I can’t even think of a snazzy blurb to write about Scott Westerfeld anymore. He’s married to Justine Larbalestier; they live in Australia during the summer and New York during the other summer; he’s originally from Texas; he’s written several books that I’ve reviewed. Oh, and apparently he won a/the Philip K. Dick Special Citation. Also, apparently, he wrote this book, which got remaindered at some point (I know this because there’s a black line on the bottom of my copy). It is, incidentally, the sequel/companion book to Peeps, which was published in 2005.

I can’t talk about the plot to this one without giving away stuff in Peeps, so I’ll cut it. This is some time after the events in the first book, so New York is slowly being taken over by rats. There are more and more people who are being infected with the parasite (parasite-positive = peep) and, although most people really have no clue what’s going on, they know New York is getting worse. Anyway, one day, a crazy lady in Manhattan throws a 1975 Fender Stratocaster with gold hardware out of her window, and Moz and Pearl meet as they catch it in a blanket. They form a band, and Pearl brings in her friend Minerva, who writes these eerie lyrics to their songs. They seem to be calling something. What is it, and how is she doing it?

The first thing I have to point out is that 1975 is smack-dab in the middle of the CBS era of Fender, and no serious guitar collector or guitar player would want one. The guitars didn’t sound very good, and they were too heavy (especially with gold hardware) and somehow simultaneously cheaply made. (Information taken from both Wikipedia and my father, who Knows Guitars.) Unfortunately, I knew this fact prior to reading the book (something vague about CBS-era Fenders), and it made the fact that a 1975 Fender Stratocaster with gold hardware is a major talisman/symbol of the book kind of unrealistic to me. Of course, that’s ridiculously nit-picky and minor, and no one other than me would notice that. I still feel that if one is going to write a book about music and bands and people from Juilliard (by the way, Mr. Westerfeld, musical training does NOT negate musical talent or the ability to write songs), one might include, say, a 1960 Stratocaster, which is an actual collector’s item and worth many thousands of dollars, rather than something that’s only climbed to being worth $2000 because of the ridiculous collectors’ market nowadays.

Now that I’ve gotten that over with, my second comment is that this book is not nearly as interesting, amusing, or compelling as the first volume. As a matter of fact, it was really a bit of a disappointment. There were several different narrators, and none of them was as interesting as Cal. No one had asides regarding gross facts about parasites. While there was information about Great Historical Plagues of the past, it had nothing of the tongue-in-cheek humor of the last volume. So much of it was a story about the formation of a band, possibly in a post-civilization world. Yes, we had some danger from rats, and Minerva (a peep with an extra-special skill) being dangerous in and of herself, but overall, the story fell flat for me.

I really had very little emotional investment in the tale. I don’t know if it’s because there wasn’t really any romance (it was hinted at, but there was no chemistry at all between the people between whom there was supposed to be chemistry) or other reasons (I know I dislike it when non- or amateur musicians imply that classically-trained musicians are all snobs and incapable of writing anything that would be a decent pop tune — to that I sic Quincy Jones on you). I think Mr. Westerfeld intended a secondary thought line about Pearl’s mother and what people were doing to pretend that their world still existed, but I didn’t feel that it lasted long enough and wasn’t explored properly. The idea of the last days of civilization wasn’t even played out very well.

Unfortunately, the more I write this review, the more I seem to find things I didn’t like about the book. I think I’ll stop at this point and just give the book 2.5/5 stars.