The Girl With All the Gifts, by M. R. Carey

Melanie: a young girl, smart, thirsty for knowledge, eager to understand the world, or the pieces of the world that her teachers let her see. A child who smiles and learns and yearns for love. Or an interloper? A ‘something else’ that controls this young girl’s body and just makes it seem like she is all those other things?

Melanie’s world is very small. She lives in a small, bare cell. Each day Sergeant and his people come and take her down the corridor, through the door at the end and into the classroom. There is a door at the other end of the corridor too, but she never gets to go through that one. She’d like to know what’s on the other side. Her life is controlled and regulated - Plato’s cave - and very little changes from week to week. But then two of the other children in her class are taken away and never come back. The questions start to pile in. What happened to them? Why does Sergeant get so very angry when the teacher touches Melanie’s hair? Why did Kenny snap and snarl at Sergeant like a dog when Sergeant showed Kenny his arm? And what is it inside Melanie that woke up when she smelt Sergeant’s skin?

It’s quite extraordinary that new things can still be done with what, in it’s most basic form, is a zombie apocalypse novel. As external events come into play, Melanie’s world comes crashing down and suddenly that small cell and clinical corridor are replaced with a lot of home truths. It is two decades since the Breakdown; anywhere outside of Beacon is unsafe, populated only by hungries and the survivalist Junkers. She is like people, but she’s not like people. The hungries don’t pay attention to her, but they’re a threat to everyone else. Why is she different?

Melanie and four others slog out into this open world: Dr Caldwell, the cold doctor who thinks only of science, of finding a cure, of solving the equation and receiving her due praise. What lengths will she go to to achieve her aims? Helen Justineau: damaged but caring teacher set on protecting her young charges. Private Gallagher, a young and green soldier stuck between a rock and a hard place, for whom moving forward to Beacon is equal to go backward. Sergeant Parks: the hardened leader who has survived by adhering to strict rules and behaviors as far as hungries are concerned, rules he’s now being forced to bend, but he’s determined to get the group back to Beacon. And Melanie: Caldwell is sure the secret locked inside Melanie’s head is the key to saving them all, if only she can get inside and figure it out.

But what if Melanie is something else entirely, something nobody even thought could exist? Something that turns all assumptions about the hungries upside down; that is at once extraordinary, but will also sound the death knell for them all?

The Girl With All the Gifts is a wonderful new take and new approach to a well-mined genre. It’s easy to figure out early what the deal is with Melanie’s world, yet M. R. Carey simultaneously keeps a lot hidden away from us. What exactly are the gifts that Melanie is holding? Will they make it back to Beacon? What will they encounter, discover, and have to endure along the way? Will Beacon even still be there? Carey’s writing is visually enticing – the world this eclectic group walk through played like a movie in my head – as well as creating that thrill and anticipation of a gripping novel; the questions and secrets perfectly balanced with adrenaline-inducing passages of action. It’s not an action heavy book, it’s not all run-run-run, hide-hide-hide: instead, a level tension runs through every page, every step, every decision these characters take. And it’s a level of tension that is satisfied by answers just as new questions arise, a really slick and effective piece of storytelling.

When I read Max Brooks’ World War Z, it gave me nightmares if I read before going to sleep, and at one point I was afraid The Girl With All the Gifts would have the same uncomfortable effect. Thankfully it didn’t, and I think this is because it’s such a character-driven story. Each of the five characters have their own secrets to protect; these secrets drive them forward, make them who they are, influence their reactions to the world and their reactions to each other. Can they let their secrets go? Can they change the others’ inbuilt responses?

As for the cause of the Breakdown - Dr Caldwell’s great project - I love the idea that something as seemingly small and innocuous as a fungus could bring about this level of devastation. In fact, I think it’s one of the best and most sensible explanations for a ‘hungry’ phenomenon postulated yet. Carey’s descriptions of these frozen creatures are enthralling: tendrils of grey sneaking through their bodies, the plants spore-ing and branching and growing and taking over while the hungries stand, waiting, for the next meal to walk by, the next trigger to wake them up and spur them onward. Add to this the abandoned land, buildings, villages, towns and cities left to rot for twenty years, while the fungus gradually, inexorably takes over. It's very cinematic.

Not all the questions are answered, not all the possible explanations given, but just enough is offered up to leave me satisfied. Ours and Melanie’s greatest fears are both realized and unrealized; the conclusion is a terrible work of art that is yet somehow right. The Girl With All the Gifts is being much lauded and rightly so: it is different and gripping and full of care in every respect.

The Universe Versus Alex Woods, by Gavin Extence

The Universe Versus Alex Woods starts at the end of the story: Alex, seventeen years old, finds himself stopped at Dover’s customs as he re-enters the UK, suffering some sort of seizure, with a large quantity of cash, a large quantity of marijuana, and an urn of ashes on the seat next to him. Why are the border authorities looking for him? What, exactly, are his perfectly reasonable explanations for the goods he is carrying? Where has he been and how did he wind up here?

As author Gavin Extence rewinds back to the beginning of the story, we follow Alex from the age of ten and a freak accident that seemingly sets things in motion, through his teenage years and up to present day. It’s probable that, accident or not, he would still have been bullied when he made it to secondary school, but whether he would still have been chased down the lanes of his country village on the particular day and in the particular direction that he was is more questionable. Without that particular day, would he have met Mr. Peterson? And without Mr. Peterson, he certainly wouldn’t be sitting in this particular police station right now.

There are many different things discussed in the pages of this book - things to make you philosophical, things to make you irate, things to make you think. It’s quite a philosophical book overall, actually, although it takes a while to get where it’s ultimately going - for instance, there is really no indication at all during much of the book of the big question Extence really wants to ask. In fact, with this thought in mind, perhaps Extence didn’t set out to ask his Big Question at all; perhaps that is just where the story took him. I think not, though; I think he knew where he was going, and he just took his sweet time to get there. It didn’t drag as such; I simply couldn’t see where it was going, which made me doubt the coherence of the story - but about two thirds of the way through I had that ‘aha!’ moment and everything began to fall into place. And with this in mind, I can see now that The Universe Versus Alex Woods is as brave a story as it’s protagonist is (and that’s pretty brave - Alex always sticks to his guns).

There are meteors and meteorites, neurological details and astrophysical discussions, a visit to The Natural History Museum, a visit to CERN, strange girls and strange mothers, and a rather unusual bookclub. I have to wonder what sort of school experience Extence himself had - or suffered - as Alex philosophises on the ignorance of his school’s practices, not least the way in which they teach only what is necessary to pass his exams, and how he is the one punished following a particularly nasty bullying incident - a punishment that results purely from the fact that Alex decides enough is enough and stands up for himself. The swear word he uses during this ‘showdown’ sparks a debate across several pages: which side will you be on? Alex’s or everyone else’s?

And it’s rather cleverly written because everything that occurs in these earlier chapters are a foreshadowing of what will happen later: the school is a small version of the law that Alex will have to face at the end of his story; the gossiping village is a small version of the media; the incident with Mr. Peterson’s dog is a small version of the Big Question Alex will ultimately have to face. This is a subtle and well-considered type of storytelling often seen in films: introduce the big idea in a small way so when the main story comes to the fore it’s easier for the viewer/reader to accept. Excellently done on Extence’s part.

And when the s**t hits the fan, it’s impossible not to be on Alex’s side, even though it’s nearly as hard not to question some of his responses to the things the Universe throws at him. The people around him made me feel irate and impassioned, and the media furore resulting from his actions - how they twist everything around, take all the facts and make them into something else - reminds me of the recent Hilary Mantel/Duchess of Cambridge ‘scandal’ as well as an idea I recently read of in another book, Ask the Passengers by A S King, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In this, Socrates describes a group of people who lived all their lives chained facing the blank wall of a cave; the wall has shadows cast from a fire they can’t see. As they guess at what the shadows are, the shadows become their entire reality - they know only their interpretation of the shadows, and would not recognise or understand what actually causes the shadows, or even the concept of something being a shadow in the first place. Deep stuff.

So is this what Alex Woods is all about? Well, yes and no. I guess, the Big Question aside, it’s about questioning your reality and not accepting what other people lay down for you - sometimes you have to, sure, but sometimes it’s just as important to understand that, often, there’s more to reality than what meets the eye.