Publisher's Weekly Review
This cerebral and visceral sequel to Parasite pits the sentient tapeworm who has taken on the body and identity of dead Sally Mitchell against the rapacious profit motives of Dr. Steven Banks, founder of SymboGen, the organization that originally genetically modified the tapeworms. He keeps Sally's sister Tansy chained up for experimental purposes and pursues both Sally and his former ally, Dr. Shanti Cale, who now seeks to undo the results of their collaboration. Sally's boyfriend wants marriage despite her zombielike status; adversary tapeworm Dr. Sherman Lewis kidnaps Sally to enlist her in his plot for tapeworms to seize world supremacy from humans. Soon San Francisco is quarantined and society is collapsing nationwide. Cale's profession of love for all her children, regardless of their species, adds a piquancy that elevates this series above the standard zombie genre, as does the tension between love and duty felt by Col. Alfred Mitchell, Sally's father. Grant allows the moral debate to slow the story's movement following the meeting of Banks and Cale, but the richness of the plot sustains the reader's interest in how the characters will negotiate this strange new world. Agent: Diana Fox, Fox Literary. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
Sal Mitchell's world changed at the end of the first book of the series, 2013's Parasite. She believed that the parasite that she and millions of others like her had implanted was helping her, but now she realizes that she is the parasite. Sal and love interest Nathan (and everyone else in San Francisco) are in grave danger from the hordes of humans whose implants have started attacking their hosts, and there are those who want the parasites to win. The chief villain, as with all good horror, is the human who created the monsters out of hubris and greed. VERDICT Pretty much nonstop action keeps the narrative moving, with only a few inconvenient stops for scientific exposition. Grant (author of the "Newsflesh" series and "October Daye" series under the name Seanan McGuire) sometimes has trouble striking the right tone for Sal, who is a challenging heroine and by turns horribly naive and maturely intuitive. Be warned, this one ends on another cliff-hanger. [See Eric Norton's sf/fantasy feature, "A Multiplicity of Realms," LJ 8/14.-Ed.] (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.