The Girl with All the Gifts

I actually managed to read the short story this is based on (Iphegenia In Aulis) before reading this. The base concept here is massively intriguing - vampiric children being experimented on in a lab based setting. Vampires can come across as a bit tired, so doing it in this way, from the perspective of one of these child vampires, is a brilliant way to subvert the genre. The dynamic is instantly shifted from the good vs evil dynamic to a much more sympathetic one. These children are damaged through no fault of their own, are being experimented on in a terrifying way. It allows the ‘who is really the monster?' question to be asked in a very clever way.

The short story had set up the basis for this, and this novel expands on it by taking the child out of the laboratory and back into the real world. The relationships develop, the characters motivations are all explored.

This really was a refreshing take on the post apocalyptic vampire genre. Strong shades of 28 days later pervade through the imagery presented (not a bad thing) and the basic set up allows a good deal more pathos to be developed towards the ‘monsters'. An intelligent and clever take on what can be quite a tired genre.