Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The Ending of Feed

To follow on from my previous post talking about Feed, I want to talk a little bit about how Grant ended the novel. Yes, this will include the actual events of what happened at the end – so in case you like your spoilers unspoiled, you have been warned.

Feed is centered on the first person perspective and voice of Georgia Mason. This, ultimately, is her story. Though, like a good newsie, I’m sure she would disagree and say that “her story” is the pursuit of “truth” and reporting the news the way it should be told.

So what happens when an author kills off the main protagonist of a novel / series near the end of the first novel? It helps with the sense of narrative tension. Even in a first person perspective story – the narrator can and will die. This is somewhat different than what George R. R. Martin did in A Game of Thrones because even though that character was considered a primary protagonist – it was a multiple perspective narrative. Feed isn’t. It hinged on Georgia’s voice and the reader’s willingness to follow her. So, Grant’s willingness to kill her off is fascinating to me. It worked in the context of the novel (besides being an overall “oh shit“ moment) and the scene with Georgia and Shaun in the van is heartbreaking (though, the actual blog post seemed a little contrived, but we’ll move past that).

But where do you go from there? The novel is finished in with Shaun’s perspective and we know that Deadline will also follow Shaun. Or, it will initially follow Shaun. Who knows if Grant will whack him, too. That’s part of the fun, but the thing is that Georgia’s voice worked over the course of Feed. Will Shaun’s voice work over the course of Deadline? I don’t know.

It’s an interesting choice.

4 comments:

WEW said...

I was about halfway through the novel when you made your first post, and I finished it last night. It definitely was an "oh shit" moment. I didn't find the blog post that contrived. I actually found Shaun and Steve's trip to find Tate, and Shaun's confrontation with Tate, significantly worse. The author may be successful with the follow up from Shaun's perspective, but even if successful, it will definitely be very different from the tone of this one.

Joe said...

Mostly I meant the end of the post with the "shoot me shaun, shoot me", but I do agree that the confrontation was much worse. It had that over the top "Big Bad" confrontation.

Still - as a whole, I did very much like Feed.

RobB said...

DEADLINE is just as good as FEED. This isn't exactly a spoiler since you find out as soon as you open the book, but yes it is from Shaun's POV.

As soon as BLACKOUT (book 3) arrives, I will likely read it immediately.

Joe said...

Rob - good to hear. I figured that's where Grant was going with it. I'll probably read Deadline shortly after I get back from DC (the city, not the comics) next month.