Paperback, 240 pages
English language
Published Aug. 7, 2020 by Grand Central Publishing.
A powerful story of survival in unprecedented times, from the award-winning author of Parable of the Sower. In an alternate America marked by volatile class warfare, Blake Maslin is traveling with his teenage twin daughters when their car is ambushed. Their attackers appear sickly yet possess inhuman strength, and they transport Blake's family to an isolated compound. There, the three captives discover that the compound's residents have a highly contagious alien disease that has mutated their DNA to make them powerful, dangerous, and compelled to infect others. If Blake and his daughters do not escape, they will be infected with a virus that will either kill them outright or transform them into outcasts whose very existence is a threat to the world around them.
In the following hours, Blake and his daughters each must make a vital choice: risk everything to escape and warn the rest of the world, or …
A powerful story of survival in unprecedented times, from the award-winning author of Parable of the Sower. In an alternate America marked by volatile class warfare, Blake Maslin is traveling with his teenage twin daughters when their car is ambushed. Their attackers appear sickly yet possess inhuman strength, and they transport Blake's family to an isolated compound. There, the three captives discover that the compound's residents have a highly contagious alien disease that has mutated their DNA to make them powerful, dangerous, and compelled to infect others. If Blake and his daughters do not escape, they will be infected with a virus that will either kill them outright or transform them into outcasts whose very existence is a threat to the world around them.
In the following hours, Blake and his daughters each must make a vital choice: risk everything to escape and warn the rest of the world, or accept their new reality -- as well as the uncertain fate of the human race.
Guessing how the stories connect to their predecessors is part of the appreciation, and the new elements are no less incisive. Impressive.
Did not expect this series to go in this direction: Post-apocalypse pandemic fiction. We are currently living through COVID-19, and it was a bit disconcerting when several times it was mentioned infected people might not show any symptoms for 2 weeks!
How this ties into the other novels in the series remains entirely to be seen. I think this was worth reading (it was mercifully short), but definitely not to my tastes, and if this had been the first in the series, I probably wouldn’t have continued.
