Kingdom of Needle and Bone by Mira Grant
My rating: 5/5 cats
thanks, assholes!
for some reason, the synopsis for this one didn’t excite me – no zombies, no sentient tapeworms, no killer mermaids, just a faceless, familiar threat: regular old disease. i didn’t grab the novella right away on netgalley, but when i finally did commit to it, i realized how stupid i had been, and i was like YOU DUMMY, THIS IS MIRA GRANT!
because one of the best things about her books has always been the amount of medical detail, and how convincing, how chillingly plausible those facts have made her stories seem.
so horrific, so credible.
so, yeah, this is “just” about disease. it is “just” about what could happen if the anti-vaxxers keep pushing medical information into the world that is much less convincing than what supports mira grant’s “this is how we could have zombies” speculation. and in this case, “just” becomes so much more pants-shittingly terrifying than any creature-based horror tale could. because the truth is, with enough misinformed douchebags out there, we could be totally wiped out.
and misinformed douchebags with the power to wipe us all out is something i have already learned to fear way more than killer mermaids.
i would love to see this developed into a longer series, the way her novella Rolling in the Deep eventually led to more more more. dr. gauley is wonderfully flawed in that way very specific to mira grant, particularly her dr./mad scientist characters, and she could easily carry a series, with brooke and sandy and mark rounding out her quirky and meticulously diverse team of pals and colleagues.
i’m glad i was able to read this, and i’m glad mira grant is such a powerhouse of productivity, because knowing her, if she wanted to, she could have a trilogy set in this world written in 2-3 months, tops. and it would be magnificent.
*******************************************
thank you, netgalley! review TK.
*******************************************
another $40 novella from subterranean that i am too poor to justify buying.
https://subterraneanpress.com/slider-…
someone buy it and read it to me over the phone!
