Parasite

It's been a couple of weeks since it came out, but I've finally found a slot in my schedule for Mira Grant's new novel Parasite. It's set in 2027 in a world where medicine has been revolutionised by the Intestinal Bodyguard, a massively genetically modified tapeworm designed both to test the hygiene hypothesis and to replace modern drug treatments by automatically secreting the right substances at the right times.

Six years ago, Sally Mitchell was declared brain dead after a car crash. But just as her family were about to withdraw life-support, Sal opened her eyes. Suffering from total amnesia and with her personally radically changed — for the better according to those who knew the old Sally — she has spent the last few years re-acquiring her lost language and life skills, and generally trying to rehabilitate herself. Fortunately Sal's medical covers has been provided by SymboGen, the powerful corporation behind the Intestinal Bodyguard which they believe to have been responsible for her miraculous recovery.

But just as Sal seems to be settling into a new life, complete with job, parasitologist boyfriend, and an interest in carnivorous plants, something comes along to disrupt it. Out shopping with her sister Joyce she sees a child start behaving like a sleepwalker; a few days later, she and Nathan see the same thing whilst walking in the park; and finally, while undergoing a series of tests at SymboGen, she sees a full-on outbreak in the company restaurant. So when she receives a cryptic note offering help and quoting from an obscure children's book, Sal and Nathan decide to go in search of answers.

The story opens gently by establishing Sal and her somewhat limited world. Despite being in her biological twenties, she only has six years of experiences and even these are distorted by the amount of time she has spent in hospital being rehabilitated, and what may be additional psychiatric problems on top of her amnesia — she suffers from constant strange dreams and often finds herself haunted by the sound of drums, even when awake. But for all that, it's clear that her life is going well: she's able to hold down a part-time job; she and Nathan, whom she met after her accident, are a sweet couple; and her relationship with her sister Joyce seems pretty solid, even if her parents seem to harbour doubts about the strange cuckoo person who has come into their life.

The action begins to ramp up when the first cases of sleeping sickness appear, with Sal perfectly placed at the center of them: she happens to be present during some of the early outbreaks; Nathan is a parasitologist at San Francisco City Hospital, where he gets to see the public health impacts of the outbreak; Sal's father, Colonel Alfred Mitchell, is head of a USAMRAIID lab where her sister Joyce also works; and, most of all, she has also caught the attention of controlling Dr. Steven Banks, the only one of SymboGen's three founders still associated with the company. Consequently the major events are heavily foreshadowed such that their appearances aren't so much surprises — to the reader, at least — as horrific confirmations, but I found that this didn't really bother me all that much.

I adored Parasite and loved all the squicky science bits — I wouldn't recommend reading it during meals! — and I thought it featured some of Grant's very best and most realistic characters to date — don't get my wrong, I loved Shaun and George from Newsflesh, but they were just so quirky and driven — even when, as in the case of Sal's family, they do something that seems very wrong and can only really be explained in the context of the greater good and of having to make snap decisions under pressure.

Which isn't to say that the book lacks the Mira Grant trademarks: there are a couple of Mad Scientists, one a full-on Frankenstein with the other coming from a very Jobsian mould. The dialogue, as might be expected, is extremely snappy and often very funny but never at the expense of the story — Tansy, the character who comes out with much of the sass, is deeply dysfunctional and sociopathic and much given to blurting things that are funny & inappropriate & deeply true.

I've very, very much looking forward to the second half of the story...