Then the cover appeared...and it didn't match the series. I began to wonder. Periodically I looked at the entry on British Amazon...no movement. Then at the PLA conference I saw it on the backdrop behind the Hachette/Orbit booth. I gushed over the Felix Castor titles (and the rep hadn't heard of them) and she promised to send me an ARC of this book. When it actually arrived, I squealed like a little girl.
I asked the Rep why Mike Carey author of Lucifer comics, The Unwritten comics, the adaptation of "Neverwhere" to comics not to mention those fab Felix Castor books would use a pseudonym...she had no idea. I asked Carey himself on Goodreads just now & he replied like three minutes later (um...wow!) He said the pseudonym was mostly to indicate a different direction from the Felix Castor books...and said he's contracted to do two more M.R. Carey books (not sequels to this which would be hard). So YEAH! Also, he revealed that he is also Adam Blake...so now I know what he has been doing for the last couple years. AND I have a new series to read.
Back to this book: I decided to make this my vacation reading & last week on our trip to Key West I read this (a rare Big Boy Book for Mr Tim). I really liked it. And if you are a post-apocalyptic fiction fan or a lover of scientific sci fi thrillers you will too. So pre-order it from amazon (it's out next month in the US) or order it now from the British site (they got it in January). {Book trailer available here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Girl-With-All-Gifts/dp/0356502732/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1399542437&sr=8-4 }
Stop reading here to avoid spoilers...they will be mild spoilers, but I think it's best to experience the book without them like I did.
SO, Mike Carey has done what I thought impossible: written a zombie book I really liked. Yes, my editors at Kirkus, PW and VOYA can now arise from the faint that sentence just induced (I made them all promise never to send me another zombie book because all zombie books are the same {see the Books for Big People section of this website for an explanation of this}).
In the near future, Melanie is one of several children who live in lockdown in an odd sort of facility. They are secured to chairs most days and wheeled into a classroom where different teachers conduct lessons. Melanie is quite fond of Miss Justineau and the story of Pandora (a girl with gifts). She's a little scared of the doctors in the facility and the Sergeant who seems to run things.
Miss Justineau is not a fan of how the children are treated even though it is for the protection of the staff. If the children smell un-chemically-treated humans they attack...and their bite does just what you'd expect. Helen Justineau knows what has become of the world outside of their research base, and that their work may be the only hope for humanity's survival...but she also knows the children aren't the monsters the doctors think they are.
OK, that's all you get. You have to read it yourself. The characters are complex in motivations and emotions. The post-apocalyptic world is well constructed and scary. And the action (after a certain point) is pretty non-stop. Even the science is believable, I would go so far as to say ingenious. When all those elements are present, you get a winner of a novel. Mr. Tim recommends this to big people who like hard science fiction or dystopian thrillers or horror or zombie novels or brainy reads that don't skimp on the action.
Now I have to go buy Adam Blake's books and maybe catch up on my "Unwritten" (That's Carey's current comic book series & I am woefully behind in issues). Who am I kidding...I have a stack of kids books I gotta review...