The Feed: A Novel

i thought the twist to the story was interesting and led to a more complex tale. It is also a cautionary story about the perils of high-tech, the law of unexpected consequences and how humans deal with the collapse of society. A British take on such collapse; I suspect it would be a bit different here. The protagonists were babes in the woods when it came to self-defense which was needed to survive against--surprise--other humans.

I watched The Feed series on amazon prime, because I was bored. I liked it enough to buy the book while I was only part way through the series. The video miniseries only covered the first 14 pages of the book, and that's all that I've read so far. I don't want to spoil the second series of the video production you know!I just want to start out by saying I hate social media. I use Facebook because so many groups and people I know won't communicate with me outside of Facebook. I hated YouTube when it came out, slowly grew to accept it, and then slid back into hating it because of what a terrible of a place it is. But again, I still use YouTube because without it I'd have practically nothing.The Feed, both the video series, and this book, seem to be firmly rooted in the idea that always-on overstimulating social media are very bad. Climate change is bad also. I'm 100% on board with both of those ideas. The video series really fleshed out (and changed) what happens in the first 14 pages of the book. I think the video series made a good choice, really, but the video series is about something different than the book now, just based on the same idea in the same multi-media universe. What is coming in the rest of the book, not having read it yet, seems harder to convert to video, but I'm looking forward to reading it in book form. So I probably won't be spoiling the video series if they produce more of it.We are at a point in our lives when societal collapse from climate change and social media both seem likely. It feels like the collapse on both fronts has already started, really. I've been watching prepper videos on youtube, and now I have this instructional book to read. When I was a child, it was the cold war and nuclear annihilation that took up most my thought processes. Then it was the impending zombie apocalypse. Now this.

I'll leave the plot points to the previous reviewers as they were well covered. I suggest that you do read the reviews as they will give you a heads up as to the plot points and characters. You will find, however, that different reviewers definitely saw different things going on than others saw. This issue is why I am giving this book 4 stars. My problem was with the ending. I'm still not sure who was with Tom at that point. I had started 3 different books and couldn't get interested in them. I started The Feed and couldn't put it down. I even woke up at 5 am and was mulling over events in The Feed and finally got up to finish the book. Building on ideas that I've read previously in The Circle or Song of Synth Mr Windo sees a near future of implants allowing people to connect all thoughts, all the time. Is this in mankind's best interest and does it leave us open to an actual loss of knowledge and possible invasion of our minds? This was a great first book and covered intriguing ideas and themes that we should be thinking about as our world becomes more connected and we spend more time online.

Imagine a world where people no longer communicate by using our actual voice, instead having something that could have started out as FaceBook, but is much more advanced and sharing your every thought if you want it to. Never having to learn to read, because information just becomes known in your head as you wonder about it. Being involved in multiple conversations all at once with not one word missed. All of this happening in milliseconds. Having "slow time" means turning off your Feed, being in the now, which almost no one does anymore. “What would you sacrifice . . . for the good of your brain?” because—and there is no way I could tell Tom this, though I’d like to scream it in his face—I don’t think I’d sacrifice the Feed! I don’t think I could! I can’t! I want to go on right now, I’m screaming for it inside!"Nothing is "saved" in your brain anymore, nothing is remembered .... it is all in your implant. Which is fine because the Feed is always there, always available. Until something goes very wrong, and it is no longer there, and the entire world falls apart.I did not get enough story WITH the feed, I found it fascinating and gone too fast. Thankfully through the rest of the story, through the horrors, there are little blips of the past describing bits of life with the feed.The aftermath is a nightmare ... people are taken, everyone is terrified, and just surviving takes every minute of the day. Though there are parts that drag, there are some surprising twists and a really good ending.

I commend the author on his first book. That is certainly no easy feat. There is a mix of originality and regurgitated ideas intermingled in this novel, which held my attention in some spots and dragged in other spots. In some areas he over-describes, and other areas he requires more description to flesh out a more complete idea. I felt compelled to purchase the book after binge watching the show. I gained a more complete conceptualization after reading it, but I am also looking forward to another season of the show. All in all, not a bad read for sci-fi fans, but not the most engaging science fiction.

I watched the first season of the show and then learned it was based on a book so I immediately bought it.. im so in love with the storyline but unfortunately this book is SO HARD to read.. there are no actual chapters which is actually pretty annoying to me. Plus the amount of grammatical errors is driving me nuts. I probably would have finished it by now if I didn't need to re-read everything 5 times over due to the fact that some it just doesn't make sense. There has to be a copy of this book that doesn't have all of these errors, right??? Because I can't keep reading this but also I really need to 🥺

The Feed describes a future where humans have become critically reliant on their technology connections and then it all goes down. The technology is a believable progression from what we have now, so I found this dystopian world to be disturbingly real. The wide adoption of new technology without weighing morality and risk is very relevant. This story unfolded at a good pace and I really wanted to keep reading to find out what happened to the characters.

I am a huge fan of dystopian fiction, Justin Cronin’s The Passage Trilogy, the Wool Trilogy by Hugh Howey and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel are some of my favourites and yet for some reason I don’t seem to have read anything in that genre in a while. The Feed by Nick Clark Windo appeared on my radar a few months ago via a number of blogs and I thought it looked right up my street. I was lucky enough to receive it from my sister for my birthday (thankyou!) and my suspicions about this book were indeed correct – I absolutely loved it.Set in the near future it explores a time where we are constantly connected to The Feed, a device that is within us and allows us to be constantly connected to each other and the wider world. The Feed lets us see other people’s memories, thoughts and feelings and allows us to carry out whole conversations without even opening our mouths. Everything is shared, all thoughts are available in a millisecond and The Feed is as big a need as food and water. But what happens when The Feed collapses? How do people who have spent decades connected to one another communicate? How do they live? How do they exist? These are the questions which Nick Clark Windo asks via strong characters, a broad and sweeping landscape and a clever and inventive plot.As dystopian fiction goes I found this absolutely terrifying. It is incredibly real and wholly recognisable. The Feed is an extreme version of the lives we are living now and at times I winced in recognition of how reliant I have become at having the whole world at my fingertips. A post Feed world sees the protagonists Kate and Tom living in a remote farmhouse with their daughter Bea, and other survivors of the collapse. The effect of The Feed on the human brain is astounding, words are shortened, others are adopted with a different meaning.He quivers between seriousness and glee as he describes how mem is to remember and how mundles are memories. Emotis are emotions. How to talk is to talk and not to stream; a stream is a small river, like a brook.However, this is the tip of the iceberg because although The Feed has been switched off the technology is still lying dormant allowing them to hijacked and inhabited by another person. Everybody is therefore watched whilst they sleep lest their bodies be taken over by an unknown entity. When two of their members are ‘taken’ and Bea goes missing Tom and Kate set out on a journey into a post-Feed UK which is a dark, lonely and desolate place.Dystopian fiction lives and dies on the world that is created within it and Nick Clark Windo has done a sterling job in this book. There are layers and layers of details that are casually yet expertly dotted throughout the book to create a world which felt like a living, breathing thing. Atmosphere seeps from the pages, gradually building tension and suspense as Tom and Kate navigate a desperate and difficult world.A fox stops, steady on its legs, and large. Another jumps down to the pavement from a wall. And another. Then three more. All of them watching, circling, waiting. These things are huge and well fed.Beyond the world building of advertisements being fed straight into our brains, messages sent out to billions of people and emotions being communicated by thoughts this is a book about human nature. Nick Clark Windo has taken humans back to an almost childlike state where they must learn how to communicate on a basic level without the aid of technology. The most primal emotions are difficult for Kate and Tom who both struggle to understand how the other feels without the aid of The Feed. I found this incredibly sad to read and got frustrated that they were unable to read facial cues. I also felt that for both of them, their relationship with Bea wasn’t quite as intense as it would have been had they not had previously been so reliant upon The Feed. I was absorbed in their story though, and was willing them on on their quest through the abandoned towns and villages of England.The Feed is a cracking novel which made my head spin and I can’t stop thinking about it. It is extremely well-written, absorbing, compelling and I defy you to read a less gripping opening chapter than the one which Nick Clark Windo has written. It sets up the book wonderfully well and is one of the best I have ever read.

When I first picked up this book it was nothing like I was expecting. I felt the opening dragged on a bit and I was a good quarter of the way through before the main trigger for the story took place. Until then I felt the story was setting up the atmosphere for the plot: the dependence on and loss of the Feed, how people struggled to survive without it, and the threat of being 'taken' and what people had to do to prevent it. Even though it dragged, it was necessary because it really set up the atmosphere well.The concept of the 'taken' was really interesting, though the truth of them I felt was a little too far-fetched for me to believe. Putting that aside and accepting it as it is, I was able to understand the motives and reasons behind it, even though the result of their actions is no better than what they were originally working towards. It's hard to say more without giving spoilers, but suffice to say I had great sympathy with the one we came to know. I also kind of accept Tom's decision, though I can't help but wish he'd chosen differently.The story as a whole had a great aura of sadness to it. It is a world (our world) that has become so dependent on technology and its ease to the point where we made it part of us, and then realising how bereft we are when it is taken away. When speech is hard to form, and we cannot do even the most basic of things. Our brains become naturally sluggish, relying on data to enforce what we know and remind us of who we are. It's a sad and almost realistic truth. Even the ending had a tang of sadness in it, and I wish it could have been different but I accept what it is.Would I recommend it: most definitely.

The Feed is a gripping and thought-provoking dystopia.Set in the near future Nick Clark Windo takes social media to a terrifying new level. Pretty much everyone has an implant that allows them to access The Feed directly from their brain. Communicating by talking becomes unbearably slow as people spray their thoughts and opinions to their friends, family and followers. Why try to describe anything when your followers can actually experience it first hand by accessing a mundle (memory bundle)? No one needs to read anymore, so books are obsolete (shudder!). So when a cataclysmic event occurs causing The Feed to stop, the majority of people have lost even the most fundamental skills and perish.The story is told from the points of view of the two main characters, Kate and Tom and it hops back and forth in time between the time of The Collapse and six years further on. Some of Kate's sections are Feed-enabled and Nick Clark Windo does an excellent job of using language to convey the immediacy of the technology. It's a totally enthralling novel that sucked me right into its world - I particularly liked the way that both the pre-Collapse technology and the environment of the novel's present aren't spoon-fed to the reader. The landscape is vividly created, Kate and Tom are excellent and well-written characters and their journey takes some very unexpected turns.

Recently I've been really enjoying dystopian future world genres. After reading the passage books this one was recommended. So glad it was, so well written and really makes you stop and think as our own world is very much in the same path of we don't stop and appreciate what's around us (rather than getting wrapped up inside social media). My only tiny gripe is that I was so invested in finding Bea that when it author just said she was gone without elaborating I felt a little cheated.