Print List Price: | $19.99 |
Kindle Price: | $6.99 Save $13.00 (65%) |
Sold by: | Hachette Book Group Price set by seller. |
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Audible sample Sample
Parasite (Parasitology Book 1) Kindle Edition
We owe our good health to a humble parasite — a genetically engineered tapeworm developed by the pioneering SymboGen Corporation. When implanted, the Intestinal Bodyguard worm protects us from illness, boosts our immune system — even secretes designer drugs. It's been successful beyond the scientists' wildest dreams. Now, years on, almost every human being has a SymboGen tapeworm living within them.
But these parasites are getting restless. They want their own lives . . . and will do anything to get them.
"A riveting near-future medical thriller that reads like the genetically-engineered love child of Robin Cook and Michael Crichton." —John Joseph Adams
More from Mira Grant:
Parasitology
Parasite
Symbiont
Chimera
Newsflesh
Feed
Deadline
Blackout
Feedback
Rise
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherOrbit
- Publication dateOctober 29, 2013
- File size957 KB
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
From Booklist
Review
"Readers with strong stomachs will welcome this unusual take on the future."―Kirkus Reviews
"Fans of [the Newsflesh] series will definitely want to check this new book out. But fans of Michael Crichton-style technothrillers will be equally enthralled: as wild as Grant's premise is, the novel is firmly anchored in real-world science and technology."―Booklist
"Grant extends the zombie theme of her Newsflesh trilogy to incorporate thoughtful reflections on biomedical issues that are both ominously challenging and eerily plausible. Sally is a complex, compassionate character, well suited to this exploration of trust, uncertainty, and the price of progress."―Publishers Weekly
"It's a well-grounded medical wariness that gets at the heart of what the Parasitology series will be asking: What happens when the cure is worse than the disease?"―NPR Books
"An exceptionally creepy medical-horror thriller that's the perfect spine-tingling read for Halloween... [a] roller coaster ride."―Fort Worth Star-Telegram
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Parasite
By Mira GrantOrbit
Copyright © 2013 Mira GrantAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-316-21895-5
CHAPTER 1
JULY 2027
Dark.
Always the dark, warm, hot warm, the hot warm dark, and the distant sound ofdrumming. Always the hot warm dark and the drums, the comforting drums, thedrums that define the world. It is comfortable here. I am comfortable here. I donot want to leave again.
Dr. Morrison looked up from my journal and smiled. He always showed too manyteeth when he was trying to be reassuring, stretching his lips so wide that helooked like he was getting ready to lean over and take a bite of my throat.
"I wish you wouldn't smile at me like that," I said. My skin was knotting itselfinto lumps of gooseflesh. I forced myself to sit still, refusing to give him thepleasure of seeing just how uncomfortable he made me.
For a professional therapist, Dr. Morrison seemed to take an unhealthy amount ofjoy in making me twitch. "Like what, Sally?"
"With the teeth," I said, and shuddered. I don't like teeth. I liked Dr.Morrison's teeth less than most. If he smiled too much, I was going to wind uphaving another one of those nightmares, the ones where his smile spread all theway around his head and met at the back of his neck. Once that happened, hisskull would spread open like a flower, and the mouth hidden behind hissmile—his real mouth—would finally be revealed.
Crazy dreams, right? It was only appropriate, I guess. I was seeing him becauseI was a crazy, crazy girl. At least, that's what the people who would know kepttelling me, and it wasn't like I could tell them any different. They were theones who went to college and got degrees in are-you-crazy. I was just a girl whohad to be reminded of her own name.
"We've discussed your odontophobia before, Sally. There's no clinical reason foryou to be afraid of teeth."
"I'm not afraid of teeth," I snapped. "I just don't want to look at them."
Dr. Morrison stopped smiling and shook his head, leaning over to jot somethingon his ever-present notepad. He didn't bother hiding it from me anymore. He knewI couldn't read it without taking a lot more time than I had. "You understandwhat this dream is telling us, don't you?" His tone was as poisonously warm ashis too-wide smile had been.
"I don't know, Dr. Morrison," I answered. "Why don't you tell me, and we'll seeif we can come to a mutual conclusion?"
"Now, Sally, you know that dream interpretation doesn't work that way," he said,voice turning lightly chiding. I was being a smart-ass. Again. Dr. Morrisondidn't like that, which was fine by me, since I didn't like Dr. Morrison. "Whydon't you tell me what the dream means to you?"
"It means I shouldn't eat leftover spaghetti after midnight," I said. "It meansI feel guilty about forgetting to save yesterday's bread for the ducks. It meansI still don't understand what irony is, even though I keep asking people toexplain it. It means—"
He cut me off. "You're dreaming about the coma," he said. "Your mind is tryingto cope with the blank places that remain part of your inner landscape. To somedegree, you may even be longing to go back to that blankness, to a time whenSally Mitchell could be anything."
The implication that the person Sally Mitchell became—namely,me—wasn't good enough for my subconscious mind stung, but I wasn't goingto let him see that. "Wow. You really think that's what the dream's about?"
"Don't you?"
I didn't answer.
This was my last visit before my six-month check-in with the staff at SymboGen.Dr. Morrison would be turning in his recommendations before that, and the lastthing I wanted to do was give him an excuse to recommend we go back to meetingtwice a week, or even three times a week, like we had when I first startedseeing him. I didn't want to be adjusted to fit some model of the "psychiatricnorm" drawn up by doctors who'd never met me and didn't know my situation. I wastired of putting up with Dr. Morrison's clumsy attempts to force me into thatmold. We both knew he was only doing it because he hoped to write a book onceSymboGen's media blackout on my life was finally lifted. The Curing of SallyMitchell. He'd make a mint.
Even more, I was tired of the way he always looked at me out of the corner ofhis eye, like I was going to flip out and start stabbing people. Then again,maybe he was right about that, on some level. There was no time when I felt morelike stabbing people than immediately after one of our sessions.
"The imagery is crude, even childish. Clearly, you're regressing in your sleep,returning to a time before you had so many things to worry about. I know it'sbeen hard on you, relearning everything about yourself. So much has changed inthe last six years." Dr. Morrison flipped to the next page in my journal,smiling again. It looked more artificial, and more dangerous, than ever. "Howare your headaches, Sally? Are they getting any better?"
I bared my own teeth at him as I lied smoothly, saying, "I haven't had aheadache in weeks." It helped if I reminded myself that I wasn't totally lying.I wasn't having the real banger migraines anymore, the ones that made me feellike it would have been a blessing if I'd died in the accident. All I gotanymore were the little gnawing aches at my temples, the ones where it felt likemy skull was shrinking. Those went away if I spent a few hours lying down in adark room. They were nothing the doctor needed to be concerned about.
"You know, Sally, I can't help you if you won't let me."
He kept using my name because it was supposed to help us build rapport. It washaving the opposite effect. "It's Sal now, Doctor," I said, keeping my voice asneutral as I could. "I've been going by Sal for more than three years."
"Ah, yes. Your continued efforts to distance yourself from your pre-comaidentity." He flipped to another page in my journal, quickly enough that I couldtell he'd been waiting for the opportunity to drop this little bomb into theconversation. I braced myself, and he read:
Had another fight with parents last night. Want to move out, have own space,maybe find out if ready to move in with Nathan. They said wasn't ready. Why not?Because Sally wasn't ready? I am not her. I am me.
I will never be her again.
He lowered the book, looking at me expectantly. I looked back, and for almost aminute the two of us were locked in a battle of wills that had no possiblewinner, only a different order of losing. He wanted me to ask for his help. Hewanted to heal me and turn me back into a woman I had no memory of being. Iwanted him to let me be who I was, no matter how different I had become. Neitherof us was getting what we wanted.
Finally, he broke. "This shows a worrisome trend toward disassociation, Sally.I'm concerned that—"
"Sal," I said.
Dr. Morrison stopped, frowning at me. "What did you say?"
"I said, Sal, as in, 'my name is.' I'm not Sally anymore. It's notdisassociation if I say I'm not her, because I don't remember her at all. Idon't even know who she is. No one will tell me the whole story. Everyone triesso hard not to say anything bad about her to me, even though I know better. It'slike they're all afraid I'm pretending, like this is some big trick to catchthem out."
"Is it?" Dr. Morrison leaned forward. His smile was suddenly gone, replaced byan expression of predatory interest. "We've discussed your amnesia before,Sally. No one can deny that you sustained extensive trauma in theaccident, but amnesia as extensive and prolonged as yours is extremely rare. I'mconcerned there may be a mental block preventing your accessing your ownmemories. When this block inevitably degrades—if you've been feigningamnesia this whole time, it would be a great relief in some ways. It wouldindicate much better chances for your future mental stability."
"Wouldn't faking total memory loss for six years count as a sort of pathologicallying, and prove I needed to stay in your care until I stopped doing it?" Iasked.
Dr. Morrison frowned, leaning back again. "So you continue to insist that youhave no memory prior to the accident."
I shrugged. "We've been over this before. I have no memory of the accidentitself. The first thing I remember is waking up in the hospital, surrounded bystrangers."
One of them had screamed and fainted when I sat up. I didn't learn until laterthat she was my mother, or that she had been there—along with my father,my younger sister, and my boyfriend—to talk to my doctors about unpluggingthe life support systems keeping my body alive. My sister, Joyce, had juststared at me and started to cry. I didn't understand what she was doing. Icouldn't remember ever having seen someone cry before. I couldn't remember everhaving seen a person before. I was a blank slate.
Then Joyce was throwing herself across me, and the feeling of pressure had beensurprising enough that I hadn't pushed her away. My father helped my mother offthe floor, and they both joined my sister on the bed, all of them crying andtalking at once.
It would be months before I understood English well enough to know what theywere saying, much less to answer them. By the time I managed my firstsentence—"Who I?"—the boyfriend was long gone, having chosen to runrather than spend the rest of his life with a potentially brain-damagedgirlfriend. The fact that I still hadn't recovered my memory six years laterimplied that he'd made the right decision. Even if he'd decided to stick around,there was no guarantee we'd have liked each other, much less loved each other.Leaving me was the best thing he could have done, for either one of us.
After all, I was a whole new person now.
"We were discussing your family. How are things going?"
"We've been working through some things," I said. Things like theiroverprotectiveness, and the way they refused to treat me like a normal humanbeing. "I think we're doing pretty good. But thanks for asking."
My mother thought I was a gift from God, since she hadn't expected me to wakeup. She also thought I would turn back into Sally any day, and was perpetually,politely confused when I didn't. My father didn't invoke God nearly as much, buthe did like to say, frequently, that everything happens for a reason.Apparently, he and Sally hadn't had a very good relationship. He and I weredoing substantially better. It helped that we were both trying as hard as wecould, because we both knew that things were tenuous.
Joyce was the only one who'd been willing to speak to me candidly, although sheonly did it when she was drunk. She didn't drink often; I didn't drink at all."You were a real bitch, Sal," she'd said. "I like you a lot better now. If youstart turning into a bitch again, I'll cut your brake lines."
It was totally honest. It was totally sincere. The night she said that to me wasthe night I realized that I might not remember my sister, but I definitely lovedher. On the balance of things, maybe I'd gotten off lightly. Maybe losing mymemory was a blessing.
Dr. Morrison's disappointment visibly deepened. Clearing his throat, he flippedto another point in my journal, and read:
Last night I dreamt I was swimming through the hot warm dark, just me andthe sound of drums, and there was nothing in the world that could frighten me orhurt me or change the way things were.
Then there was a tearing, ripping sound, and the drums went quiet, andeverything was pain, pain, PAIN. I never felt pain like that before, and I triedto scream, but I couldn't scream—something stopped me from screaming. Ifled from the pain, and the pain followed me, and the hot warm dark was turningcold and crushing, until it wasn't comfort, it was death. I was going to die. Ihad to run as fast as I could, had to find a new way to run, and the sound ofdrums was fading out, fading into silence.
If I didn't get to safety before the drums stopped, I was never going to get tosafety at all. I had to save the drums. The drums were everything.
He looked up. "That's an odd amount of importance to place on a sound, don't youthink? What do the drums represent to you, Sally?"
"I don't know. It was just a dream I had." It was a dream I had almost everynight. I only wrote it down because Nathan said that maybe Dr. Morrison wouldstop pushing quite so hard if he felt like he had something to interpret. Well,he had something to interpret, and it wasn't making him back off. If anything,it was doing the opposite. I made a mental note to smack my boyfriend next timeI saw him.
"Dreams mean things. They're our subconscious trying to communicate with us."
The smug look on his face was too much. "You're about to tell me I'm dreamingabout being in the womb, aren't you? That's what you always say when you want tosound impressive."
His smug expression didn't waver.
"Look, I can't be dreaming about being in the womb, since that would requireremembering anything before the accident, and I don't." I struggled tokeep my tone level. "I'm having nightmares based on the things people have toldme about my accident, that's all. Everything is great, and then suddenlyeverything goes to hell? It doesn't take a genius to guess that the drums are myheart beating. I know they lost me twice in the ambulance, and that the headtrauma was so bad they thought I was actually brain-dead. If I hadn't woken upwhen I did, they would have pulled the plug. I mean, maybe I don't like the girlthey say I was, but at least she didn't have to go through physical therapy, orrelearn the English language, or relearn everything about living anormal life. Do I feel isolated from her? You bet I do. Lucky bitch died thatday, at least as long as her memories stay gone. I'm just the one who has todeal with all the paperwork."
Dr. Morrison raised an eyebrow, looking nonplussed. Then he reached for hisnotepad. "Interesting," he said.
Somehow I managed not to groan.
The rest of the session was as smooth as any of them ever were. Dr. Morrisonasked questions geared to make me blow up again; I dodged them as best as Icould, and bit the inside of my lip every time I felt like I might lose my cool.At the end of the hour, we were both disappointed. He was disappointed because Ihadn't done more yelling, and I was disappointed because I'd yelled in the firstplace. I hate losing my temper. Even more, I hate losing it in front of peoplelike Dr. Morrison. Being Sally Mitchell sucks sometimes. There's always anotherdoctor who wants a question answered and thinks the best way to do it is to pokea stick through the bars of my metaphorical cage. I didn't volunteer to be thefirst person whose life was saved by a tapeworm. It just happened.
I have to remind myself of that whenever things get too ridiculous: I am alivebecause of a genetically engineered tapeworm. Not a miracle; God was notinvolved in my survival. They can call it an "implant" or an "IntestinalBodyguard," with or without that damn trademark, but the fact remains that we'retalking about a tapeworm. A big, ugly, blind, parasitic invertebrate that livesin my small intestine, where it naturally secretes a variety of usefulchemicals, including—as it turns out—some that both stimulate brainactivity and clean toxic byproducts out of blood.
The doctors were as surprised by that as I was. They're still investigatingwhether the tapeworm's miracle drugs are connected to my memory loss. Frankly, Ineither care nor particularly want to know. I'm happy with who I've become sincethe accident.
Dr. Morrison's receptionist smiled blandly as I signed out. SymboGen requiredphysically-witnessed time stamps for my sessions. I smiled just as blandly back.It was the safest thing to do. I'd tried being friendly during my first sixmonths of sessions, until I learned that I was basically under review from thetime I stepped through the door. Anything I did while inside the office could beentered into my file. Since those first six months included more than a fewcrying jags in the lobby, they were enough to buy me even more therapy.
"Have a nice day, Miss Mitchell," said the receptionist, taking back herclipboard. "See you next week."
I smiled at her again, sincerely this time. "Only if my doctors agree withwhatever assessment Dr. Morrison comes up with, instead of agreeing with me. Ifthere is any justice in this world, you'll never be seeing me again."
(Continues...)Excerpted from Parasite by Mira Grant. Copyright © 2013 Mira Grant. Excerpted by permission of Orbit.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- ASIN : B00AFGKSDS
- Publisher : Orbit (October 29, 2013)
- Publication date : October 29, 2013
- Language : English
- File size : 957 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 513 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #185,770 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #555 in Hard Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #789 in Genetic Engineering Science Fiction eBooks
- #1,121 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Mira Grant lives in California, sleeps with a machete under her bed and highly suggests you do the same. Mira Grant is the open pseudonym of Seanan McGuire, a successful fantasy writer and the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.
Find out more about the author at www.miragrant.com or follow her on twitter @seananmcguire.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
In the near future health care has become almost universally standardized. A company by the name of SymboGen has found away to take one of nature's more pesky parasites and turn it into a revolutionary way of delivering medicine. There is almost no down sides and millions have been saved that might have other wised perished. In the case of one one woman the SymboGen treatment may even have brought her back from the the dead. Of course this is an unexpected side effect, one that SymboGen doesn't quite understand so they are very eager, or very worried, and want to find an explanation as soon as possible. This is the story of Sally Mitchell, the girl who came back.
The Story(Some Story Details):
Sally Mitchell was not the nicest person in the world before her accident. While her SymboGen implant saved her body from the effects of getting T-Boned by a semi-truck, it didn't quite stop her brain from getting banged around a bit. In fact she doesn't remember anything at all from her past. Which is why she prefers to be called Sal now since she's apparently a completely opposite person now. It has taken Sal almost two years to make up all the progress she lost due to the accident.
She is ready to move on with her life but SymboGen still hasn't gotten the answers they wanted. There is also some lingering side effects that no one can quite explain. While some might normal, like nightmare's, there are others such as severe allergy reactions that could be deadly. So Sal puts up with the continuing tests whether she likes it or not.
Everything changes though when a strange new sickness starts to spread across the country. It causes normal people to act as if they are suddenly sleep walking. The victims start out docile but eventually they become aggressive, almost as if they are hunting something. As the sickness accelerates it seems that SymboGen might not have been quite as beneficial as they seemed.
The answers lie locked in the head of Sal Mitchell. Now she and her ragtag group of friends and unlikely allies must delve into the shrouded history of SymboGen to find the truth behind what was thought to be the miracle of the century.
Conclusion(My Overall Opinion on the Story):
This was a pretty good read. The story moves a pretty good clip, it does get a little fast toward the end as this is the first book in the trilogy so the next book needs to get it's story arc's setup. It's not really that distracting, just after a certain point in the book there are a few “and then!” moments. The story may remind some of “The Host”, while there are a few similarities the idea has more to do with the “humans mess nature's plan and that's a bad idea” concept than anything else. The characters are also interesting for the most part. Just about everyone has more than meets the eye to them or most likely will in the sequel. If your interested in thrillers that have a side of “mysterious virus may destroy the world” or you liked the “news flesh trilogy” give this one a read. m.a.c
The protagonist of this novel is Sally Mitchell, a young woman who had a terrible car accident and was essentially brain dead until a parasite was injected into her and she regained consciousness. The problem is she is nothing like the young woman she had been before the accident. In fact, she has no memory of her former life. She can't even speak a single language so she has to relearn English. When we meet her she has been out of her coma for 6 years and is dating a doctor (no not one of hers) and is resentful she has to go to a psychiatrist, as well as get checked out by the corporation who injected her with the parasite every six months. Her parents have legal guardianship over her although technically she is a grown woman, she only has 6 years of life experience.
The other characters in the book are just as good, if not better, than Sally. They are a diverse group, for example, Sally's father is a Colonel in the U.S. Army and a doctor who works at a research lab. Her boyfriend, Nathan, is the foremost expert in parasitology which is terribly helpful when Sally starts trying to figure out what is causing everyone to go all zombie. Her sister, Joyce, who she evidently didn't get along with before her accident becomes her best friend. Then there are the people she works at the animal shelter with, Will and Tasha. Not to mention a couple of adorable dogs mixed in with the rest and you have a very lovable group.
Overall this was an enormously enjoyable read, considerably well-written and highly recommended.
Top reviews from other countries
El mundo, el cambio de paradigma que supone un desarrollo de este tipo, no está desarrollado y parece que no se ha pensado.
Los personajes son unidimensionales. son meras etiquetas, carentes de profundidad y de justificación.
Las relaciones entre los personajes y las reacciones de estos al descubrir las supuestas "sorpresas" son muy poco creíbles.
Si habéis leído el primer capítulo y ya imagináis lo que va a pasar, podéis dejar de leer, no hay nada imprevisible en este libro, nada nuevo, no hay especulación, nada.
Sin animo de desmerecer a los culebrones comparándolos con este libro, es como un culebrón en el que los giros son tan malos que los ves venir desde el episodio 1 de 400.
This is my first book from Mira Grant and I have to say I like her style. This is a real page turner and the slow paced story make me care a lot about the characters. I am starting the sequel as soon as I am done with this review... Meaning NOW!
I highly recommend this book!
The narrative delves into the processes of physical and mental recovery that are stirring. The genetic manipulation of the gut parasite has devastating effects when released on the population as a panacea for illness just by popping a pill. Marvellous, but Mira Grant delivers a grim account in her narrative of how a scientific marvel can have catastrophic effects through the doctors, scientists and the affected. The morals and ethics smell as much as the financial rewards.
This is an excellent and topical novel. It is part fact and fiction. I mention the former as drugs and other agents are currently being investigated and delivered by genetically modified viruses and bacteria. An intriguing read. I look forward to reading the second part.
Under the lowering shadow of the faintly paternal and obscurely threatening Symbogen, Sal Mitchell is just not improving any further after a car accident six years ago killed her but the Symbogen engineered intestinal bodyguard saved her life. She has no memories of the life she led before the car accident and in a very real sense has been learning to be herself for the last six years.What Sal doesn't know, what she can't let herself know, is why. And how does this make her so important to both sides in an upcoming war? When the battle lines are drawn, which side will she stand on?
Anyone who has read any science fiction is going to figure out in about twelve pages what the big plot twist is. On the other hand I think it was never intended to be a big twist; the conflict in this first book is on a small scale - Sal vs herself. Sal vs Symbogen and her loving but controlling parents , then later Sal vs the sleeping sickness which may have something to do with symbogen implants. As a confused character who has not had a lifetime to learn social mores and niceties (and therefore doubts that she is behaving appropriately, ceding control to others) Sal is sympathetic and well depicted. Yet she does have agency. She is frightened on an instinctual level and while she doesn't have the polish of some female characters or the hard carapace of others, she does have a well of her own strength which she draws on. I suppose if I had a niggle about her character it would be the 'I don't understand the science' aspect. But then as a former scientist I find it hard to believe that anyone wouldn't understand the science so perhaps that is personal bias.
This is the beginning of the end; the dawn before the apocalypse. Don't expect big portents or lights in the sky, but there will be signs. I am looking forward to reading book two and very glad that book three is out later this year.