M.R. Carey’s spectacular 2014 novel The Girl With All The Gifts was a revelation. It’s the kind of book that’s best read with absolutely no knowledge going on, because of the way it drops readers into a future world where nothing can be assumed, and every new reveal comes as a surprise. Readers have to keep up as Carey unfolds his shocking facts about the protagonist, her circumstances, and the history that leads to the beginning of the book. So it’s only natural that the prequel novel, The Boy On The Bridge, can’t build the same sense of engagement and discovery. Instead of building an entire world from scratch, it takes the first book’s setting for granted, and focuses on the people within it. But this book’s story of selfishness, pettiness, anger, and poor choices is comparatively predictable. And the fact that it’s a prequel doesn’t help. From the beginning, its action is headed toward a foreordained conclusion.
It’s impossible to discuss either book without spoiling some of the secrets Girl With All The Gifts uses to draw intrigue from the opening chapters of the book — or the opening moments of the strong 2016 film adaptation. So consider this a warning: even discussing the genre of these books is giving away critical information. Proceed at your own risk.
Image: Orbit
As an author, Carey is a master of re-invention. His spectacular comics series The Unwritten reinvents Harry Potter as a real-life boy immortalized in his father’s fantasy novels, and dealing with the backlash of the magical intrigue built around his father’s work. His Lucifer comics draw on Neil Gaiman’s version of the devil, and reinvent him as an unwilling cosmic wanderer in a constant battle against his past and his creator. And in Girl With All The Gifts, Carey re-invents the zombie story for an era that’s pretty tired of zombie stories.
The book centers on Melanie, a 10-year-old girl infected with the Cordyceps fungus, which compromises hosts’ central nervous systems. Obeying the impulse to spread the fungal infection to new hosts, the infected become mindless biting machines. But Melanie and the other children in her containment facility she still have mental function. She’s a bright, sweet prodigy who authentically loves her teacher Miss Justineau, and the way the facility’s soldiers treat her like an hazardous object or a rabid animal provides a fair bit of the book’s tension. The Boy On The Bridge also has an unusual central character: 15-year-old Stephen Greaves, a scientific genius whose lab work gave humanity its best weapon to date against the mindless “hungries.” His roll-on chemical blocker hides human pheromones from hungries’ senses. And yet, like Melanie, he’s surrounded by adults who largely treat him with contempt, caution, or outright loathing.