The Big Fall Books Preview 2013: Sally--an amnesiac and the poster-girl for the corporation that saved her life--wants answers. It’s 2027, a near-future that is frighteningly like our present, and a corporate-owned treatment has rendered illness obsolete… until "sleeping sickness" hits, growing to epidemic proportions. What once kept everyone safe turns out to be beyond deadly. We see events unfold as Sally does, and her frustration becomes our own. Who can she trust? Can we even trust her? The first book of this ominous duology blends sci-fi imagination with the terrifying authenticity of horror then delivers like a creeping thriller, getting under your skin in a very good way.
--Robin A. Rothman
Grant, author of the excellent Newsflesh series, turns from the walking dead to something that could be even more frightening. In the near future, a medical-scientific breakthrough leads to the creation of the Intestinal Bodyguard, a genetically engineered parasite that lives inside the human body and wards off numerous illnesses: a tapeworm, basically, that makes us healthier and allows us to live longer. But now, when most people have a Bodyguard living inside them, something goes horribly wrong, and the parasites have decided they’re tired of being guests inside our bodies. Grant is tackling some of the same themes here as she did in the Newsflesh novels (where the trouble started because a beneficial medical breakthrough had unintended consequences), and fans of that series will definitely want to check this new book out. But fans of Michael Crichton–style technothrillers will be equally enthralled: as wild as Grant’s premise is, the novel is firmly anchored in real-world science and technology. Grant is well known to horror fans, but with Parasite, she’s likely to acquire a new whole new group of readers. --David Pitt
Review
"A riveting near-future medical thriller that reads like the genetically-engineered love child of Robin Cook and Michael Crichton."
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John Joseph Adams"Readers with strong stomachs will welcome this unusual take on the future."
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Kirkus Reviews"Fans of [the Newsflesh] series will definitely want to check this new book out. But fans of Michael Crichton-style technothrillers will be equally enthralled: as wild as Grant's premise is, the novel is firmly anchored in real-world science and technology."
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Booklist"Grant extends the zombie theme of her Newsflesh trilogy to incorporate thoughtful reflections on biomedical issues that are both ominously challenging and eerily plausible. Sally is a complex, compassionate character, well suited to this exploration of trust, uncertainty, and the price of progress."
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Publishers Weekly"It's a well-grounded medical wariness that gets at the heart of what the Parasitology series will be asking: What happens when the cure is worse than the disease?"
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NPR Books"An exceptionally creepy medical-horror thriller that's the perfect spine-tingling read for Halloween... [a] roller coaster ride."
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Fort Worth Star-Telegram
About the Author
Mira Grant lives in California, sleeps with a machete under her bed, and highly suggests you do the same. Mira Grant is the pseudonym of Seanan McGuire -- winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for best new writer. Find out more about the author at www.miragrant.com or follow her on twitter @seananmcguire.
