Synopsis
Five years after a powerful broadcast turned a sizable portion of the world’s population bloodthirsty and mad, communities have begun the slow steps of righting themselves. John Bonner monitors activity in the walled “fever house” of Portland, Oregon, while Katherine Moriarty has fled to the East Coast in an attempt to build a new life for herself. Meanwhile, in France, a young girl appears to have gained an unimaginable ability…
Review
This past summer, I devoured Fever House in two days. That story begins like a gritty crime novel that just happens to have a cursed hand in it. A hand that makes anyone near it crazy and violent.
But there’s a greater scope to Fever House, too, as the story takes in shady government black ops, washed up punk rockers, low level criminals, fallen angels, and shamed cops. It’s both sprawling and propulsive, simultaneously gnarly and sentimental, and it easily made it onto the short list of favorite books of 2023.
Fever House also ends with about a half dozen balls in the air, not least of which is an apparent zombie apocalypse, so I’ve been eagerly awaiting the sequel, while also wondering if Rosson could possibly match the first book’s balls-out propulsive drive.
The answer is no, and that appears to be very much by design.
The Devil By Name almost immediately sets itself a very different tone and pace. Its scope is wider, its palette broader, and it jumps genres at least twice. In short, while Fever House was a hopped-up demonic crime freak out, The Devil By Name is much more controlled. It’s also a much sadder book.
It’s been five years since the events of Fever House, and the world is in shambles, even as the US’s corporate-sponsored, theocratic government attempts to assert some sort of normalcy. This is genuine post-apocalyptic end-times stuff, and no one is having a good time. Drifts of fevered zombies wander the coutryside, while others are rounded up into “Fever Houses,” giant warehouses where they simply shuffle about, ageless and unthinking.
Despite all of this, the powerful are still doing their thing, trying to scrape more power out of a near-hopeless situation, trying to figure out how to maneuver the end of the world into yet another play for domination.
Katherine Moriarty, a woman inescapably bound to the origins of this whole crisis, is living under the radar with an assumed name and a mindless, soul-numbing bureaucratic job. She’s also keeping her fevered son chained up in the shed out back. When that situation comes to a head, Katherine and a new ally set off on a cross country road trip.
Meanwhile, a young woman in France is being shuttled from one place to another as first one violent man and then another attempt to exploit what appears to be her supernatural power. Before long, she is caught up in the various government machinations and is drawn into the web as well.
The result is a book that sprawls, that involves cross-country treks reminiscent of The Stand and tense trial-by-fire relationships that reminded me of The Girl With All the Gifts.
The latter third of the book cranks up the pace again, and hurtles us toward a genuine cosmic showdown, bringing everything full circle in a way that feel smuch more complete, but still leaves the door open for the next chapter.
Once again, we are treated to myriad set pieces that are by turns horrific, lovely, and terrifying. And under all of the horror, this book, more than Fever House, seems to insist that when put to the test, humanity might just find a certain level of care and decency, that love might win the day. At least every once in a while.
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