A little term definition is in order here. Extrapolative and speculative SF have sometimes been referred to, respectively, as the "if this goes on" and "what if" types of science fiction. An extrapolative story looks at our world as it is today, examines current trends, and makes educated guesses as to what will happen next. A speculative story posits one Big Change, and explores how that change will affect the rest of the world.
In Feed, that Big Change is the Kellis-Amberlee virus, an engineered and mutated plague with the nasty habit of animating the corpses of those it infects, and using the time before the body collapses completely to a) feed, and b) spread the infection. Hence, zombies. In the Feed timeline, the first spread of Kellis-Amberlee, and the Rising that followed, occurred in 2014. It's now 2039, and the world is, as you might expect, a very different place. It's a world where the CDC carries the highest level of governmental authority, a world where Alaska has been abandoned, and a world where a bullet to the brain is far, far preferable to death by natural causes, and everyone knows it.
The extrapolation? That comes from the protagonists, Georgia and Shaun Mason. They're a brother and sister team of bloggers, and bloggers have become the primary source of news and information for the majority of the remaining population. We see how online news gathering and reporting (among other things) has come fully of age, with a feel for how people and organizations pursue ratings and status, and how those organizations function. We also see the technology used, though for my taste the advances shown there were actually on the conservative side.
The structure on which all this extrapolation and speculation is built is the 2040 United States Presidential race. Senator Ryman, a Republican candidate, invites the Masons to travel with and cover his campaign. Beyond that, it's a trip I encourage you to take for yourself.
"Mira Grant" is the not-at-all-secret pen name of Seanan McGuire, whose urban fantasy novels have landed her on this year's final Campbell Award ballot. Her greatest strengths under both names are in world building and characterization. The world here is believable and engrossing, and the infodumps are relatively unintrusive. The characters are fully formed, with individual voices, beliefs, and attitudes. I grew to care about them deeply, so much so that at one point I likely would have yelled "No!" if I hadn't been reading on a crowded plane, and at another I had to put down the book for a minute to wipe my eyes.
McGuire/Grant's weakest area before now, the one that's been the target of the most criticism, has been plotting, particularly where it comes to building and resolving mysteries. That's still a little bit of an issue, in that the villain of the book is too cartoonishly obvious, but Feed displays a more developed sense of pacing than her previous work, and carries the reader along, sometimes at breathtaking speed.
Feed is the first volume of the "Newflesh" trilogy, so there are a couple of key questions that remain unanswered for now. But this book has a clear, satisfying end, so the wait for next year's Deadline (which has already been delivered to the publisher) isn't too onerous.
This is an outstanding book. Highly recommended.
