The Boy on the Bridge

A crew of military and civilian workers traverses the post-apocalyptic world to take samples from the hungries and try to discover something groundbreaking to create a cure. They operate and travel in Rosie, an armored cross between a tank and an RV with small living quarters, weapons, and a lab. Its crew is plagued with lies, secrets, politics, and resentments becoming more toxic by the day. Pregnant Samrina Khan feels very protective of Stephen Greaves, an exceptional boy largely dismissed by the rest of the crew. He goes on unsanctioned journeys with untested inventions and eventually discovers something lifechanging, but the crew would never believe him. He keeps the information to himself until he has something concrete, but doesn't think about how this could effect the others around him.

The Boy on the Bridge is a prequel and slight sequel to The Girl with All the Gifts. Melanie and her crew stumble onto Rosie in the latter book and it's nice to fill in what happened and then tie the two stories together. This book is just as addictive as the first with just as varied characters. Stephen had an extremely traumatic chidhood where his parents were killed by hungries and their corpses protected him from discovery. As an older child, he has odd behaviors such as avoiding eye contact and physical contact with other people. He views things analytically and keeps his emotions separate. With his brilliance, photographic memory, and scientific curiosity, Stephen developed the e-blocker that masks human scent from hungries. Stephen seems to be somewhere on the autism sprectrum, but it's never explicitly stated. I felt for him because of how easily the rest of the crew dismisses him. However, he made some pretty terrible decisions that put everyone at risk.

The rest of the crew is a hodgepodge of people who don't get along. Colonel Carlisle is in command and makes confident decisions with little input from anyone else. His past is full of mistakes like firebombing civilians at the beginning of the outbreak and everyone at least internally calls his command into question. Lieutenant McQueen is a hot headed soldier who follows orders only to the letter with a big dose of disdain if he thinks he knows better.  The civilian leader Dr. Fournier undermines the entire operation with secret communication to Beacon, their base, and orders to delay so a coup won't be interrupted. He's completely willing to even sacrifice lives to garner a little bit of favor from a general. Of course he doesn't get along with any of the military as they exclude him in any decision making and in general. These tensions explode (mostly because of big egos) during the course of the story and make situations even worse.

There are two types of hungries here. The first is the mindless type that go into stasis with no stimuli. Sound, smell, movement, and body heat make them return to consciousness and attack whatever caught their attention. As heliotropes, they face the sun in their stasis and move with it. At night, movement and smell of nocturnal animals keep them active. Extreme temperatures have little effect on them and only destroying the brain will kill them. Two theories seem to be plausible about the people they used to be; either they are trapped inside the mind without the ability to control their body or they simply lose all sense of self. These types of hungries almost seem alien after the more intelligent type seen in both this novel and its predecessor.  The second iteration of them can communicate, use tools, reason, and organize in groups. Physically, their bodies are the same as the normal ones and their brains are completely different as shown with Stephen's experiments. The fungus was introduced to their bodies before they are developed, thus retaining about half of the brain chemicals and function. These being between hungry and human are fascinating and it seems that they are still a mystery even though more is explained about their state.

The Boy on the Bridge isn't quite as good as The Girl with All the Gifts, but it's close. The latter has a much bigger scope because its events affected all of  humanity. This former is on a smaller scale, but gave a better look at the past. The characters were pretty frustrating all around and I didn't connect to them as well. The writing is wonderful as usual and I was engaged for the entire story. The interesting mix of human drama, zombies, and science drew me in. I would love another book to come out as a full sequel to The Girl with All the Gifts.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins