said:

Speaking of unusual zombie stories.... http://chinamieville...ailer-the-crawl

I want this movie. Yesterday.

IKR? I want to see the movie, i want to read the book, i just want to see what Mieville would do with this. He makes it sound so gloriously creepy and original, leaves you really really wanting to know wtf is going on, with just a few lines.

Credit to both Carey and Mieville for coming up with novel takes on the zombie genre.

[Abyss]

Sequel!
SEEEEQUEEEEEEEEEELLLLLL!!!!!!!!
http://io9.gizmodo.c...th-a-1791163965

[worry]

Awesome. Stoked!