Title: Parasite Positive
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Release date: 7th June 2007
Publisher: Atom
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 has infected the girlfriends he has had since Morgan, and it’s
now his job to hunt them down before they can create even more of their kind.
Cal is carrying an infectious parasite which has completely
ruined his social life! As a carrier, Cal has become part of the Night Watch to
track down those who have not been so lucky and have been turned into murderous
beasts by the disease. But when the parasite begins to change and adapt, using
different hosts, can the Night Watch save New York?
This review is for my brother, Kane, who would love this
book! Kane is currently off doing the student thing at Bangor University and I
am very proud of him. He is very interested in Science-y stuff (he is studying
Zoology with Marine Biology) and this is definitely for anyone who likes an
element of non-fiction to their novels.
This book was relocated to my local library recently and it
was the unusual title that made me pick it up. I know it is quite a few years
old but I am so glad I gave the book a chance! I really enjoyed it because it
offered me something different as a reader. In between the chapters there are
brief scientific interludes which offer more details about parasites.... which
is weird.... and a little disturbing... but also really interesting and (I hate
to use this word again but) different! It is almost like a crime novel with the
background to the characters being revealed, adding another element to the tale
and allowing us to see more than an average bystander would. Well in this
novel, the background to parasites is given. Like I said, it is a little disturbing
and eeewwww! at times but really useful for the rest of the book, giving it
context and also expanding the novel in a way that I have never seen any other
vampire novel do. These chapters also allow the reader to understand the
situation just as Cal does as a member of the Night Watch so that we can ground
the novel in real 21st century science.
The character of Cal is really easy to engage with because
he is so realistic and unapologetic. He is a young man, hungry and horny and
frightened and raw and the author really captures his spirit and instils it in
his actions and reactions. Written from Cal’s point of view the book is one
long flow of emotional energy.
I know I have stressed the science element of the book, and
I think that made the story for me, but there are so many effective layers
which Scott Westerfeld brings together, his characters are engaging and
believable and the story is rooted in fact, this could happen. It is also an unusual look at the vampire, their lore
and mythology and links myths with the historical facts, not just the
scientific ones.
I want to recommend this book to anyone who likes reading
(and that isn’t a flippant remark). What I mean by this is that Parasite Positive offers something
unusual in the way that it is written and so even if you aren’t keen on the
content, I think that you would enjoy the form. If you like traditional vampires, you might be
taken aback but I am a big fan of the vampire (as much as you can be of a blood
sucking maniac!) and I enjoyed it.
5/5 If you are a tiny bit squeamish then avoid this book but
otherwise YOU MUST READ IT! I am looking forward to getting the sequel!
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