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The Feed: A Novel
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The Feed: A Novel
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The Feed: A Novel
Ebook375 pages6 hours

The Feed: A Novel

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Blake Crouch's Recursion meets Mad Max and The Girl with All the Gifts in this startling and timely debut that explores what it is to be human and what it truly means to be connected in the digital age.

The Feed is accessible everywhere, by everyone, at any time. It instantaneously links us to all information and global events as they break. Every interaction, every emotion, every image can be shared through it; it is the essential tool everyone relies on to know and understand the thoughts and feelings of partners, parents, friends, children, colleagues, bosses, employees . . . in fact, of anyone and everyone else in the world.

Tom and Kate use the Feed, but Tom has resisted its addiction, which makes him suspect to his family. After all, his father created it. But that opposition to constant connection serves Tom and Kate well when the Feed collapses after a horrific tragedy shatters the world as they know it.

The Feed’s collapse, taking modern society with it, leaves people scavenging to survive. Finding food is truly a matter of life and death. Minor ailments, previously treatable, now kill. And while the collapse has demolished the trappings of the modern world, it has also eroded trust. In a world where survival of the fittest is a way of life, there is no one to depend upon except yourself . . . and maybe even that is no longer true.

Tom and Kate have managed to protect themselves and their family. But then their six-year-old daughter, Bea, goes missing. Who has taken her? How do you begin to look for someone in a world without technology? And what happens when you can no longer even be certain that the people you love are really who they claim to be?

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateMar 13, 2018
ISBN9780062651884
Author

Nick Clark Windo

Nick Clark Windo studied English literature at Cambridge and acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and he now works as a film producer and communications coach. The Feed, his first thriller, was inspired by his realization that people are becoming increasingly disconnected from one another, as well as by philosophical questions about identity and memory. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.

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Reviews for The Feed

Rating: 3.28906246875 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    We’ve all heard the cautionary tales involving social media, about the dangers of being constantly plugged in. Nick Clark Windo’s dark thriller debut takes this idea even further, imagining a future where people are permanently connected via implants so that access to everything is instantaneous as well as continuous. This is “the Feed” that the novel’s title is referring to—a new tech that humans have become so dependent on, and so addicted to, that society can no longer function without it. And so, when the Feed collapses one day, the results are predictably catastrophic. Some of the most basic skills and knowledge are lost to the digital abyss as everyone must now learn how to survive offline and fend for themselves in this Feed-less new world.For couple Kate and Tom, the adjustment has not been easy. But they have managed to keep going the past few years, living with a group of survivors as they raised their daughter Bea, who was born post-collapse. But then one day, Bea goes missing, snatched away by raiders, and so Kate and Tom must embark on a treacherous journey to bring her back.It’s said that things have to get bad before they can get better, and likewise, some books make you go through some really rough patches before you can get to the good parts of the story. The Feed was a book like that. For most of the first half, I struggled with nearly everything—the characters, the plot, the world-building. From the moment the story opened, my patience was put to the test. I found both protagonists horribly off-putting. Kate was especially annoying, as a heavy user of the Feed before its collapse. She was an attention monger, self-absorbed and totally oblivious. To be fair, she was probably written this way by design, but in this case the author might have overplayed her personality. Tom, on the other hand, struck me as bland and lacking in any spirit or agency. I didn’t feel like I could connect to either of them at all, which made the first part of this book a difficult slog. I also struggled with the world-building and the exaggerated side effects of the Feed. Humans are biologically hard-wired for curiosity, and I found it hard to believe that almost the entire population would simply surrender themselves to the Feed unquestioningly and let themselves become so helpless.And then the collapse happened, and subsequently, Bea’s disappearance really turned things around. Not to the point where I suddenly loved the book, mind you, but the story did become immensely more enjoyable once Tom and Kate finally had something to fight for. The second half of The Feed unfolded a lot more like a traditional dystopian novel, following our protagonists as they traversed the post-apocalyptic landscape, encountering violence and suffering. However, there is also a unique element to this world, which comes in the form of a very specialized threat. Even after the collapse, the sinister legacy of the Feed remains as those who possess the biological implants live in fear of being “taken”, a term to describe the process of being hacked and having your consciousness along with your personality and memories wiped clean and replaced. The result is a lot of chaos, mistrust, and panic, along with an “us vs. them” mentality among the survivors. While The Feed is not a zombie story, you can see how the overall tone and some of its themes can sometimes make it feel like one.There is also a monumental twist near the end that changed nearly everything, and I’m still not entirely sure what to make of it simply because it was so out of left field. Did it make this book more interesting? Yes. But in terms of whether it made the story more coherent or feasible, probably not. That said, I’m impressed with how Windo handled the challenges that came about because of this surprising development. Everything could have fallen apart, but ultimately he was able to keep the threads of the story together and saw things through to the end.I won’t lie, there were a lot of issues with this novel, particularly with the pacing and balance of the story’s numerous concepts. Still, there were plenty of fascinating ideas in here that I appreciated for their originality, especially once I got past the initial hurdles. There’s an almost sputtering, sporadic feel to the plot; in some ways, it’s like an engine that needs to be primed several times before it catches, but once it starts running, the ride smooths out and becomes a lot more enjoyable. The journey was certainly not boring, and that’s probably the best thing I can say about a novel in a saturated market like the dystopian genre.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Another post-apocalyptic novel with a bit of a twist. The feed is basically an implanted social media stream gone crazy. Everyone knows everything, speaking is basically unnecessary and life if fast paced. When the feed is destroyed the world it thrown into chaos. I thought this was interesting but I could have done with some more world explanation early on as it was a bit complicated. A good read if you are a fan of the genre.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Anxiety and depression seems to be raging across the planet and it’s easy for the pundits to point to smartphones and social media consumption as the culprits. Researchers have long proven that the areas of our brain that light up when we use social media and or hear that bing that tells us we have a text message are the same areas that light up when stimulatd by addictive drugs. Dopamine receptors are stimulated by the constant barrage on our screens. Nick Clark Windo tackles the social and philosophical question of what happens when that drip-line of stimulation stops. In The Feed, the world is connected to an internet on steroids, a kind of hyper connected web called ‘the Feed.’ When the technology fails, the world is plunged into chaos. People have become so dependent on the Feed that it leads to a breakdown in society. People had forgotten how to trust, how to function in basic social situations, how to remember things—all these actions that hae been outsourced to the Feed. It is technological dystopia that’s been compared to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Stephen King’s Cell. Parents Tom and Kate are the protagonists trying to survive in this broken world as they search for their abducted daughter. They suffer through the fog of withdrawal from the Feed.Windo’s novel explores how the effects of technology aren’t merely conceptual or political, and how they might steadily change our patterns of perception. Studies have show how it’s much harder to sustain deep mental dives and long bouts of concentration. Short term memory has eroded. The book shows the dark side of an over reliance on tech. Tech is great when it helps humanity think, create, produce. But when it starts infiltrating not only our thoughts but our brains, it becomes less benign. The Feed was a thought-provoking read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    In an eerily realistic near-future setting this book will make you think about your own social media lives and how much we all rely on the internet and technology. Without it reviews such as this wouldn’t be possible!It is hard to believe that this is a debut novel and what a way to make your entrance into the world of literature, producing a novel that i am sure has given many book clubs hours of discussion. I know i have been talking about it, even to people who aren’t readers because The Feed is in some ways could be the way we are heading!As it is today any of us can pop on twitter and find out what Stephan King is watching on Netflix or on Facebook and see what our next door neighbour had for their lunch and the premise of The Feed is taking those capabilities and A.I intelligence to a more advanced level of access and how society copes when it is all taken away from them.The Feed is the way of life for the entire planet, no need to spend months learning a new language or going to uni to study law when you can have all that knowledge fed straight to your brain in an instant. You have access to everyone’s thoughts, memories and feelings, (I guess it would cut down the infidelity rates!) as well as other people’s locations. And for a cost you can have all your memories, your entire being backed up and saved to the Feeds servers.As in real life the technology is taken for granted and is their normal everyday lives, but not everyone chose to be “switched on” whilst others like Tom and Kate who choose to “going slow” meaning unplugging themselves from the Feed to free themselves of the addiction, even for short periods of time. And being unplugged means that they have to actually talk in words!! (shock horror!)So when the Feed suddenly malfunctions and then entirely collapses the human race has no idea how to survive without it. As all the power goes out and the world defended into complete anarchy the knowledge of how to produce and harness electricity along with everything else dies with the Feed.And now all that is left is an apocalyptic world with very few survivors of which many have turned feral leaving very few that can be trusted. And just to make life that much easier (like that’s going to happen!) people are having their bodies taken over by something unknown wiping out who the host used to be entirely. And the only way to try to stop it is always having someone watch over you as you sleep. Never fall asleep on your own and watch closely for signs of being “taken”Kate and Toms daughter Bea was born after the collapse and has been brought up on a remote farm with a handful of survivors and for her and the others life on the farm is as safe and peaceful as it can be in a world gone to ruin. But of course that doesn’t last forever! A catastrophic night turns their lives upside-down yet again and sets Tom and Kate on an epic journey across a hostile country in search of their daughter.There as certainly some interesting characters along they way that help make this book so great. You may see some bits coming but there are a lot more that you won’t! This is not a book that you can start reading and put back down so be prepared to lose some sleep over this one! You have been warned lol.The Feed is now in the process of being turned into a tv series which is set to premiere in 2019 on Amazon Video starring Christopher Eccleston, Marion Bailey, Guy Burnet, Michelle Fairley, and David Thewlis I just hope it does the book justices as this is one hell of a book!!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The Feed seemed a promising concept for a post-apocalyptic techno thriller, but I struggled to connect with the plot and characters, both of which failed to hold my interest. Although I enjoy this genre very much, this particular book was well written, but not the best fit for me.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Intriguing premise about a dystopian, alterna-U.S. future in which everyone gets a brain implant in utero that delivers memories, information, access to people's emotions, memories and thoughts on demand - like a social newsfeed on crack that eventually destroys the world.Best analogy of the reading experience that I can give: think cyber-tech version of The Road through the haze of a surreal fever dream. I'm not sure what it was; I'm not sure it made any sense at all.As others have said, the book doesn't deliver on the intrigue of the premise. The story is so poorly plotted that I'm not sure there's any story at all - none of the dots connect. This is a muddled mess. Honestly, I kept reading out of a sense of responsibility since I received an advance copy and (as pages went by) out of dimming hope that a payoff would come eventually. Spoiler: it doesn't. Can't recommend.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I really liked the concept of Feed. At first I was concerned that it would end up as a anti tech diatribe. But it wasn't. It was well written and the concept very interesting. For a debut novel I'd say well done. The issue I did have was a too early reveal of one of the main characters. It led me to dislike them from about half way through. And didn't allow for any sympathy. But still a good read.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    While the premise of this novel began strong, I could not stay interested and I found myself completely thrown off mid-book.The idea of the titular Feed is that everyone is connected via an electronic "Feed" that allows them to share and go into each other's minds and memories.The main male character, Tom, was the first to be implanted with the Feed chip while in utero. His father was the creator.When the Feed collapses and the US president is assassinated, the entire world goes bonkers. Also, there is the problem of people being "taken," and fellow survivors being forced to kill those victims of the unknown hacker.As mentioned, I was thrown half way through the book when Tom's wife, Kate, is suddenly no longer Kate.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The idea of this book is fascinating -everything is no ties to the Feed. You can access everything through the feed - books are obsolete, people don't actually speak to each other, instead communicating through the feed in their minds. Most people are enabled but their are some resistors. The book is about what happens when the feed collapses and people's minds are taken by others. It is a post apocalyptic world where those remaining are struggling to survive. But it did confuse me at times - I didn't really understand how Sylene was coming from the future. I also would have liked to know what happened to Bea. But if you like science fiction/end of world books, you will enjoy this. I received an ARC from LibraryThing.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.The internet and its underlying technologies have taken over the world - literally. Everyone is connected, even babies before they are born. So when it all crashes it takes the world with it - literally. Now what do you do?That is the story of The Feed. It has been compared to recent books like Station Eleven. Unfortunately, that comparison falls short. While The Feed is a well written story with some very good twists, it suffers from weak characters. I was completely caught up in the 'what' of the story, but I really didn't care about the 'why' or 'who'.Readers of techno-thrillers and post-apocalyptic beach reads will most likely enjoy The Feed. For me, it left me wanting to turn off my computer and open a really good book.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book was tough for me. I loved the premise...that people are so connected to The Feed - the internet evolved so information and feelings and memories actually enter people's minds directly, and then The Feed collapses and how do people survive? The first chapter set it up - we see people in a cafe, where there is no sound of people talking, because everyone is so connected to The Feed that they don't interact with anyone in the cafe, including the people they came with. I wanted to see more of how people lived with The Feed. I felt like I got the idea of it, but didn't really feel immersed in it, so when The Feed collapsed, I didn't feel like I had as full a sense of loss as I wanted to. And then it was grim - we jump ahead in time and people are barely suriving. And then some people have to be killed...but we're not really sure why. I wanted to like this much more than I did. I am grateful to librarything for the opportunity to read it, though!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This novel is a post-apocalypse science fiction novel, which is a genre I enjoy, so I might be biased. Tom and Kate live in a world controlled by the Feed, which is akin to an Internet of everyone's thoughts and feelings and all the worlds information residing in your brain. It is highly addictive. People don't talk and instead communicate via the Feed. Tragedy occurs and the Feed goes down. People do not know how to cope in this new world. Tom and Kate survive and cope until their daughter is abducted. How can they find her without the Feed?This novel is plot driven and captured my interest from the beginning. It is far fetched, but inventive. The authors descriptions of a ruined world are vivid. Tom and Kate are fairly well written characters. Unfortunately, secondary characters are one-dimensional. I recommend the book to fans of this genre.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Imagine everything you need is given to you by the feed directly to your brain. All communication and all information that you used to need a device for is now at your disposal instantly 24/7. Now imagine that something goes wrong and it is turned off forever. Everyone goes crazy and cities collapse but somehow there are survivors. This is the story of a handful of them and a study of how people react in a crisis. It reminded me of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road". "The Feed" will scare you because you can see a grain of truth. Think about how much we depend on technology and our little devices every day. The story took awhile for me to get fully into it. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The Feed has an interesting concept, it is like an all encompassing virtual internet in ones head. People are basically addicted to it and communicate not by speaking with each other anymore but by accessing the Feed. Until suddenly the Feed is gone and civilization collapses. Chaos ensues and people are lost and many are unable to survive without it. A few do band together and try to make a go of it but there are issues of not only survival but trust as people must be watched as they sleep so they won't be 'taken' by some type of mind hacker. If they are taken they must be killed. I found it interesting but not as well written as it could have been. Good concept though.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Imagine a world in the future where everything isn't just at your fingertips...they're at your eye-tips. Want to look something up? Do it on the feed, right in your head. Need to contact someone? All on the feed? But be careful...if you don't respond to that message from your twelve friends in 10 seconds or less, they'll wonder what you're doing. Sounds pretty familiar, right?That's the premise of the feed. But then what happens when it all collapses? That's what Windo's book, The Feed, tries to figure out. This is a post-apocalyptic journey in a world where the feed doesn't exist, and so does the wealth of human knowledge. What do people know how to do? How can people survive? What will happen? This book felt like a mix of The Circle and Revolution (the tv show).The characters seem pretty interesting at first, but the plot suffers from not much going on in the first 100 pages. If the concept of The Feed keeps you interested, then you'll be able to get past the slow parts and go straight to the meat of the story. However, this lack of progression and being kept too much in the dark can make this a rather slow read.I wish the story could have picked up the pace a little bit. Still, the concepts are interesting and worth a look.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Imagine that we have allowed the Internet to literally take over our brains, so that we don't even need to think about wanting information or remembering anything. Everything we could ever want to know or remember is simply available with the hint of a thought question. But what happens when "the Feed" collapses? Supposedly, that's the question behind this book, but the real story takes place 6 years after "the Collapse" and we only see glimpses of the immediate aftermath. We're to understand, though, that many people were so completely undone by the lack of the Feed that they couldn't function and died. This premise is believable, since the Feed stored everyone's memories of everything and had even supplanted most verbal language. So fine, population decimated, cities ruined, everyone left majorly traumatized, ok. But Tom and Kate have found a haven, though a tenuous one, with a few other survivors. That's all background.The story really begins, or at least I think it's supposed to really begin when Tom and Kate's daughter is kidnapped and they go off in search of her. Except that all that really happens is that they walk. A lot. Don't get me wrong, things do happen, some of them fairly dramatic, except the drama feels like mere blips in a boring landscape, and is so disconnected from everything else that I couldn't bring myself to care much about what was going on.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Well, I won this book in LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program and wasn't sure exactly what to expect. It was quite strange - most of the time, I had a hard time getting into the story. I didn't care much for the characters and felt like the world could have been more fully explained. It took me a long time to finish this and I didn't feel compelled to do so, other than wanting to finish it before the year ended. Not my favorite.Thanks to the publisher for an advance reader's copy.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    To quote a friend... *sigh*But in this context, I hate it when a book doesn't grab me. After finishing "My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry" and drying a tear, I thought I should get into this one. I got it as an Early Review book, in exchange for an honest review. Its a story about what happens when a technologically dependent and connected world, suddenly loses their connection. It sounded intriguing when I requested it. It started off really well, talking about how the feed works and how hard it is to get away from it. Interesting take on our current obsession with social media. But in the 2nd chapter it jumps years ahead and the feed and society has collapsed and no one can remember how to tie their shoes without the Feed. I kept having to re-read passages and I just wasn't finding any character to connect with. Not saying its bad, it just wasn't working for me, and I'm moving on. I hate doing that to an ER book, but I gotta do what I gotta do.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Full of action from star to finish. Really makes you reflect on we take the little things for granted.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very early in Nick Clark Windo’s debut novel, The Feed, (on page 21, to be exact) there is an act of violence so unexpected and shocking that it left me deeply shaken, uncertain about who the protagonist of the story really is. It’s an early portent for how the book constantly upends expectations and messes with the reader’s ideas about good and evil, right and wrong. In recent years, there’s been an explosion in dystopian, post-apocalyptic fiction and, in these troubling times, I find myself drawn to stories about the end times (usually triggered by some man-made cataclysm). The best of these, like Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles and even the TV series “The Walking Dead,” tend to focus less on the minutiae of science and more on human relationships after the breakdown of society as we know it. In The Feed all human beings are neurally connected to an internet-like system which allows them to be in constant contact with others – sharing thoughts, images and emotions - as well as being continuously updated on current breaking news in real-time. Much like so many of those who are unable to tear themselves away from their cell phones, Windo’s characters no longer speak directly with one another even when they sitting together in the same room. They only communicate through the Feed. This might seem far-fetched until you realize that Elon Musk and other Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are currently working on a “neural lace” that will create a “direct cortical interface” with computers. Scary stuff, if you ask me. But look how much privacy and freedom people have already willingly sacrificed for a little convenience. When the Feed is brought down by a mysterious revolutionary group, the grid collapses, chaos ensues and, eventually, society breaks down, leaving those who remain alive scattered and scavenging for what resources are left. The bulk of the story occurs six years after the destruction of society and follows Tom and Kate, who are part of a small group of survivors living on an abandoned farm. When their six-year old daughter goes missing the couple goes on a quest to retrieve her and end up learning the truth about the Feed, their relationship to it and those who destroyed it in the process.If you enjoy post-apocalyptic stories, this is a superior entry to the genre. Not only is it suspenseful, but it’s filled with twists and turns that are guaranteed to keep you guessing until the very end.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Review of Advance Reader’s EditionIn a world where connecting to the Feed at all times is the norm for almost everyone, society has forgotten even the most basic things. Why learn to read when the Feed can provide the information you need, instantaneously? Connect with the Feed and everything is available to you . . . get instructions for whatever you need to do, learn of breaking news as it happens, know the thoughts and feelings of everyone. It’s an addicting rush of connections.Although both Kate and Tom use the feed, Tom has resisted its addition despite the fact that his father is the one who invented the Feed. But their refusal to be constantly connected serves them well when the Feed suddenly collapses in the wake of an unexpected tragedy that shatters the world as they know it. The collapse of the Feed throws modern society into chaos; many of the Feed’s users die, leaving those left behind scrounging for survival. And surviving in this strange, retrogressive world becomes even more difficult when people can be Taken in their sleep. Despite the dangers surrounding them, Kate and Tom have managed to protect their family, including their six-year-old daughter. But Bea’s kidnapping leaves them searching for her in a world in which there’s no way of knowing who people really are and one in which there no longer exists any technology to help them find their child. In this post-apocalyptic world, readers may easily accept the ease with which the Feed imbeds itself in the culture of civilization. It’s not difficult to extrapolate a world in which everyone, including children, would become “plugged in” to the Feed. However, the speed at which the Feed is purported to work doesn’t seem synchronized with the way peoples’ brains actually work. Despite the well-drawn characters and the believable world in which this story unfolds, readers may find the telling of the tale rather muddled and confusing. In addition, the gritty bleakness of the world in which Kate and Tom find themselves sometimes makes for difficult reading. Although the author may not have meant it as such, there is a strong tendency to classify this story as one that, at its core, is a denunciation of technological development. Adding to the rampant bewilderment of the tale, readers are likely to feel cheated and disappointed when some heretofore unmentioned out-of-left-field event abruptly changes everything they thought they’d finally figured out about what was really happening in this convoluted . . . and ultimately disappointing . . . narrative.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An excellent post-apocalyptic novel that takes place in England.Kate and Tom, and their daughter Bea, are living in a small compound with several others. A couple of the residents are still adapting to no longer having The Feed--essentially, the internet in your head. Nearly everyone had been enabled, and when the world collapsed due to assassinations around the world, the water wars, and the collapse of the company that ran The Feed, millions died as their brains could not function without constant contact and information. Bea was born after the collapse.The compound is running out of food and fuel, farming and husbandry aren't going well. They must go out and find electronic parts to harvest windpower or fuel to power their generators. But the people left are scary. And everyone is in danger of being taken while sleeping, as someone somewhere invades their brain and takes over their body. So no one can sleep without being watched.————While the post-apocalyptic scenario of water wars and collapsing information networks is not new, this novel is well thought out and has many original points. And a good twist or two as well.