Status
Available
Call number
Series
Publication
Orbit (2014), 528 pages
Description
"THE SECOND BOOK IN MIRA GRANT'S TERRIFYING PARASITOLOGY SERIES. THE ENEMY IS INSIDE US. The SymboGen designed tapeworms were created to relieve humanity of disease and sickness. But the implants in the majority of the world's population began attacking their hosts turning them into a ravenous horde. Now those who do not appear to be afflicted are being gathered for quarantine as panic spreads, but Sal and her companions must discover how the tapeworms are taking over their hosts, what their eventual goal is, and how they can be stopped"--
User reviews
LibraryThing member reading_fox
Continuation of the series, and lacking a bit in the wow factor that makes some of Mira's work so good. This is very much a novel setting up the stage for the final showdown (presumably in the next book) that determines whether or not humanity survives as independents or only as tapeworm breading
Sal remarkably quickly comes to terms with the shock surprise from the end of the last book that she's not Sally with a new personality caused by her suffering an epileptic fit whilst driving, she is instead a human/tapeworm symbiont- her advanced tapeworm that has spent her previous life protecting her from auto-immune diseases, took the opportunity to transfer to her brain stem and integrated into a seamless new personality, Sal. The plague of zombies currently battling the US are those unfortunate souls who didn't have an unconscious fit at the right time, and have suffered a less than perfect integration, the tapeworm damaging key areas of the brain leaving little more than hunger as a motivational force.
This is very very thin as a biological explanation for zombies, and sadly seems to get much of the current state knowledge about integrated neurology wrong. But it makes an interesting premise for the rest of the book. Sal calls the zombies 'cousins' throughout, and the few integrated symbionts are her brothers and sisters. The few traces of possible epigenetic personality that remain are an intriguing enigma that may be explained in the next book. Meanwhile there's lots of action even if it doesn't drive the plot very far. Sal has to escape from Sherman's clutches after a hospital admission went wrong, and Tasny has the same issues with Dr. Banks. Adam remains a bit confused about what's going on and just wants his family to live peacefully together.
It all flows the characters remain human even if they aren't - which is a question still to be decided. But at the same time the lack of progress towards treating/surviving/surrendering is at times annoying and feels slow. There is more consideration than in Feed about the supply of essential services, but it all still seems a bit lucky and coincidental, chance that they have sufficient power etc. And having been part of a team that's installed lab equipment even into professionally designed spaces pre-prepared for it, I laughed at the thought of moving a bio-tech lab into a reconverted factory on an 'ad-hoc' basis. It just isn't going to work.
Fun though, and I am curious to see who Mira will handle the issue of 'sides' in the conclusion.
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grounds. Sal remarkably quickly comes to terms with the shock surprise from the end of the last book that she's not Sally with a new personality caused by her suffering an epileptic fit whilst driving, she is instead a human/tapeworm symbiont- her advanced tapeworm that has spent her previous life protecting her from auto-immune diseases, took the opportunity to transfer to her brain stem and integrated into a seamless new personality, Sal. The plague of zombies currently battling the US are those unfortunate souls who didn't have an unconscious fit at the right time, and have suffered a less than perfect integration, the tapeworm damaging key areas of the brain leaving little more than hunger as a motivational force.
This is very very thin as a biological explanation for zombies, and sadly seems to get much of the current state knowledge about integrated neurology wrong. But it makes an interesting premise for the rest of the book. Sal calls the zombies 'cousins' throughout, and the few integrated symbionts are her brothers and sisters. The few traces of possible epigenetic personality that remain are an intriguing enigma that may be explained in the next book. Meanwhile there's lots of action even if it doesn't drive the plot very far. Sal has to escape from Sherman's clutches after a hospital admission went wrong, and Tasny has the same issues with Dr. Banks. Adam remains a bit confused about what's going on and just wants his family to live peacefully together.
It all flows the characters remain human even if they aren't - which is a question still to be decided. But at the same time the lack of progress towards treating/surviving/surrendering is at times annoying and feels slow. There is more consideration than in Feed about the supply of essential services, but it all still seems a bit lucky and coincidental, chance that they have sufficient power etc. And having been part of a team that's installed lab equipment even into professionally designed spaces pre-prepared for it, I laughed at the thought of moving a bio-tech lab into a reconverted factory on an 'ad-hoc' basis. It just isn't going to work.
Fun though, and I am curious to see who Mira will handle the issue of 'sides' in the conclusion.
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LibraryThing member RobynBachar
I love this author, so it was a pretty sure bet that I'd love this book. (You know you have a reader hooked when they pre-order your hardcover about tapeworms. Now that's devotion.)
I continued to enjoy Sal's story. There are a lot of neat discussions in Symbiont about defining a person (i.e., is it
I did notice that Sal gets kidnapped a lot. Seriously. Like she's featured in an 8-bit Nintendo game. (And now I'm picturing Nathan as Mario and Sal as Princess Peach.) She does gain more agency in this book, and I'm interested to see how that continues in the next one.
The last 100 pages kicked this book from 4-star to 5-star for me. The action really picked up, and to avoid spoilers let me just say that my adoration is due to Fishy and Beverly.
I continued to enjoy Sal's story. There are a lot of neat discussions in Symbiont about defining a person (i.e., is it
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the body that makes a human a person?) and gender identity. I did notice that Sal gets kidnapped a lot. Seriously. Like she's featured in an 8-bit Nintendo game. (And now I'm picturing Nathan as Mario and Sal as Princess Peach.) She does gain more agency in this book, and I'm interested to see how that continues in the next one.
The last 100 pages kicked this book from 4-star to 5-star for me. The action really picked up, and to avoid spoilers let me just say that my adoration is due to Fishy and Beverly.
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LibraryThing member Jen-the-Librarian
Exciting sequel to Parasite. Can't wait for the next book.
LibraryThing member rivkat
Volume two of Grant’s new trilogy turns into zombie territory as the “sleepwalkers” whose brains have been compromised by their genetically engineered, medicalized tapeworm implants run riot in the US (the condition of the rest of the world is not a concern of this book). Sal, the girl who
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figured out she was a chimera—a worm in a human body—at the end of the last book, long after the rest of us did, goes through many varieties of captivity as the government and the evil corporation behind the tapeworms and the rebel researcher trying to figure out what the evil corporation did all compete to control her. The annoying repetitions of phrases from a made-up children’s book that were characteristic of the first book continue here for the first half, and then finally, blessedly, get lost in more and more plot. Sal starts to exercise more control over her own life and gets a bit back against the sociopath in charge of the evil corporation, but the narrative ends on a cliffhanger ensuring that you’ll read the final book if you had any interest at all in this one. Show Less
LibraryThing member krau0098
This is the second book in the Parasitology series by Grant; this was originally going to be a duology and was extended into a trilogy. The third book, Chimera, is set to release late 2015. This was hands down my least favorite book Mira Grant or Seanan McGuire (her other pen name) has written. I
Sal is coming to terms with the fact that she is no longer human. Her human host Sally died in the car accident she was recovering from in the first book (Parasite) and the tapeworm Sal has taken over. While Sal is reeling from this news, the world outside is falling apart. Sleepwalkers, including more aggressive variants, are taking over humanity completely. Sal and her boyfriend Nathan (who is a parasitologist) are working with Nathan’s mom, Shanti, to try and figure out how to stop this crisis and save humanity. Shanti is one of the scientists who helped to develop that tapeworm implants to cure disease in humanity.
I will start out by saying that the first book in this series, Parasite, was my least favorite book by Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire (although I still thought the story for that one was decent). This book was worse than Parasite. It is long and it feels long. It is also very wordy and the same ideas/concerns are rehashed over and over again.
It is still readable and decently written. There were just too many plot inconsistencies and the books is way, way too wordy. It's like the story doesn't know whether to be an action-packed zombie novel or a philosophical discussion on the ills of science/medicine gone awry. It teeters in the middle and ends up being pretty bad at both. There is also this strange power struggle going on between the three scientists that helped develop SymboGen’s tapeworm. It’s like all three scientists want to play God and so they like to jerk each other around a lot while humanity dies around them. Honestly it comes off as an obnoxious medical drama of sorts.
I found myself skimming portions of the story and then going back to reread them to make sure I hadn't missed anything (I hadn't). Vast portions of this book could have been left out and the story would have been better for it. I am not sure what happened here, but this is a bloated book. It is a book I did not enjoy written by an author I thought could do no wrong. I am very disappointed. It is still readable and there are sections and ideas within this book that are interesting. But, wow, this book needed some cuts and some editing before publishing.
Okay enough complaining...well okay there might be some more complaining. I have had trouble with the whole concept of this series right from the beginning. The idea that vast portions of humanity would allow themselves to be infected with a tapeworm to prevent disease is just..well...really unlikely. People are incredibly stubborn and incredibly protective of their bodies. It’s taken a lot for me to set all that aside and accept that “yes, of course everyone would get tapeworms implanted”.
The confusion comes in with the Sleepwalkers and the more aggressive tapeworms. There seems to be kind of two types of people infected, or maybe they are going through stages? It’s just all very confusing. People without tapeworm implants are not supposed to be infected, because it’s not an infection it’s a parasite. So I am still a bit confused about how cities are collapsing if only people with tapeworms are getting taken over. What is everyone who doesn’t have a tapeworm doing? Also why do they need the dogs to sniff out sleepwalkers? Aren’t they noisily moaning all the time? Or do only the active ones moan and the other ones need to be sniffed out? So confused...
All that confusion aside... let’s talk about our two main characters Sal and Nathan. Sal (Sally) has been a very confusing character. She is constantly passing out (we are given a reason for that finally in this book), she seems both too naive and too ruthless at times. In the last book she was supposedly still human but at the end of that book we find out she’s not. Now she’s getting used to be a tapeworm living in human skin. Okay I kind of get all that. Then in the second half of this book they are all like “Oh, but maybe you ARE still human too!” Okay make up your mind and get on with the story...I am totally losing interest here…
I do enjoy some of the ideas behind the story. I also enjoy the research that must have been done to write this book, there is interesting information on parasitology and genetics in here. Additionally I enjoy the relationship that Nathan and Sal have; it is one based on mutual respect and trust.
Overall parts of this book were okay but I did not enjoy the majority of it. The book is too wordy, too slow, and too long. There is too much back and forth in the plot and too much rehashing of the same ideas over and over. The characters are inconsistent and the side plots about scientist power struggles are too dramatic and preachy. I haven’t enjoyed our main character and am having a really hard time with the main premise of the whole series (that vast portions of humanity would allow parasite to be implanted into their bodies). I would recommend reading Grant’s Newsflesh series but would recommend skipping this one. I won’t be reading the final book in this series because I just do not care.
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am a huge fan of all of Mira Grant's/Seanan McGuire's other books. For some reason though this series is just missing the mark for me.Sal is coming to terms with the fact that she is no longer human. Her human host Sally died in the car accident she was recovering from in the first book (Parasite) and the tapeworm Sal has taken over. While Sal is reeling from this news, the world outside is falling apart. Sleepwalkers, including more aggressive variants, are taking over humanity completely. Sal and her boyfriend Nathan (who is a parasitologist) are working with Nathan’s mom, Shanti, to try and figure out how to stop this crisis and save humanity. Shanti is one of the scientists who helped to develop that tapeworm implants to cure disease in humanity.
I will start out by saying that the first book in this series, Parasite, was my least favorite book by Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire (although I still thought the story for that one was decent). This book was worse than Parasite. It is long and it feels long. It is also very wordy and the same ideas/concerns are rehashed over and over again.
It is still readable and decently written. There were just too many plot inconsistencies and the books is way, way too wordy. It's like the story doesn't know whether to be an action-packed zombie novel or a philosophical discussion on the ills of science/medicine gone awry. It teeters in the middle and ends up being pretty bad at both. There is also this strange power struggle going on between the three scientists that helped develop SymboGen’s tapeworm. It’s like all three scientists want to play God and so they like to jerk each other around a lot while humanity dies around them. Honestly it comes off as an obnoxious medical drama of sorts.
I found myself skimming portions of the story and then going back to reread them to make sure I hadn't missed anything (I hadn't). Vast portions of this book could have been left out and the story would have been better for it. I am not sure what happened here, but this is a bloated book. It is a book I did not enjoy written by an author I thought could do no wrong. I am very disappointed. It is still readable and there are sections and ideas within this book that are interesting. But, wow, this book needed some cuts and some editing before publishing.
Okay enough complaining...well okay there might be some more complaining. I have had trouble with the whole concept of this series right from the beginning. The idea that vast portions of humanity would allow themselves to be infected with a tapeworm to prevent disease is just..well...really unlikely. People are incredibly stubborn and incredibly protective of their bodies. It’s taken a lot for me to set all that aside and accept that “yes, of course everyone would get tapeworms implanted”.
The confusion comes in with the Sleepwalkers and the more aggressive tapeworms. There seems to be kind of two types of people infected, or maybe they are going through stages? It’s just all very confusing. People without tapeworm implants are not supposed to be infected, because it’s not an infection it’s a parasite. So I am still a bit confused about how cities are collapsing if only people with tapeworms are getting taken over. What is everyone who doesn’t have a tapeworm doing? Also why do they need the dogs to sniff out sleepwalkers? Aren’t they noisily moaning all the time? Or do only the active ones moan and the other ones need to be sniffed out? So confused...
All that confusion aside... let’s talk about our two main characters Sal and Nathan. Sal (Sally) has been a very confusing character. She is constantly passing out (we are given a reason for that finally in this book), she seems both too naive and too ruthless at times. In the last book she was supposedly still human but at the end of that book we find out she’s not. Now she’s getting used to be a tapeworm living in human skin. Okay I kind of get all that. Then in the second half of this book they are all like “Oh, but maybe you ARE still human too!” Okay make up your mind and get on with the story...I am totally losing interest here…
I do enjoy some of the ideas behind the story. I also enjoy the research that must have been done to write this book, there is interesting information on parasitology and genetics in here. Additionally I enjoy the relationship that Nathan and Sal have; it is one based on mutual respect and trust.
Overall parts of this book were okay but I did not enjoy the majority of it. The book is too wordy, too slow, and too long. There is too much back and forth in the plot and too much rehashing of the same ideas over and over. The characters are inconsistent and the side plots about scientist power struggles are too dramatic and preachy. I haven’t enjoyed our main character and am having a really hard time with the main premise of the whole series (that vast portions of humanity would allow parasite to be implanted into their bodies). I would recommend reading Grant’s Newsflesh series but would recommend skipping this one. I won’t be reading the final book in this series because I just do not care.
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LibraryThing member wyvernfriend
It's all so plausible, there are a lot of hunts for panaceas for all ills going on, and the idea of a tapeworm that could deal with the niggles is simple, however the "and then it grows and takes over your brain part"? Not so much of a fan. The first one was intense and I couldn't put it down, this
I started it some time last year and just finished it and have no real hunger to read the end. I do want to no, no revulsion to finish but when I discovered none of the libraries have it yet I wasn't upset, it was ho-hum and on with my day.
Sal is discovering what it means to be her, being kidnapped and being experimented on and she really, really just wants to live a peaceful life, but no-one is letting her, least of all her fellow parasites.
Interesting but a bit meh.
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one I read a few books over.I started it some time last year and just finished it and have no real hunger to read the end. I do want to no, no revulsion to finish but when I discovered none of the libraries have it yet I wasn't upset, it was ho-hum and on with my day.
Sal is discovering what it means to be her, being kidnapped and being experimented on and she really, really just wants to live a peaceful life, but no-one is letting her, least of all her fellow parasites.
Interesting but a bit meh.
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LibraryThing member renbedell
The second book in the Parasitology series likely suffers from second book syndrome. It is not as good as the first and feels more flat. There are great moments but overall it doesn't move. With a horror or thriller plot line, there is no sense of urgency or doom. I really like the idea of the
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book, with the unique look at zombies and the character's POV, but it doesn't really explore it that much. Show Less
LibraryThing member StarKnits
Oh my goodness!
While I had a small issue of Sal being so wimpy (I wanted her to embrace herself and be awesome tapeworm queen) I did enjoy this continuation of the story. I hate how crazy Sherman got and didn't like the Sally turn at the end but I'm sure things will be interesting in the next book
While I had a small issue of Sal being so wimpy (I wanted her to embrace herself and be awesome tapeworm queen) I did enjoy this continuation of the story. I hate how crazy Sherman got and didn't like the Sally turn at the end but I'm sure things will be interesting in the next book
LibraryThing member tldegray
I didn't enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed the first. It felt a bit bogged down and bloated, as if neither the writing nor the plot was moving at times. Second book of a trilogy syndrome, maybe. Still, by the end it had put the players in place for the war, and that's what needed to be done.
LibraryThing member Glennis.LeBlanc
The second book has Sal constantly on the run while she is the one person everyone wants so they can figure her out and what makes her so special. Sal on the other hand is also finding out things that make her different from other hosts that have had their symbiont take over. This story does
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introduce more people like Sal to her and the reader. The only problem I had with it is that it is a middle book to a trilogy so there isn’t any clear wins and a definite cliffhanger ending. Show Less
LibraryThing member stephanie_M
Man, I really wanted to love this novel..... but it was just a bit boring for me. It dragged on and on in the middle, and the supposed quirks of the lead character Sal were beyond annoying after two whole books filled with them. (I swear to Baby Jesus, if I hear about the fricken drums in her head
Now I am a huge Mira Grant fan, and I really liked the first books in this series a whole lot. It’s not quite as good as the Newsflesh series, but hey the author wrote more novels. Yay! So in I dove.
But the plodding throughout this novel made my attention drift off multiple times, and I’d find myself wishing this novel would just be OVER so I could get on with something else. There is little to no tension, there is way too much repetition, many established facts were gone over ad nauseam, and I just found myself wanting more action. Oh, and Sherman has gotten totally weird and screwy. And the trap at the end was obvious.
Christine Lakin is the narrator yet again for this series of audiobooks, and she’s great for this series. I hope they use her in the third novel for continuity’s sake.
So anyway, I will probably go ahead and listen to the third novel in the series, and cross my fingers that it will be better than this one.
Again, don’t read this novel if you don’t like, or have issues with tapeworms, or the fact that people intentionally ingested them for medical purposes.
3 stars
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one more time, I’m gonna smack someone!). Now I am a huge Mira Grant fan, and I really liked the first books in this series a whole lot. It’s not quite as good as the Newsflesh series, but hey the author wrote more novels. Yay! So in I dove.
But the plodding throughout this novel made my attention drift off multiple times, and I’d find myself wishing this novel would just be OVER so I could get on with something else. There is little to no tension, there is way too much repetition, many established facts were gone over ad nauseam, and I just found myself wanting more action. Oh, and Sherman has gotten totally weird and screwy. And the trap at the end was obvious.
Christine Lakin is the narrator yet again for this series of audiobooks, and she’s great for this series. I hope they use her in the third novel for continuity’s sake.
So anyway, I will probably go ahead and listen to the third novel in the series, and cross my fingers that it will be better than this one.
Again, don’t read this novel if you don’t like, or have issues with tapeworms, or the fact that people intentionally ingested them for medical purposes.
3 stars
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LibraryThing member jazzbird61
I certainly enjoyed it, but was a bit disappointed in the cliffhanger. I'm also hoping that Sal grows a bit more of a backbone. Maybe it's cultural differences, or maybe its the tapeworm, but I would have punched waaay more folks.
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2014-11
Physical description
528 p.; 9.75 inches
ISBN
0316218995 / 9780316218993
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