Blackout - Mira Grant

Because I'm something of a completionist, I am reviewing the third of the Newflesh series. I thought it was just a trilogy, but apparently it's four books now, plus a collection of novellas.  Anyway, this review will contain spoilers for the last two books because, well, when you're reviewing the third book in the series, it's hard not to spoil stuff.  So, if you haven't read Feed or Deadline, don't read this post.  Or do.  What am I, your mother?

So, first spoiler - They cloned George.  I'm actually rather upset about this.  It would be like somehow George R.R. Martin brought Ned Stark back from the dead and sent him out to go talk sense into Stannis or something.  It just...look, if you kill someone, leave them dead and figure out how to get along with them.  Or, y'know, don't kill off someone that's important to the continuation of the story.

So, yeah.  George is alive.  Ish.  Her brother is still acting like a crazy, violent jerk, and he's currently being studied by one of the local Mad Scientists to figure out how/why he became immune to the zombie virus.  Second spoiler - his exposure to George has magically made him immune to the zombie virus because...reasons?  I'm assuming it's because of his sexual relationship with his adopted sister, as I doubt that people that are just regularly in the same room with someone who has dormant zombie virus in their body will trigger the same immunity.

And, yeah, the sexual relationship is confirmed.  I know that they're adopted and not blood-related at all, but it's still kinda squicky to me.

Really, this book should have been chopped up into two shorter books.  The first "half" covers Shaun's team attempting to break into the CDC to get evidence to support their findings about the zombie virus and the CDC's complicity in the spread of the most recent devastating mutation.  In the mean time, Clone-George is trying to figure out how to get out of the CDC's clutches after she discovers that she's going to be used for Nefarious Purposes.

The second "half" of the story is the newly reunited siblings and their friends trying to break the story about the CDC's involvement in the zombie virus's spread and continued evolution, as well as the truth about the possibility of a cure (spoiler: there isn't one, but humans are evolving to adapt to the virus's presence in their DNA).

I'm not going to give away too much more of the ending.  Honestly, it's not going to be a happy one since, y'know, zombie plague.

This book, like the last one, has a lot of repetition and over description of mundane things.  However, when there's something really awesome that could be described, such as the zombie bear attack, the author chooses to gloss over things and scurry on to the next mundane thing.  I mean, how can you introduce a goddamn zombie bear and not have an epic battle?!  I felt cheated by that scene.  Sure, it's minor in the grand scheme of things, but if you're going to introduce something like that for tension, then do it right!  However, the author does choose to describe fights between humans with more tension and detail - I guess they are trying to suggest that humans are a far greater threat and enemy than nature could ever be... but still... zombie bear.

Overall, I felt like I was just slogging through this book to get it over with.  I won't be picking up additional works by this author.  Feed was great, and I really think that expanding the story with these characters as the central focus was a mistake.  I think it would have been better to have each book in the series take place with different characters in different regions, and maybe have a final book where the government and CDC's Nefarious Plans are revealed and dealt with.  But, that's just me.

The Silenced

I stumbled across this movie on Netflix one day.  It sounded like a ghost story - and I am a sucker for Asian horror ghost stories - so I eagerly queued it up to play.

During the 1930s, South Korea was under Japanese control.  During this time, the Korean people were forced to adopt Japanese culture and language.  This is actually pretty important for the plot, and not just some random piece of trivia I'm spouting here.

The story focuses on a young girl who has been sent to an isolated private girls' school outside what is known at the time as Keijyo, but we now call Seoul.  The girl goes by the Japanese name Shizuko, and she is suffering from what appears to be tuberculosis.  However, under the headmistress's specialized treatment, her symptoms quickly disappear - in fact, she seems to be even healthier than she'd ever been before - but it becomes clear that all is not as it seems at this sanitorium/private school. Students are acting strangely and disappearing, and then there's the peculiar way that Shizuko's body is getting stronger...

I don't want to give too much of the story away.  It's not really a ghost movie as I first thought, but there are definitely some supernatural elements going on here.  It's really more of a mystery-thriller with a strong critique of the Japanese occupation of South Korea.

I enjoyed this movie, despite it not being what I thought it was.  It takes a little while to really get moving, but the breadcrumbs of mystery strewn throughout the film keep your curiosity piqued while it builds up steam. I didn't really think that the ending fit with the rest of the film, but then again, I don't know how they could have possibly resolved everything.  The only real complaint I have is that the supporting characters never get a chance to develop beyond "girl bully clique that's prone to violent emotional outbursts", and they're largely interchangeable as far as personality goes.  It's hard to get worked up about the disappearance and possible death of a character that's never done anything particularly notable in the short time she's on screen.

Overall, this movie was about average in terms of horror.  It's not a supernatural thriller like it was trying to appear to be, and I'm a little disappointed on that count, but it wasn't a bad mystery-thriller.  I wouldn't mind watching it again, though.