The Girl with All the Gifts
Book cover from official website
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| Author | M.R. Carey |
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| Language | English |
| Genre | Dystopia |
| Publisher | Orbit Books |
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Publication date
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June 2014 |
| Pages | 460 |
| ISBN | |
The Girl with All the Gifts is a science-fiction novel by M.R. Carey, published in June 2014 by Orbit Books, based on his Edgar Award winning short story Iphigenia In Aulis. It deals with a dystopian future in which most of humanity is wiped out by a fungal infection.
Melanie - test subject number four, a host of the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungal infection. She has a brilliant intellect.
Miss Helen Justineau - a compassionate teacher with a psychology background, who has become attached to the child subjects of the military-run experiment at Hotel Echo. She always wears one item of red in her clothing or accessories.
Sergeant Eddie Parks - a battle-hardened, non-commissioned officer who is acting as field commander of the Hotel Echo military complex. He has a wobbly, diagonal scar which makes his broad, flat face asymmetrical and inconceivably ugly.
Dr. Caroline Caldwell - the scientific leader of the study taking place at Hotel Echo. She is the teachers' boss. She wears a white coat, red lipstick and compulsively clicks her pen.
Private Kieran Gallagher - a young soldier at Hotel Echo.
Mr. Whitaker - the only male teacher at Hotel Echo.
Dr. Jean Selkirk - a teacher at Hotel Echo, and Dr. Caldwell's surgical assistant.
Miss Mailer - a teacher at Hotel Echo.
"Hungry" children: Anne, Kenny, Ronnie, Lizzie, Steven, Tom, Siobhan, Joanne, Liam, Marcia, Andrew.
Twenty years ago humanity was infected by a variant of the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. The infected, referred to as "hungries", quickly lose their mental powers and feed on the flesh of healthy humans. The disease spreads through blood and saliva, but can also spread through spores created by the fungus. In England, the few surviving uninfected humans either live in heavily-guarded areas such as Beacon, or roam in packs of hostile, scavenging "junkers".
The authorities in Beacon set up a remote military base for the study of a specific group of child hungries. They, unlike others, are able to retain their mental powers and only lose control when they get too close to human scent. Soldiers, led by Sergeant Eddie Parks, find such hungries and bring them to the base, where they are educated by teachers and tested by the head scientist, Dr. Caroline Caldwell. This often means she vivisects the children, which Helen Justineau, a behavioural psychologist and base teacher, dislikes. Justineau sees the child hungries as people, and is especially fond of Melanie, a 10-year-old with a genius-level IQ. Melanie loves Justineau as a surrogate mother. Like the other children, Melanie does not understand that she is different.
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