Parasite Positive by Scott Westerfeld
Aug. 13th, 2009 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
One year ago, Cal Thompson was a college freshman more interested in meeting girls and partying in New York City than in attending class. Then he met a girl called Morgan, they had a fun night together and she passed on a parasite that turns people into ravenous vampires. You know how it goes.
Cal himself is only a carrier, but he's infected the girlfriends he's had since Morgan, and it's now his job to hunt them down before they can create even more of their kind.
Cal Thompson gets more than he bargained for when he loses his virginity in a one-night-stand to a girl he met in a gay bar (don't ask). The encounter's left him with a parasite that makes him ravenous for red meat and souped up his senses. Fortunately he's only a carrier, so he can control his urges, but others with the parasite aren't so lucky and are driven to kill and maim people as they seek to spread the parasite to others, while things that they previously loved have now become anathema to them.
Cal joins the Night Watch, a secret organisation that seeks to control the spread of the parasite (which is transmitted through kissing and sex), who educate him on how the parasite is spread and teach him how to help stop it. Now, Cal has to track down his subsequent girlfriends, all of whom have been infected including the one-night-stand who gave it to him, a girl whose name he can't remember. He gets a vital lead when he meets Lacey, a journalism student, who tells him about weird shennanigans going on in her apartment block. Cal discovers that the parasites are only the surface of the problem as there's something big and evil lurking beneath New York City, something that only Cal and the Night Watch can stop.
Westerfeld's use of parasites is an interesting take on vampirism and by interspersing the action with scientific interludes explaining how parasites work in nature, he gives his worldbuilding added credibility. The problem is that when the novel begins, Cal explains that the infected are essentially homicidal maniacs, killing people at random to feed their parasite and unable to control their urges but the only characters we meet who are infected with the parasite are those who retain some element of control so by the end of the novel Cal is forced to distinguish between those who are infected and unable to control it (essentially zombies) and those who can control it with help (essentially vampires). This was confusing and it would have really helped to have seen a clear delineation between the two kinds - not least because it appears that the 'vampires' are little different to the carriers.
Cal is an engaging hero and his first person narrative rocks along at a jaunty pace. At times he's a little too naive - it's difficult to believe that even someone from Texas doesn't understand that he's in a gay bar, and he takes longer than the reader to work out what's really going on. However, the problems that his condition gives him - notably his sexual frustration - are nicely depicted and make him sympathetic. Lacey is a good counterfoil, curious to know what's really going on and smart enough to work out when she's being lied to. However other characters are little more than cyphers there to keep the plot moving - notably Dr Rat, the Professor and the mysterious Morgan who infected Cal in the first place.
There are some very tense scenes in the novel - the opening, with Cal tracking down a former girlfriend is gripping, as is a later scene involving rats in a swimming pool. However, the tension falls away at the end as revelations come too quickly, with Morgan and the Professor offering surprise exposition dumps that are anti-climactic. There's a set-up for a sequel, which I would be interested in reading, but I hope that there's more clarity as to the threat that Cal is facing.
The Verdict:
It's entertaining enough and the take on vampirisim is an original one and the scientific interludes are fascinating, but the flaws in this novel (notably the failure to show any infected character unable to control their actions) prevent this from being a great book.
One year ago, Cal Thompson was a college freshman more interested in meeting girls and partying in New York City than in attending class. Then he met a girl called Morgan, they had a fun night together and she passed on a parasite that turns people into ravenous vampires. You know how it goes.
Cal himself is only a carrier, but he's infected the girlfriends he's had since Morgan, and it's now his job to hunt them down before they can create even more of their kind.
Cal Thompson gets more than he bargained for when he loses his virginity in a one-night-stand to a girl he met in a gay bar (don't ask). The encounter's left him with a parasite that makes him ravenous for red meat and souped up his senses. Fortunately he's only a carrier, so he can control his urges, but others with the parasite aren't so lucky and are driven to kill and maim people as they seek to spread the parasite to others, while things that they previously loved have now become anathema to them.
Cal joins the Night Watch, a secret organisation that seeks to control the spread of the parasite (which is transmitted through kissing and sex), who educate him on how the parasite is spread and teach him how to help stop it. Now, Cal has to track down his subsequent girlfriends, all of whom have been infected including the one-night-stand who gave it to him, a girl whose name he can't remember. He gets a vital lead when he meets Lacey, a journalism student, who tells him about weird shennanigans going on in her apartment block. Cal discovers that the parasites are only the surface of the problem as there's something big and evil lurking beneath New York City, something that only Cal and the Night Watch can stop.
Westerfeld's use of parasites is an interesting take on vampirism and by interspersing the action with scientific interludes explaining how parasites work in nature, he gives his worldbuilding added credibility. The problem is that when the novel begins, Cal explains that the infected are essentially homicidal maniacs, killing people at random to feed their parasite and unable to control their urges but the only characters we meet who are infected with the parasite are those who retain some element of control so by the end of the novel Cal is forced to distinguish between those who are infected and unable to control it (essentially zombies) and those who can control it with help (essentially vampires). This was confusing and it would have really helped to have seen a clear delineation between the two kinds - not least because it appears that the 'vampires' are little different to the carriers.
Cal is an engaging hero and his first person narrative rocks along at a jaunty pace. At times he's a little too naive - it's difficult to believe that even someone from Texas doesn't understand that he's in a gay bar, and he takes longer than the reader to work out what's really going on. However, the problems that his condition gives him - notably his sexual frustration - are nicely depicted and make him sympathetic. Lacey is a good counterfoil, curious to know what's really going on and smart enough to work out when she's being lied to. However other characters are little more than cyphers there to keep the plot moving - notably Dr Rat, the Professor and the mysterious Morgan who infected Cal in the first place.
There are some very tense scenes in the novel - the opening, with Cal tracking down a former girlfriend is gripping, as is a later scene involving rats in a swimming pool. However, the tension falls away at the end as revelations come too quickly, with Morgan and the Professor offering surprise exposition dumps that are anti-climactic. There's a set-up for a sequel, which I would be interested in reading, but I hope that there's more clarity as to the threat that Cal is facing.
The Verdict:
It's entertaining enough and the take on vampirisim is an original one and the scientific interludes are fascinating, but the flaws in this novel (notably the failure to show any infected character unable to control their actions) prevent this from being a great book.
