Deadline (Newsflesh, #2)

by Mira Grant

Shaun Mason is a man without a mission. Not even running the news organisation he built with his sister has the same urgency as it used to. Playing with dead things just doesn't seem as fun when you've lost as much as he has.

But when a researcher from the Centre for Disease Control fakes her own death and appears on his doorstep with a ravenous pack of zombies in tow, Shaun's relieved to find a new purpose in life. Because this researcher comes bearing news: the monster who attacked them may be destroyed, but the conspiracy is far from dead.

Now, Shaun hits the road to find what truth can be found at the end of a shotgun.

• ISBN10: 0316134260
• ISBN13: 9780316134262
• Publish Date: 1 June 2011 (first published 1 January 2011)
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Orbit
• Format: eBook
• Language: English

Reviews

Review originally posted at Simply Adrift.

Deadline as a sequel does not disappoint! When I picked up the first book Feed the other year, I was in a zombie reading phase. I was looking for any zombie, post-apocalyptic book I could find. Feed however was not that sort of zombie book. Feed was way more political however there was enough zombie action to make it still feel like a zombie book.

The Newsflesh series is set years in the future after zombies have become apart of everyday life. The world has adapted to zombies and come up with precautions to protect the rest of the living world. This series is just so damn compelling! I couldn't put it down, but in saying that this book is pretty big, it took me nearly two weeks to read. But every single page is so, so, so good. It doesn't feel too long at all.

I feel like I can't review this book properly without revealing the ending of Feed. So if you haven't read the first book in this series do not read the below in the spoiler brackets. Also, before I start, if you haven't read Feed then you NEED to! So pick it up now!

Deadline picked up a year after the end of Feed, after Georgia Mason was killed to stop from becoming a zombie. To be honest this was not immediately clear to me and I thought it picked up something like eight years after the end of Feed. This is because the book confirms that George (Georgia's nickname) died in the year 2032 however all of the blog posts being posted at the end of the chapters have the date 2041. But then later in the book it's confirmed that George was killed only a year prior to the events that we were reading. I WAS SO CONFUSED. Maybe it was a typo? I couldn't wrap my head around it so I just went with the fact that it was either a typo or the blog posts were not published until eight years after the events of the book.

Anyway, Deadline starts off a year after the ending of Feed. The main POV of this book is now Shaun, George's brother. And we immediately see that Shaun is not coping with George's death very well at all. He's become mentally ill and hears Georgia talking to him all the time. He talks back to her and she answers. Throughout most of his chapters he refers to himself as crazy and that he has anger issues.

This was an interesting way to keep George in the story still. She's dead yet she still lives on in Shaun's head. This also made me really sad to see that Shaun could not cope without George at all. Their relationship was this weird incestral type of love, but at the same time they aren't actually related by blood so it isn't incestral at all. And they also never crossed the physical line of love either.

Deadline starts off with Shaun finding out that the CDC really isn't doing the things the world thinks it's doing. A runaway doctor goes to Shaun and After the Times news website to get help. Shaun finds out the conspiracy theory that he and George were chasing is only the beginning and the people that killed George aren't who he originally thought they were. I loved this. I loved getting to see that the original story is so much more than you realise from the first book.

The ending of this book? Wow. I called the reveal about 20% of the way through but I am SO GLAD it ended that way! Even though I wasn't shocked at the reveal I was still excited. So, so good.

Overall, Deadline had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. It was compelling and so much fun to read. The conspiracy theories were crazy! And to be honest I didn't understand it sometimes because it was so factual with numbers, but also because the book would leave you to come to your own conclusion and wouldn't outright say what those facts meant.

I picked up the third book Blackout straight away because I really wanted to see where this story was going to be taken. I also wanted to see what conspiracy theory was correct.

I definitely think you should start this series if you haven't already!

Have you read Deadline? Did you like it? Did you not like it? Could you wrap your head around the conspiracy theories?

Always,
Jordon

This review was originally posted on Simply Adrift

[Melanie]

4.5 stars

My review and an extended sample of the audiobook are posted at Hotlistens.com.

I’ve not read a lot of zombie books. I have watched a ton of zombie movies and TV shows. This series is nothing like anything that I’ve read or watched. I will say that I think this is a series that I think would make a great zombie movie series or TV show. It is just so different from the other things we’ve seen.

First and foremost, this series takes place 20 years after “The Rising” when zombies first appeared. So, society has moved on and we can see how the world is once the world gets over dealing with zombies. Zombies are still a problem, but civilization knows how to deal with them. This series follows bloggers who tell the news. Journalist in the traditional sense are trusted because they didn’t come right out and share everything they knew about zombies during The Rising, which could’ve saved some lives. Bloggers did, hence now bloggers are a more trusted news source. This series follows a group of bloggers who follow a conspiracy and want to get the truth out to the world.

**WARNING — There are spoilers for book one of the Newsflesh series beyond this point**

There will be no spoilers for this book, Deadline, only for Feed, Newsflesh book 1.

It has been two years since Georgia Mason’s death. Shaun Mason is lost without his sister. But he really isn’t without her completely. She still lives inside him. He talks to her all day long. They have conversations. The people around Shaun have gotten used to him talking to George. There are even times in this book where they even ask for George’s opinion on certain matters.

Shaun is still running the blog, but he is surviving. You can tell he really isn’t living or thriving at all. He has a new crew that is helping him. They’re a good crew. There’s Rebecca, or Becks as she’s called, who is now running the Irwins. Irwins are named after Steve Irwin. They like to put themselves in danger and like to poke zombies with sticks. Shaun was an Irwin before George’s death. Alaric is a newbie who is still working on his license. He is a newsie. He will focus on the news just like George used to do. Dave is another blogger who also had a tech background. Mahir who took over running the newies when George died. We met him in Feed. He runs them from England. Lastly, there’s Maggie who runs the fictionals. She writes mostly poetry and about old horror movies from before The Rising.
There are other characters that we meet like Dr. Kelly and Dr. Abby. Both of these doctors have been studying the Kellis-Amberlee virus. Dr. Kelly worked for the CDC and Dr. Abby worked for her own underground lab. They both give Shaun and the team some hard truths about the virus. We learn a lot about Kellis-Amberlee in this story and even more about the conspiracy surrounding it.

This story is one that is slow to build as the author introduces us to all the new characters. She also wanted to take some time to set the tone of Shaun’s mental state. That doesn’t mean that the story was boring by any means. It was still a very interesting story, just not as fast paced as it gets as the story moves past the halfway point. It was glued to my earbuds throughout the entire story, but I wanted them implanted by the time I got to the last third of the book. And the last 5 minutes there is quite the bomb dropped. You better believe that I will picking up Blackout soon.

Narration
books, but these two narrators did a good job with the narration of this book. It was still done in the same style as the previous book. Chris Patton did the majority of the narration, since the book is told mostly from Shaun’s POV. Patton also narrated any blog posts written by any of the male bloggers. Nell Geislinger narrated any blog posts or emails written by any females characters. Both of these narrators are new-to-me, but I would be willing to listen to them again. I didn’t get to listen to Geislinger do any voices or anything, since she really just read post and emails. Patton did a great job with voices of both males and females.

[clementine]

Okay, wow. As you can gather from my status updates, this book was just insane and exciting the whole way through. The few complaints I had with the first in the series, Feed, were completely erased with Deadline. It was exciting and fast-paced the entire time, and packed with twists and turns. It wasn't just a super satisfying thriller, though - it's a lot deeper than that, with touching moments and exploration of medical ethics, government corruption, and human nature in general.

Grant did an excellent job of letting the dead characters still be very much a part of the novel, their presence felt in varying degrees, while allowing a whole new set of characters to shine. We were introduced to Becks, Mahir, Maggie, and Alaric in Feed, but as they weren't important, they were not fully developed. This time, though, they all become full-blown human beings, while still leaving room for some of our old favourites to shine.

While Feed was really a political thriller set against the backdrop of the zombie-infested United States, Deadline focused much more on the zombie aspect. A large part of the plot involves uncovering the truth behind the Kellis-Amberlee virus, which is much less straightforward than it appeared in Feed. However, it was still completely thrilling, with multiple twists that made me literally gasp and cover my gaping mouth. I think the thing I loved the most about the twists, however, was that they were laid out in such a way that you comprehended them - and gasped - about two sentences before they were actually revealed on the page. Also, as soon as the clones were mentioned, I kind of knew Georgia would be coming back as one (although that's not technically confirmed until Blackout, but Deadline included the first chapter of Blackout in the back and of course I bought Blackout as soon as I finished Deadline and am now 1/3 of the way through because DAMN, HOLY SHIT, Y'ALL). The thing is, though, that although I could see it coming, I wasn't DISAPPOINTED. I didn't feel like it was spelled out explicitly, or that Grant had sloppily covered her intentions. It was just, like, a stab in the heart and yet another actual gasp. I also, somehow, didn't feel like it was a copout. Damn, what brilliant writing. (Although, I'm really glad I had that first chapter of Blackout included, and that I could immediately download it and start reading it, because that is one cruel cliffhanger.)

Just, man, I don't know. I can never say enough about books that I love. Deadline was so intelligent and exciting and beautiful, and I'm kind of in love with Shaun, and Georgia, too, if we're being honest, and OH MY GOD, Y'ALL. THIS IS SUCH A GOOD SERIES. I'm blown away. And now I'm kind of mad I spent money on the epub versions, because I really want to buy the trilogy in physical form, but I also don't exactly want to spend the money twice. Dilemmas, dilemmas. But, y'know, if that's my biggest complaint about Deadline, it is damn well deserving of the five stars I'm giving it.

[ibeforem]

*FIRST BOOK SPOILER ALERT*

I wasn’t sure how I was going to like this book. After all, George was the best character in the first book, and she’s dead! Would I feel the same way about Shaun?

Turns out I didn’t have to worry, because George is still a very large part of this book, if only in Shaun’s head. Rather than being focused on national news events, such as the presidential campaign, this book is focused on the disease that causes the zombies. Turns out, things aren’t quite as they appear, and George’s death may have been orchestrated by more than just one crazy politician.

The events of the first book left everyone in this one more than a little shell-shocked, and the trauma affects many of their actions. I liked that this book gave us a little more of an idea of what things are like in the rest of the country, away from the big cities, when you’re not surrounded by security and RVs.

One of the more interesting aspects of this series is the author’s imagined evolution of bloggers and blogging, where they become the real truth tellers of society. I think it’s become an even more compelling vision in light of what has been accomplished (good and bad) with social media in the last couple of years.

There were big doings at the end of this book, and a major cliff-hanger. I’ll definitely be reading the third.

[celinenyx]

*This review contains spoilers for Feed*

Whoa.

After reading Feed I had pretty high expectations for Deadline. I was pretty sceptical to how I would like the book without leading lady George. I shouldn't have been worried, Deadline blew me away with the power of a tornado.

After George's amplification Shaun is a wreck. He has turned away from his Irwin nature and is a shell of his former self. And oh yeah, he is going crazy. He talks to his dead sister in his head. The only thing driving him is uncovering the people responsible of her death. With his new crew he follows dubious leads and gets caught up in a conspiracy of a size they had no way of expecting.

I would like to compare Deadline to Feed for a bit, so you can get an idea of how this story is like. Where Feed was very heavy on the blogging mechanics, in Deadline ratings aren't important any more. As the story is told from Shaun's point of view, and he really doesn't care about the ratings, they take a background. He's still writing posts, and After The End Times still exists, but there are less massive descriptions of them maintaining their blog. It was a change for the better in my opinion.

I was naive to think Feed had a nice deep story. So, so naive. In Deadline the true digging starts. The conspiracy goes way, way farther than you will ever be expecting. By the end of the book the you-know-what is hitting the fan. I'm getting goosebumps right now by just thinking of it. There is something seriously wrong in the world after the Rising.

Deadline is a very emotional story. Shaun tries to deal with his sisters death, failing miserably. There is actually a little bit of romance, which surprised me. The After The End Times crew is in real danger now. Not just from zombies, but from something way bigger. And these people aren't even afraid any more to sacrifice some innocent bystanders. You just don't know when something bad is going to happen, and how bad it will be. I read the last two-hundred pages in one sitting because I just didn't want to put it down.

I'm thinking about pushing my boyfriend into reading Feed just so I can let him read Deadline, I loved this book so much.

I cannot wait until Blackout is released. That book is going to be so epic.

[kimbacaffeinate]

i loved Feed, and i totally flipped for Deadline. This was even better then the first book. The pace was much faster, the stakes much higher and the ending..lets just say i haven't fully recovered. I will be first in line to get the third book in this trilogy..Blackout.