'The Last of Us' is great. Here's an amazing book (and movie) with an eerily similar plot.

Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO

Just three episodes in, and The Last of Us is already showing committedness of becoming the champion TV amusement of the year. But what if I told you that there's a book, and a movie, with an eerily akin premise? And what if I told you that the some the publication and the movie are really, truly good?

When I archetypal heard of a TV amusement astir a deadly fungal corruption which turns astir of the world's colonisation into zombies, my archetypal thought wasn't of the fashionable machine crippled The Last of Us. Granted, I ne'er played the game. What I did do, however, was work M. R. Carey's astonishing 2014 caller The Girl with All the Gifts(Opens successful a caller window).

I truly privation you to work it, due to the fact that it's great, truthful I'm not going to see immoderate spoilers successful here. But the book's mounting is simply a bleak aboriginal successful which humanity has been each but wiped retired by a deadly fungal infection. The fungi successful question? Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, besides known arsenic the zombie-ant fungus, which you whitethorn admit arsenic 1 of the main crippled devices successful The Last of Us. And yes, 1 of the main characters is simply a young girl.

At this point, you're astir apt wondering whether The Girl with All the Gifts is simply a blatant transcript of The Last of Us, which launched successful 2013. To the champion of my knowledge, it's not.

The Girl with All the Gifts is based connected M.R. Carey's abbreviated communicative Iphigenia successful Aulis, which was published successful 2012 arsenic portion of a short-story postulation called "An Apple for the Creature." And it's not precise loosely based, either; the abbreviated story, which I've besides read, is fundamentally the archetypal section of the novel, with the aforesaid main characters, crippled and setting.

Both the caller and the abbreviated communicative besides see a heart-wrenching twist that I won't reveal, though I volition accidental that it rhymes with parts of the crippled successful Stranger Things, Season 4. The abbreviated story, portion beauteous large connected its own, is conscionable a glimpse into this world. The novel, connected the different hand, is gripping and terrifying. M.R. Carey, who started his vocation arsenic a comic publication writer, knows however to propulsion the pace; erstwhile you commencement reading, it volition beryllium pugnacious to stop, and the publication volition haunt you until you crook that past page.

While The Last of Us and The Girl with All the Gifts person galore similarities, they’re decidedly not the aforesaid story. Yes, some plots impact a radical of radical connected a perilous, zombie-infested journey, and some are centered astir a young miss that’s much than she seems. But successful The Girl with All the Gifts, you’ll acquisition respective unexpected moments we can't accidental excessively overmuch astir (did we accidental they’re heartbreaking, too?), and travel a larger radical of radical whose dynamics alteration rapidly nether the pressures of the world’s cruel surroundings.

Oddly, we haven't lately seen overmuch chatter astir The Girl with All the Gifts, the movie. Yes, there's a 2016 movie based connected the book, starring Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine, Glenn Close, and Sennia Nanua. And I'm blessed to study that the movie is amazingly good, fixed its $5 cardinal fund was orders of magnitude beneath what Hollywood blockbusters get these days. Compared to the book, it does consciousness a small spot rushed astatine the end, truthful my proposal is to work the publication first, and past cheque the movie out, but some are good worthy your time.

There's more! In 2017, Carey published a prequel to The Girl with All the Gifts called The Boy connected the Bridge. I haven't work that one, but it's acceptable up successful the same, fungal-zombie-infested world. The caller has a very bully rating(Opens successful a caller window) connected Goodreads, truthful it's astir apt worthy a read, too.

And if you're yearning for adjacent much dystopia from Carey, cheque retired his "Rampart"(Opens successful a caller window) trilogy, which features a different, albeit nary little sinister menace from nature.

Given that The Last of Us is being revealed connected a play basis, there's plentifulness of clip successful betwixt episodes to quench that fungal zombie dystopia thirst you've astir apt got, truthful springiness The Girl with All the Gifts a try. And enactment distant from the hungries.

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