The Boy on the Bridge

This is a very worthy addition to M.R. Carey's body of work. It takes place a bit before the events of The Girl With All the Gifts. If you've read that book, you'll understand what's going on a bit more, but I'm not sure it's absolutely necessary to read it. For all intents and purposes, the world has ended. A fungal infection has turned most of humanity into Hungries, or basically, zombies. Normal humans haven't quite given up the fight, though. One more expedition has been sent out to try to find an answer that will save original humanity. There's political bullshit going on back home, though, and that leads to conflicts in the expedition. And there's the possibility that Stephen Greaves, the young genius of the crew, may be able to find a cure for the Hungries. But it would come at a terrible cost. And one of the crew members is pregnant, at the worst possible time. It's good stuff. And there's (view spoiler)[ an epilogue, with maybe a little bit of hope for Old Humanity AND Humanity 2.0 (the cordyceps-infected children). (hide spoiler)] I listened to it pretty much straight through. It made for good listening at the spinning wheel.

I think I liked this even better than the first book "The Girl With All the Gifts"! It starts off slow, introducing all of the characters and giving a little background on them. Enough that it's obvious they are a volatile mix of personalities, baggage, and secrets that are almost a bigger threat than the hungries. This takes place 10 years before "The Girl With All the Gifts" and 10 years after the infection spread, explaining how things came to be. New characters are introduced and some of stereotypical (the hotheaded military man, the sniveling scientist, etc) but others are fascinating. What M.R. Carey does so well, is use clean, clinical language to describe the messiness of humanity. He shows how reasoning can be faulty if the motives are selfish. I couldn't put this one down. If I couldn't sit down and read, I switched to the audiobook. Finty Williams reads this one as well and I can't imagine anyone could do it better.

A great expansion on one of my favorite books of the last few years. Interesting characters, wonderful story. Really and truly, I think this is a must read if you loved The Girl With All The Gifts (which is I think one of the better books of the last few years).