You know, this is the second year in row where I left the zombie book towards the end of my Hugo read. Second year in a row when my expectations of a fun adventure story were horribly dashed.
Last year's book, Cherie Priest's
Boneshaker, was a steam punk with zombies, mad scientists, and zeppelin pirates. Should have been fun, right? But all of those elements were mere background noise to the story of a reclusive and emotionally unhealthy woman undertaking an impossible quest to save her teen aged son and face emotional demons from her past. (This should all sound very familiar to Stephen R. Donaldson fans.
) It actually turned out to be pretty boring.
This year's book
Feed also has the zombies as mere background noise. They are basically a stand-in for whatever can terrify people and society - you could substitute terrorism, war, pandemics, or whatever. Which would be OK - zombies as metaphor - if the author did not constantly and clumsily beat you over the head with it. The heart of the story is news blogging - performed by shallowly developed characters who, while young, somehow are better at what they do than anybody else who lives and breathes and are followed with bated breath by everyone in the world.
(Talk about teenage wish fulfillment fantasy). Before the book was halfway over, you can tell who the bad guy (who very clumsily and repeatedly uses zombies to try to assassinate a political rival) is - and the characters are so undeveloped you could care less which of them live and which die. I have about a hundred pages left to slog through and at this point the only thing I care about is the eventual fate of a rescued barn cat named Lois. How in the world can a book this bad be nominated for a major award?