Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Ballantine Books (Random House)
Pages
785
Description
A security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment that only six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte can stop.
Description
IT HAPPENED FAST.
THIRTY-TWO MINUTES FOR ONE WORLD TO DIE, ANOTHER TO BE BORN.
First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.
As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he's done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. Wolgast is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors, but for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—toward the time an place where she must finish what should never have begun.
With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterly prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.
THIRTY-TWO MINUTES FOR ONE WORLD TO DIE, ANOTHER TO BE BORN.
First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.
As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he's done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. Wolgast is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors, but for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—toward the time an place where she must finish what should never have begun.
With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterly prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.
Series
Collection
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2010-06
Physical description
785 p.; 8.2 inches
ISBN
0345504976 / 9780345504975
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Media reviews
I turned The Passage's pages feverishly to find out what happened next.
Cronin leaps back and forth in time, sprinkling his narrative with diaries, e-mail messages, maps, newspaper articles and legal documents. Sustaining such a long book is a tough endeavor, and every so often his prose slackens into inert phrases (“his mind would be tumbling like a dryer”). For
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the most part, though, he artfully unspools his plot’s complexities, and seemingly superfluous details come to connect in remarkable ways.
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When all's said and done, The Passage is a wonderful idea for a book that – like too many American TV series – knows how good it is and therefore outstays its welcome. There are enough human themes (hope, love, survival, friendship, the power of dreams) to raise it well above the average
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horror, but its internal battle between the literary and the schlock will, I Show Less
T MAY already have the Stephen King stamp of approval and the Ridley Scott movie-script treatment but American author Justin Cronin's 800-page blockbuster The Passage comes from humble beginnings.
"Every book starts somewhere and this came from a dare of a nine-year-old child," he says of his
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daughter Iris, who wanted a story where a young girl saves the world. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member mckait
I have to admit that when I picked this book up to read, I was pretty sure that I wouldn't like it. I read only the short blurb offered by Vine, and it convinced me to request this book. It was only later, that I realized that it was being referred to as a "vampire" story. Since recent vampire
Then it arrived! The size of the thing would once have made my heart go pitty pat with pleasure. So many times in the past I picked up a thick book over another that might have interested me, because it had more pages. In recent years I have more often gone for shorter books and more of them. Then there was the hype. Often, I have found books that were hyped as much as this one has been to be a disappointment. NOT so this one.
It all begins ordinarily enough. A story about a little girl living with just her mother, and an absentee dad. That is a situation you find all too often these days. We then go directly to some emails sent from Jonas Lear, a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular biology, Harvard to a friend back home. Where was Lear? That is where the story really begins. Lear was in the jungles of Bolivia. He and his colleagues were conducting research that ended up changing not only his own life, but the lives of everyone in the country..or could it be the world?
This is where things begin to get interesting. We find the FBI involved in having death row prisoners released from prisons, and sent to a compound where they have an important role is research. At least this is what they were told.
This is a post apocalyptic novel, so you know things are going to go bad, very bad, before too long, and of course they do . One things begin to spiral out of control, they go quickly. It isn't too long before life as we know it is no more.
This is where we meet the most important group of characters. This is one of several places where I felt this writer excelled. Not only is his story rich, compelling and just a little too close to possibility for comfort, but the characters are fully developed, likable and very real. None of that oh so earnest stuff, no one is too good or bad to be believed. The characters are like you and me. They are like our uncle, our neighbor and our friend. Even now, when for me the story has been told, and I know where it went and what happened to them all, they linger. This has not happened for me for a very long time. I will miss them.
oh, and I recommend this to anyone who likes a well told and imaginative tale. Never mind the genre, ignore the hype. Pay no attention to the reviews, good or bad... just go and pick it up and start to read. You will not be sorry.
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books have sent me running swiftly in the other direction, I thought I had made a mistake.Then it arrived! The size of the thing would once have made my heart go pitty pat with pleasure. So many times in the past I picked up a thick book over another that might have interested me, because it had more pages. In recent years I have more often gone for shorter books and more of them. Then there was the hype. Often, I have found books that were hyped as much as this one has been to be a disappointment. NOT so this one.
It all begins ordinarily enough. A story about a little girl living with just her mother, and an absentee dad. That is a situation you find all too often these days. We then go directly to some emails sent from Jonas Lear, a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular biology, Harvard to a friend back home. Where was Lear? That is where the story really begins. Lear was in the jungles of Bolivia. He and his colleagues were conducting research that ended up changing not only his own life, but the lives of everyone in the country..or could it be the world?
This is where things begin to get interesting. We find the FBI involved in having death row prisoners released from prisons, and sent to a compound where they have an important role is research. At least this is what they were told.
This is a post apocalyptic novel, so you know things are going to go bad, very bad, before too long, and of course they do . One things begin to spiral out of control, they go quickly. It isn't too long before life as we know it is no more.
This is where we meet the most important group of characters. This is one of several places where I felt this writer excelled. Not only is his story rich, compelling and just a little too close to possibility for comfort, but the characters are fully developed, likable and very real. None of that oh so earnest stuff, no one is too good or bad to be believed. The characters are like you and me. They are like our uncle, our neighbor and our friend. Even now, when for me the story has been told, and I know where it went and what happened to them all, they linger. This has not happened for me for a very long time. I will miss them.
oh, and I recommend this to anyone who likes a well told and imaginative tale. Never mind the genre, ignore the hype. Pay no attention to the reviews, good or bad... just go and pick it up and start to read. You will not be sorry.
Show Less
LibraryThing member msf59
“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born”. A reckless government experiment. Take twelve doomed subjects, inject them with a virus, with the intention of creating an army of indestructible warriors. A failed catastrophe, as the infected become blood-thirsty
There are human survivors, scattered throughout the country, protected in sanctuaries, living on what food they can find and battling the ever-present virals. A young girl named Amy has emerged from Ground Zero, to lead this rag-tag bunch. She has “powers” of her own and plans on guiding the group through a kind of “Passage”, with hopes of a victory over the infected.
This amazing story, the first of a trilogy, offers everything: breath-taking adventure, chilling horror, strong characters and soaring human drama, all told in deft,literary prose. Like this:
“When all time ended, and the world had lost its memory, and the man that he was receded from view like a ship sailing away, rounding the blade of the earth, with his old life locked in its hold: and when the gyring stars gazed down upon nothing, and the moon in it’s arc no longer remembered his name…”
I cannot wait for volume two!
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carnivores, wiping out most of the US population and possibly most of the global one. These murderous creations are known by a variety of names, including: virals, smokes and dracs. There are human survivors, scattered throughout the country, protected in sanctuaries, living on what food they can find and battling the ever-present virals. A young girl named Amy has emerged from Ground Zero, to lead this rag-tag bunch. She has “powers” of her own and plans on guiding the group through a kind of “Passage”, with hopes of a victory over the infected.
This amazing story, the first of a trilogy, offers everything: breath-taking adventure, chilling horror, strong characters and soaring human drama, all told in deft,literary prose. Like this:
“When all time ended, and the world had lost its memory, and the man that he was receded from view like a ship sailing away, rounding the blade of the earth, with his old life locked in its hold: and when the gyring stars gazed down upon nothing, and the moon in it’s arc no longer remembered his name…”
I cannot wait for volume two!
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LibraryThing member jonwwil
A military experiment gone awry. A virulent plague that kills most of the population and leaves the few survivors in grave danger. Shared dreams. A mystical old woman who has visions. A perilous cross-country journey with the fate of humanity at stake, and with Las Vegas and Colorado prominently
I don't know that Justin Cronin intentionally set out to retell The Stand (by way, perhaps, of 28 Days Later), but that's mostly what he did, albeit in a much more ponderous, less interesting way.
Needless to say, I didn't get what I expected from this book. From what I had heard and read about it, I thought it might redeem the ubiquitous and uniformly toothless and ridiculous turn the vampire genre has taken in recent years. In that regard, the vampires in this book had potential: they were the vicious, soulless, bloodthirsty people-eaters that they should be; however, I felt like they weren't featured enough to be interesting. Cronin seemed much more intent on developing the post-cultural world he had created. The vampires took a backseat, and there was little to no drama throughout the whole book.
I like long novels, when they're complex and involved. This one was not, for the most part, and reading it was more of an ordeal than anything else. The characters were realistic enough, I suppose; they just weren't terribly interesting. There wasn't much to differentiate one from another, and anytime a name came up I had to pause for a moment to remember who was who. I didn't care about any of them, and most of the relationships between them felt forced and devoid of resonance.
It's been a long time since I've spent this much time with a book and emerged at the end feeling so lukewarm toward it. There were some bright spots, some points where I felt like it might be hitting some sort of stride. Each time, it just fell flat. I hear now that this is the first book in a series, and I can't honestly say right now if I'll bother with the rest or not. I hate to leave a story once I've started it (unless it's just horribly, unbelievably bad), but I don't know if this merits any further time investment.
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featured. A picture of an empty, post-apocalyptic America with all the old technological "toys" just lying around waiting for someone to start the machinery up again.I don't know that Justin Cronin intentionally set out to retell The Stand (by way, perhaps, of 28 Days Later), but that's mostly what he did, albeit in a much more ponderous, less interesting way.
Needless to say, I didn't get what I expected from this book. From what I had heard and read about it, I thought it might redeem the ubiquitous and uniformly toothless and ridiculous turn the vampire genre has taken in recent years. In that regard, the vampires in this book had potential: they were the vicious, soulless, bloodthirsty people-eaters that they should be; however, I felt like they weren't featured enough to be interesting. Cronin seemed much more intent on developing the post-cultural world he had created. The vampires took a backseat, and there was little to no drama throughout the whole book.
I like long novels, when they're complex and involved. This one was not, for the most part, and reading it was more of an ordeal than anything else. The characters were realistic enough, I suppose; they just weren't terribly interesting. There wasn't much to differentiate one from another, and anytime a name came up I had to pause for a moment to remember who was who. I didn't care about any of them, and most of the relationships between them felt forced and devoid of resonance.
It's been a long time since I've spent this much time with a book and emerged at the end feeling so lukewarm toward it. There were some bright spots, some points where I felt like it might be hitting some sort of stride. Each time, it just fell flat. I hear now that this is the first book in a series, and I can't honestly say right now if I'll bother with the rest or not. I hate to leave a story once I've started it (unless it's just horribly, unbelievably bad), but I don't know if this merits any further time investment.
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LibraryThing member bardsfingertips
It is really nice to read a different take on an all-too-common set of subjects for genre fiction. This is, at heart, a post-apocalyptic novel, but also interjects elements of vampire, science, infection, and dystopian fiction all into one, large book.
Now, the thing that really calls to mind when
If I were to continue the comparisons between King and Cronin, I would like to state that where Cronin certainly shines is in the technical details of the story: especially from the technological aspects. King has an issue describing technology that exists after 1985, and even that is stretching it. Cronin’s weakest point is his narrative voice. Even though he is very competent at telling the story and getting it going to hold your interest, it doesn’t have a storyteller’s personality. Stephen King excels at this. Even when he tells his story from a third-person narrative, I feel like that there is a storyteller’s voice that interjects a personality into the framework of the plot. Cronin does try, and I will give him credit, but it is just barely a shadow.
However, the novel The Passage, did, indeed, contain my interest. And I am anticipating the next novel within the series, and I am not usually one that gives into series.
Now, the thing that really calls to mind when
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reading this (aside from the source of the blurb on the back) is that it feels like a Stephen King book. What really brings this forward is the character development. Say what you will about King’s collection of work, he certainly does know how make a character in his work seem like a breathing, living, flawed entity. Justin Cronin does this as well. And, at it, he does a very plausible job where you really get to know these people who are the surviving generations of a seemingly wide-spread apocalyptic nightmare and civilization rebirth.If I were to continue the comparisons between King and Cronin, I would like to state that where Cronin certainly shines is in the technical details of the story: especially from the technological aspects. King has an issue describing technology that exists after 1985, and even that is stretching it. Cronin’s weakest point is his narrative voice. Even though he is very competent at telling the story and getting it going to hold your interest, it doesn’t have a storyteller’s personality. Stephen King excels at this. Even when he tells his story from a third-person narrative, I feel like that there is a storyteller’s voice that interjects a personality into the framework of the plot. Cronin does try, and I will give him credit, but it is just barely a shadow.
However, the novel The Passage, did, indeed, contain my interest. And I am anticipating the next novel within the series, and I am not usually one that gives into series.
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LibraryThing member paghababian
I really wanted to like this book, and I started reading it well before the hype around it started. I like to consider myself a fairly quick reader, and yet this behemoth still took me over a month to read. Overall, I loved the concept (albeit a derivative mashup of The Stand, 28 Days Later, and
I think my biggest problem is with the prologue, which is over 200 pages. After this part, about a United States only a few years away and government testing that produces an uncontrollable virus, we jump forward almost 100 years to the real story. I had started to connect with the characters to have them ripped away and be presented with a whole different society.
That being said, once the story settled into the main plot, I rather enjoyed it. The post-apocalypse society that has sprung up is well described, and I can already picture how it will look in the inevitable movie. The action scenes were fun, if not a little confusing to read, but again, will read great on the screen.
I don't like reading series when they haven't all been released, but I started this not knowing that it was the first in a trilogy. If you're like me and have been burned by waiting for series to continue, you may want to wait on this one.
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many standard political thrillers), but found the book to be severely lacking in editing. This would have been a polished story at 500 pages, but 760 was just excessive.I think my biggest problem is with the prologue, which is over 200 pages. After this part, about a United States only a few years away and government testing that produces an uncontrollable virus, we jump forward almost 100 years to the real story. I had started to connect with the characters to have them ripped away and be presented with a whole different society.
That being said, once the story settled into the main plot, I rather enjoyed it. The post-apocalypse society that has sprung up is well described, and I can already picture how it will look in the inevitable movie. The action scenes were fun, if not a little confusing to read, but again, will read great on the screen.
I don't like reading series when they haven't all been released, but I started this not knowing that it was the first in a trilogy. If you're like me and have been burned by waiting for series to continue, you may want to wait on this one.
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LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
The Passage by Justin Cronin is a monumental piece of fiction that is one of the few books I can say really scared me. Starting with a virtual 250 page introduction that shows us the terrifying possibility of medical experimentation that has gone wrong. Twelve men taken from death row have been
Along with these twelve, there was one more, six year old Amy, an abandoned child who is brought to the mountain laboratory and used to incubate the latest version of the virus. Amy does change but not into a monster. Amy becomes something else, perhaps the last hope for mankind.
After the apocalypse, the story picks up again almost 100 years later. Amy has only aged to be a young teen and she stumbles into an enclave and before too long, a group has banded together to embark on a quest to find the secret behind Amy. There is a lot happening in this book, but the one constant is Amy, and while all the characters have unique voices and storylines, one quickly learns not to get too attached as death is a constant companion.
I found The Passage to be an intricate but always exciting and compelling read. The author’s writing has elevated this far beyond that of a simple dystopian story. He writes in an evocative, beautifully constructed style giving the reader both a suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of insurmountable odds. My quibbles are few. Firstly this book was exceeding long and, I accept that as there is a lot of story to tell, but my problem was that there was no resolution! There is no end, no wrapping up, no closing the book and feeling the story is complete. It just stops. I know this is the first volume in a trilogy, but I would have liked a little closure instead of being left totally in limbo.
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used to create vampire-like beings that are killing machines with a blood lust and are practically immortal. A security breach unleashes this horrendous medically altered group who bring with them nights of carnage and violence. Within weeks, the world has been forever altered and all that remains are scattered survivors with a future dictated by fear. Along with these twelve, there was one more, six year old Amy, an abandoned child who is brought to the mountain laboratory and used to incubate the latest version of the virus. Amy does change but not into a monster. Amy becomes something else, perhaps the last hope for mankind.
After the apocalypse, the story picks up again almost 100 years later. Amy has only aged to be a young teen and she stumbles into an enclave and before too long, a group has banded together to embark on a quest to find the secret behind Amy. There is a lot happening in this book, but the one constant is Amy, and while all the characters have unique voices and storylines, one quickly learns not to get too attached as death is a constant companion.
I found The Passage to be an intricate but always exciting and compelling read. The author’s writing has elevated this far beyond that of a simple dystopian story. He writes in an evocative, beautifully constructed style giving the reader both a suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of insurmountable odds. My quibbles are few. Firstly this book was exceeding long and, I accept that as there is a lot of story to tell, but my problem was that there was no resolution! There is no end, no wrapping up, no closing the book and feeling the story is complete. It just stops. I know this is the first volume in a trilogy, but I would have liked a little closure instead of being left totally in limbo.
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LibraryThing member lkernagh
I love books that tend to generate snappy one-sentence pitches from reviewers! One reviewer wrote: “The Stand meets I Am Legend by way of 28 Days Later”, while another one call this “The Andromeda Strain meets The Stand”. My one-sentence pitch for this book would be “Resident Evil meets
I should mention that I tend to steer clear of vampire books, but this is more a book about a viral outbreak with an apocalyptic effect on the world than your "typical" vampire story. Viral outbreak suspense reads can easily grab my undivided attention. Cronin’s vampires are more monsters mutations - “Virals” - that happen to have vampire tendencies, at least that is how I saw them. A bit “potayto, potahto”, but you get what I mean. Dystopian epics usually lack the ability to suck me in (pun intended) as some of them can be so darn depressing, but I like how Cronin makes use of the crisis point of the outbreak and then shifts forward some one hundred years, to an isolated colony of humans in a post-apocalyptic world where every day is focused on survival. What makes this story work so well for me is the temperament and resolve of the characters (the human survivors, just in case you are wondering). They are not superheroes and yet they are up against unbeatable odds, with the constant fear that at some point, their key defense against the Virals (bright lights) will fail and plunge the entire colony into darkness. Even against such bleak reality, many of them are able to keep their focus and resolve to carry on, although some do reach that breaking point when they just cannot go on any longer. The unknown world beyond the colony, the unpredictability of the Virals, and the changing nature of some of the characters, is all Cronin needs to keep the suspense going and going and going. I noticed when I skimmed through my print copy that Cronin makes use of everything from diaries to email messages, maps, newspaper articles and even legal documents to tell his story. This gets a little choppy when listening to the audiobook but I was still able to follow along, just probably missed out on some of the more subtle points effected through these differing methods.
Overall, a gripping, suspense read with all the elements to make an easy transition from book to screen. One doesn’t need to be a dystopian or urban fantasy fan to appreciate this for the suspense ride it is although some might feel that it is another one of those reads written to target a mainstream reading audience.
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The Road”. I should mention that I tend to steer clear of vampire books, but this is more a book about a viral outbreak with an apocalyptic effect on the world than your "typical" vampire story. Viral outbreak suspense reads can easily grab my undivided attention. Cronin’s vampires are more monsters mutations - “Virals” - that happen to have vampire tendencies, at least that is how I saw them. A bit “potayto, potahto”, but you get what I mean. Dystopian epics usually lack the ability to suck me in (pun intended) as some of them can be so darn depressing, but I like how Cronin makes use of the crisis point of the outbreak and then shifts forward some one hundred years, to an isolated colony of humans in a post-apocalyptic world where every day is focused on survival. What makes this story work so well for me is the temperament and resolve of the characters (the human survivors, just in case you are wondering). They are not superheroes and yet they are up against unbeatable odds, with the constant fear that at some point, their key defense against the Virals (bright lights) will fail and plunge the entire colony into darkness. Even against such bleak reality, many of them are able to keep their focus and resolve to carry on, although some do reach that breaking point when they just cannot go on any longer. The unknown world beyond the colony, the unpredictability of the Virals, and the changing nature of some of the characters, is all Cronin needs to keep the suspense going and going and going. I noticed when I skimmed through my print copy that Cronin makes use of everything from diaries to email messages, maps, newspaper articles and even legal documents to tell his story. This gets a little choppy when listening to the audiobook but I was still able to follow along, just probably missed out on some of the more subtle points effected through these differing methods.
Overall, a gripping, suspense read with all the elements to make an easy transition from book to screen. One doesn’t need to be a dystopian or urban fantasy fan to appreciate this for the suspense ride it is although some might feel that it is another one of those reads written to target a mainstream reading audience.
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LibraryThing member velmalikevelvet
I devoured this book, all 700+ pages in 3 days, despite no taste for vamp-lit, which should tell you something. Now I know why most of the contemporary work in that genre left me cold: it wasn't this. No one needs to even bother writing another. Take THAT, Twilight!
Beyond being a great
And Cronin not only sees what's inside, he presents it beautifully as master of the simile. Consider: "Texas, state-sized porkchop of misery." and"eyes...empty, like drains that could suck the whole world down into them."
And although I'm sure I'll go see it, I'm certain the planned movie version won't live up to the book. I like movies as much as the next guy, but The Passage is an example of why books will almost always trump them : film only captures the visual story, with almost no sense of the poetry of it's language -- a painting without the memories held in the hand of the painter. I think The Passage: The Movie, will likely be a pale, albeit entertaining, facsimile of the original.
My only critique is that the brilliance of the first 200 or so pages of Act I aren't sustained through to the end. The story continues to intrigue, but something about the writing just wasn't as luminous; maybe the characters that don't make it through to Act II were favorites of Cronin? I don't know, but something changed. But if you are reading it, and around page 350 you get bogged down an consider bailing, re-consider: it is worth it.
Beyond being a great
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post-apocalyptic horror story, The Passage is, at it's core, about humans and what drives them. I think to Cronin, people are made of glass, and he can see inside of them as easily as you or I see what's on the other side of a window.And Cronin not only sees what's inside, he presents it beautifully as master of the simile. Consider: "Texas, state-sized porkchop of misery." and"eyes...empty, like drains that could suck the whole world down into them."
And although I'm sure I'll go see it, I'm certain the planned movie version won't live up to the book. I like movies as much as the next guy, but The Passage is an example of why books will almost always trump them : film only captures the visual story, with almost no sense of the poetry of it's language -- a painting without the memories held in the hand of the painter. I think The Passage: The Movie, will likely be a pale, albeit entertaining, facsimile of the original.
My only critique is that the brilliance of the first 200 or so pages of Act I aren't sustained through to the end. The story continues to intrigue, but something about the writing just wasn't as luminous; maybe the characters that don't make it through to Act II were favorites of Cronin? I don't know, but something changed. But if you are reading it, and around page 350 you get bogged down an consider bailing, re-consider: it is worth it.
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LibraryThing member audiobookfans
This review refers to the audiobook version of The Passage:
Every time I hear a book recommendation from Stephen King it gets me moving. Either straight to the library, bookstore or to my audible.com account. When he says it’s good I can usually take it for granted that I’m going to love it.
When I started listening to this book I admit that I was a little disappointed by the prolonged plot development. I expected vampires to be around every corner from the very beginning. I know it’s not fair for me to expect a novel of this size and complexity to develop without laying some serious groundwork but that’s how I felt after reading the reviews and all the hype that proceeded my reading of this book. What kept me going and kept me intrigued through this stage was just how well it was written. Characters were fully developed and believable and eventually you understand that maybe this “vampire” book is different from all the other vampire books you’ve ever read. In fact as you proceed through this book that is exactly what you will understand.
Cronin’s vampires are not the Bela Lugosi type. They are not descended from a long line of bloodsuckers going back to the time of Dracula. I think it’s also safe to say that the vampires or “virals” are not Bella Swan’s type either. There are no glittering vampires prancing around in this novel and from what I’ve seen so far it is unlikely for a human + viral love story to break out in any of the subsequent books in this series.
Cronin’s vampires have a very mysterious sci-fi/biomedical/apocalyptic origin that is brought to life through the reading of email correspondences sent by researchers who are exploring the depths of the jungles of Bolivia. An exploration to solve “the mystery of death itself” that is sponsored by the military. Of course, the expedition doesn’t go as planned and the virus is unleashed on the explorers.
Rather than containing the problem by dropping a nuke on the area the military decides to try and harness the power of the virals. What could possibly go wrong? The military begins to test strains of the virus in hopes of developing a mild mannered vampire that could be controlled and used as a weapon. As test subjects, they select from a pool of already mild mannered convicted killers currently on death row. I suppose the thinking here was that nobody was going to miss these people right? Maybe they should have selected from a group of people who had less of a blood thirst already. Of course eventually things start to go awry. The unknown powers of the virals result in a security breach that allows for their escape.
The only light in the darkness at this point in the novel is the mysterious child named Amy. Amy is a bit of a mystery. She was also selected by the military to be tested with the latest strain of the virus. The effect the virus has on her body is significantly different than what has happened to the other test subjects. Even before she was abducted for testing Amy had some mysterious powers that will hopefully be explained in the next installment of this series.
Shortly after the escape of the virals the novel jumps 90 yrs into the future to a time where the virals have basically destroyed the entire country. Small isolated communities continue to survive in this environment by relying on technology that was left behind by their ancestors. Huge lights keep the virals away during the night. Lights powered by batteries that are slowly dying.
Cronin paints an interesting picture of First Colony in the San Jacinto Mountains of the California Republic where the story picks up. Explaining their politics, frustration and general fear of the unknown. They live their life knowing that if the lights go out the virals will come in.
Jumping so far into the future and picking up on the lives of a completely different set of characters was a bit disorienting at first but you eventually forgive the author as the action intensifies. As new leads develop regarding the root cause of the virals a group of individuals sets out on a mission in hopes of learning the truth.
Their mission takes you on an intense viral ridden ride through the west into the unknown. For fear of giving away too much I won’t elaborate on any additional details.
However I will say that I can’t see how this series can be resolved in two more books. Even books the same size as The Passage. I loved every minute of this audiobook but the war against the virals doesn’t seem to be anywhere close to being won by the end of The Passage. Much work is left to do if humanity is to prevail.
I won’t hold it against Mr. Cronin if it takes six more books to finish the story instead of the predicted two.
Thoughts on the audio production: Well you just can’t go wrong with Scott Brick. It is no wonder he has over 400 recordings under his belt. I’ve read some other reviews of his narration on this book that were unfavorable but I just can’t see what they are complaining about. His narration was consistently compelling throughout the entire novel. His voice acted out all of the emotion that filled the pages of The Passage and totally enhanced my overall experience. I would gladly listen to another book read by Mr. Brick.
Overall: Did it live up to the hype? Yes. If you haven’t already go out and get this book. Understand though that this isn’t like other vampire novels you have read in the past. Give it time to develop. Early in the book there is groundwork being laid that is crucial for the rest of the series. Lastly you may want to keep a flashlight next to your bed.
Every time I hear a book recommendation from Stephen King it gets me moving. Either straight to the library, bookstore or to my audible.com account. When he says it’s good I can usually take it for granted that I’m going to love it.
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When I saw a tweet come through @audible_com saying that Stephen King said when you read The Passage “the ordinary world disappears” I was immediately hooked and I was downloading it to my ipod about 10 minutes later.When I started listening to this book I admit that I was a little disappointed by the prolonged plot development. I expected vampires to be around every corner from the very beginning. I know it’s not fair for me to expect a novel of this size and complexity to develop without laying some serious groundwork but that’s how I felt after reading the reviews and all the hype that proceeded my reading of this book. What kept me going and kept me intrigued through this stage was just how well it was written. Characters were fully developed and believable and eventually you understand that maybe this “vampire” book is different from all the other vampire books you’ve ever read. In fact as you proceed through this book that is exactly what you will understand.
Cronin’s vampires are not the Bela Lugosi type. They are not descended from a long line of bloodsuckers going back to the time of Dracula. I think it’s also safe to say that the vampires or “virals” are not Bella Swan’s type either. There are no glittering vampires prancing around in this novel and from what I’ve seen so far it is unlikely for a human + viral love story to break out in any of the subsequent books in this series.
Cronin’s vampires have a very mysterious sci-fi/biomedical/apocalyptic origin that is brought to life through the reading of email correspondences sent by researchers who are exploring the depths of the jungles of Bolivia. An exploration to solve “the mystery of death itself” that is sponsored by the military. Of course, the expedition doesn’t go as planned and the virus is unleashed on the explorers.
Rather than containing the problem by dropping a nuke on the area the military decides to try and harness the power of the virals. What could possibly go wrong? The military begins to test strains of the virus in hopes of developing a mild mannered vampire that could be controlled and used as a weapon. As test subjects, they select from a pool of already mild mannered convicted killers currently on death row. I suppose the thinking here was that nobody was going to miss these people right? Maybe they should have selected from a group of people who had less of a blood thirst already. Of course eventually things start to go awry. The unknown powers of the virals result in a security breach that allows for their escape.
The only light in the darkness at this point in the novel is the mysterious child named Amy. Amy is a bit of a mystery. She was also selected by the military to be tested with the latest strain of the virus. The effect the virus has on her body is significantly different than what has happened to the other test subjects. Even before she was abducted for testing Amy had some mysterious powers that will hopefully be explained in the next installment of this series.
Shortly after the escape of the virals the novel jumps 90 yrs into the future to a time where the virals have basically destroyed the entire country. Small isolated communities continue to survive in this environment by relying on technology that was left behind by their ancestors. Huge lights keep the virals away during the night. Lights powered by batteries that are slowly dying.
Cronin paints an interesting picture of First Colony in the San Jacinto Mountains of the California Republic where the story picks up. Explaining their politics, frustration and general fear of the unknown. They live their life knowing that if the lights go out the virals will come in.
Jumping so far into the future and picking up on the lives of a completely different set of characters was a bit disorienting at first but you eventually forgive the author as the action intensifies. As new leads develop regarding the root cause of the virals a group of individuals sets out on a mission in hopes of learning the truth.
Their mission takes you on an intense viral ridden ride through the west into the unknown. For fear of giving away too much I won’t elaborate on any additional details.
However I will say that I can’t see how this series can be resolved in two more books. Even books the same size as The Passage. I loved every minute of this audiobook but the war against the virals doesn’t seem to be anywhere close to being won by the end of The Passage. Much work is left to do if humanity is to prevail.
I won’t hold it against Mr. Cronin if it takes six more books to finish the story instead of the predicted two.
Thoughts on the audio production: Well you just can’t go wrong with Scott Brick. It is no wonder he has over 400 recordings under his belt. I’ve read some other reviews of his narration on this book that were unfavorable but I just can’t see what they are complaining about. His narration was consistently compelling throughout the entire novel. His voice acted out all of the emotion that filled the pages of The Passage and totally enhanced my overall experience. I would gladly listen to another book read by Mr. Brick.
Overall: Did it live up to the hype? Yes. If you haven’t already go out and get this book. Understand though that this isn’t like other vampire novels you have read in the past. Give it time to develop. Early in the book there is groundwork being laid that is crucial for the rest of the series. Lastly you may want to keep a flashlight next to your bed.
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LibraryThing member Book_Gnome
I had high hopes for this book, but was disappointed. I found it to be a ponderous, verbose and cliché-ridden brick. Cronin seemingly tried to shoehorn every piece of genre trope he could find into the book, which caused unnecessary slackness. After slogging through more than two thirds of the
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story, I decided to toss it on my DNF list and move on. Luckily for the author, the hype surrounding The Passage makes it virtually immune to bad press. Might make for a decent beach read for a genre tourist, but hardcore genre fans searching for something new and fresh should look elsewhere. Show Less
LibraryThing member cwflatt
WOW!! I have a pattern when I read a book. I always start with the back cover then the flaps if there are any then I start with the first page of the book and I read all of preface, introduction, dedications, acknowledgements I belive all these things give me a better perspective of what the Author
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wants me to experinece. As I read all of these My expectations deterirated rapidly. This was not the book I selected on Early Reviewers! Vampire like creatures, little girl saves the world, no way I'm going get into this book. Then I hit Chapter one and it was on. I am not a fast reader, I enjoy reading and take my time ensuring I don't miss anything and even will go back and re-read sections to keep up. I finished this 766pg book in three weeks! Gotta be a record for me. I could not put it down, My wife would force me to stop reading and go to sleep each night. It is an amazing book. There is no great message to mankind, or earth changing point the author wants to make but just an amazing story of science gone wrong, unentended consequences and a little girl saving the world. Show Less
LibraryThing member jovilla
Everyone is raving about this book; it's been called the book of the summer. However, I was not impressed. For my taste it was too unrealistic, complicated with many characters, and a story line that just keeps going relentlessly without tidying up loose ends. It is the first book in a series of
The book is set in the future when a virus infecting people and turning them into vampires (virals) has gotten out in the country causing millions of deaths and leaving just isolated pockets of people without modern conveniences. People are trying to find each other and find protection from the virals. A little girl named Amy seems to have special powers that offer protection from the virals.
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three and has been optioned for a movie so I think we will be hearing a lot more about it. I particularly enjoyed the first couple hundred pages (out of 766) where the story is concerned with a little girl named Amy coming from a dysfunctional situation. After that the story meanders and twists and I'm sorry to say I just didn't enjoy it.The book is set in the future when a virus infecting people and turning them into vampires (virals) has gotten out in the country causing millions of deaths and leaving just isolated pockets of people without modern conveniences. People are trying to find each other and find protection from the virals. A little girl named Amy seems to have special powers that offer protection from the virals.
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LibraryThing member nbmars
Is it possible in any conceivable universe that Justin Cronin did not read Stephen King’s The Stand before he wrote this? Or see the movie series “28 Days Later” and “28 Weeks Later?” No, I doubt it’s possible even in an alternate universe. Cronin has managed to combine the two,
The book takes place some twenty years into the future. In brief, a team of scientists and U.S. military develop an experimental drug therapy out of a rare virus believed to “weaponize” human beings. To test the formula, they experiment on death row prisoners. After the first twelve inmates have undergone rather bizarre transformations, the lead scientist wants to use a child for the next iteration. Thus the choice for Subject Thirteen is Amy, a six-year-old girl who had been abandoned at a convent by a single mother.
The FBI agent sent to retrieve the thirteen subjects, Special Agent Brad Wolgast, balks at taking away a small child, and tries to escape with her. They are caught, of course, and returned to the top-secret Colorado bunker. But their future is uncertain: the “virals” as the once convicts-now vampire-zombies are now called, escape, break down the bunker, and go out into the world wreaking havoc.
The book resumes one hundred years later, and the reader gets a tour of the post-apocalyptic world that remains. One of the characters summarizes succinctly what it’s like in that world:
"Courage is easy, when the alternative is getting killed. It’s hope that’s hard.”
Discussion: The story is told from multiple points of view, and sometimes it takes a while to figure out who is talking. The book could have been abridged quite a bit without losing anything of consequence. There are some mysteries that are never resolved (although apparently a sequel is in the works). Oddly, we never really get to know Amy, who is the lynchpin of the whole book, not to mention, of the book’s universe.
Is The Passage better than post-apocalyptic books such as The Hunger Games or The Knife of Never Letting Go? I think The Passage just does not measure up to those books. But perhaps that’s not a fair comparison. Consider instead the series by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Life As We Knew It, The Dead And The Gone, and This World We Live In) which probably comes closer to The Passage in terms of the story line (e.g., massive kill-off of the population, and struggle for survival among the remainder). Certainly Cronin’s writing is much better, but otherwise I can’t really say I thought The Passage superior. And yet, I was not tempted to put it down in spite of its length. There’s also something about devoting all that time to characters that makes you miss them when the book is over.
What about this “passage?” What does the title mean? This is a question to which multiple answers are given throughout the book, some of which involve spoilers. But perhaps the most sensible answer is given right at the beginning of the story, when the lead scientist is sending an email to his friend about the virus project:
"When I ask myself why I should turn back now, what I have to go home to, I can’t think of a single reason….whatever happens, whatever I decide…I feel as if I’ve entered a new era of my life. What strange places our lives can carry us to, what dark passages.”
Another explanation comes in the form of one of the epigraphs in front of one of the divisions of the book:
"You who do not remember
Passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
Returns from oblivion returns
To find a voice.”
Louise Glück, “The Wild Iris”
And finally, we hear from Justin Cronin himself (in a New York Times article), who says:
"The vampire narrative deals with the fundamental question, the basic human question, and that is, what part of being human is defined by the fact that we’re mortal? If you got to be immortal, would you be trading away your humanity? It’s the fundamental question of what is death to being alive."
I take that to refer to the passage between mortality and immortality. Indeed that's a passage that pretty much defines the book.
Evaluation: Generally I love dystopic fiction, but I think the real world is scary enough without having to come up with zombie-vampire-bat-thingies. Thus, the book was gorier than I thought it would be and sillier than I had hoped it would be. Nevertheless it has some appealing characters with whom you want to spend your time. Too bad a large number of them get eaten.
Note: I am clearly in the minority on this one. This book is causing a sensation, and Ridley Scott has already paid $1.75 million for the film rights.
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refashion the product to be suitable for Young Adult audiences, and spin it out to over 760 pages. The book takes place some twenty years into the future. In brief, a team of scientists and U.S. military develop an experimental drug therapy out of a rare virus believed to “weaponize” human beings. To test the formula, they experiment on death row prisoners. After the first twelve inmates have undergone rather bizarre transformations, the lead scientist wants to use a child for the next iteration. Thus the choice for Subject Thirteen is Amy, a six-year-old girl who had been abandoned at a convent by a single mother.
The FBI agent sent to retrieve the thirteen subjects, Special Agent Brad Wolgast, balks at taking away a small child, and tries to escape with her. They are caught, of course, and returned to the top-secret Colorado bunker. But their future is uncertain: the “virals” as the once convicts-now vampire-zombies are now called, escape, break down the bunker, and go out into the world wreaking havoc.
The book resumes one hundred years later, and the reader gets a tour of the post-apocalyptic world that remains. One of the characters summarizes succinctly what it’s like in that world:
"Courage is easy, when the alternative is getting killed. It’s hope that’s hard.”
Discussion: The story is told from multiple points of view, and sometimes it takes a while to figure out who is talking. The book could have been abridged quite a bit without losing anything of consequence. There are some mysteries that are never resolved (although apparently a sequel is in the works). Oddly, we never really get to know Amy, who is the lynchpin of the whole book, not to mention, of the book’s universe.
Is The Passage better than post-apocalyptic books such as The Hunger Games or The Knife of Never Letting Go? I think The Passage just does not measure up to those books. But perhaps that’s not a fair comparison. Consider instead the series by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Life As We Knew It, The Dead And The Gone, and This World We Live In) which probably comes closer to The Passage in terms of the story line (e.g., massive kill-off of the population, and struggle for survival among the remainder). Certainly Cronin’s writing is much better, but otherwise I can’t really say I thought The Passage superior. And yet, I was not tempted to put it down in spite of its length. There’s also something about devoting all that time to characters that makes you miss them when the book is over.
What about this “passage?” What does the title mean? This is a question to which multiple answers are given throughout the book, some of which involve spoilers. But perhaps the most sensible answer is given right at the beginning of the story, when the lead scientist is sending an email to his friend about the virus project:
"When I ask myself why I should turn back now, what I have to go home to, I can’t think of a single reason….whatever happens, whatever I decide…I feel as if I’ve entered a new era of my life. What strange places our lives can carry us to, what dark passages.”
Another explanation comes in the form of one of the epigraphs in front of one of the divisions of the book:
"You who do not remember
Passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
Returns from oblivion returns
To find a voice.”
Louise Glück, “The Wild Iris”
And finally, we hear from Justin Cronin himself (in a New York Times article), who says:
"The vampire narrative deals with the fundamental question, the basic human question, and that is, what part of being human is defined by the fact that we’re mortal? If you got to be immortal, would you be trading away your humanity? It’s the fundamental question of what is death to being alive."
I take that to refer to the passage between mortality and immortality. Indeed that's a passage that pretty much defines the book.
Evaluation: Generally I love dystopic fiction, but I think the real world is scary enough without having to come up with zombie-vampire-bat-thingies. Thus, the book was gorier than I thought it would be and sillier than I had hoped it would be. Nevertheless it has some appealing characters with whom you want to spend your time. Too bad a large number of them get eaten.
Note: I am clearly in the minority on this one. This book is causing a sensation, and Ridley Scott has already paid $1.75 million for the film rights.
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LibraryThing member lenoreva
“Before she became the Girl from Nowhere – The One Who Walked In, the First and Last and Only, who lived a thousand years – she was just a little girl in Iowa, named Amy. Amy Harper Bellafonte.” (p. 1, ARC, may vary from final published version)
Now how can you resist such a first line?!
The atmosphere has more the entertainment thriller vibe of Stephen King’s THE STAND than the bleak, literary vibe of Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD. And while it falls squarely into the post-apocalyptic genre, I loved that there were a couple of limited-reach dystopian societies thrown in for good measure.
The central character is Amy, though we never experience the story from her POV. There are, in fact, multiple POVs over the course of the narrative and all are important from a big picture perspective, though at the page level it can sometimes be a bit overwhelming.
What I enjoyed the most, probably, were some of the details of living so long after a complete society breakdown. Obviously nothing new has been produced or imported, so survivors have to make due with stuff from Before. How long can batteries last? Canned foods (best by dates be damned)? Army issued MREs (Meals Ready to Eat)? What would you call blue jeans if you found them at an abandoned shopping mall and had never seen before? How would react if you saw the movie Dracula after being mercilessly hunted by vampire-like creatures your entire life?
I can definitely see this being a big hit when it comes out in June, and I WILL be reading the rest of the trilogy, assuming of course we are not wiped out by a vampire virus by then.
Now how can you resist such a first line?!
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It’s difficult for me to provide a succinct summary for this one, because it is such a sprawling narrative (Marie – The Boston Bibliophile – says it reminds her of LOST, and in terms of storytelling and scope I can totally see that, so if you love LOST, you'll probably love this). But basically, it’s about a top-secret US military project to produce super soldiers using a “vampire” virus that, of course, goes horribly awry. The first section of the book is pre-outbreak while the later sections occur some 90 odd years into the “North American Quarantine Period” (it is unclear what state the rest of the world finds itself in).The atmosphere has more the entertainment thriller vibe of Stephen King’s THE STAND than the bleak, literary vibe of Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD. And while it falls squarely into the post-apocalyptic genre, I loved that there were a couple of limited-reach dystopian societies thrown in for good measure.
The central character is Amy, though we never experience the story from her POV. There are, in fact, multiple POVs over the course of the narrative and all are important from a big picture perspective, though at the page level it can sometimes be a bit overwhelming.
What I enjoyed the most, probably, were some of the details of living so long after a complete society breakdown. Obviously nothing new has been produced or imported, so survivors have to make due with stuff from Before. How long can batteries last? Canned foods (best by dates be damned)? Army issued MREs (Meals Ready to Eat)? What would you call blue jeans if you found them at an abandoned shopping mall and had never seen before? How would react if you saw the movie Dracula after being mercilessly hunted by vampire-like creatures your entire life?
I can definitely see this being a big hit when it comes out in June, and I WILL be reading the rest of the trilogy, assuming of course we are not wiped out by a vampire virus by then.
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LibraryThing member eaklemp
When I received The Passage by Justin Cronin, I have to admit that I felt a slight twinge of dread. 766 pages.....766!!!! I knew that this book better be a stellar work of fiction, or else the likelihood of me finishing it would be nil.
This book did NOT disappoint! In fact, by page 765, I became
The Passage is a novel about a post-apocalyptic world filled with virals (closely related to what we consider vampires) and sequestered clusters of survivors across the American continents. A quick synopsis of this book is virtually impossible since it spans decades and involves many different points of views. In a nutshell, it's about a military experiment to create human weapons through injecting a virus into 12 convicts that ends up going horribly wrong. The majority of the population is wiped out by the virals created by the Twelve, but holdouts remain, holding off the virals through primitive weaponry, fortresses, and bright lights that deter the creatures. The majority of the book focuses on The Colony, located in Southern California. When the batteries start getting dangerously low and The Colony is faced with impending darkness, a young girl named Amy makes her way into The Colony, altering the lives of all its inhabitants and setting events into motion that are the beginning of the virals' demise. Amy turns out to be the 13th victim infected by the Army for its experiment, but the effect it has on her body is one completely unlike the Twelve.
I loved that every character's story was told, that they became key players in their own right. Cronin gave each their 15 minutes' of fame, in a way that flowed easily and added depth to an already-deep novel. This book could have ended numerous times and still have left me satisfied. It ended up feeling like a great story built on top of a great story built on top of another great story. My only disappointment was in the ending, as I was ready to keep going for 800 more pages. I was shocked to find that my frustration at the ending turned into admiration for the author at building up the anticipation to his next installment.
I simply could not put this book down. I found myself dreaming of the storyline. It would not come as any suprise if this was turned into a major motion picture.
Cronin has delivered a masterpiece. Stephen King fans will rave over it, and even those who don't particularly like sci-fi (count me as one) will have a hard time not adding this to their top-ten list of favorite books!
This book did NOT disappoint! In fact, by page 765, I became
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almost desperate knowing this adventure was about to end. Thankfully, this is the first book in a planned trilogy (with the next book due to be released in 2012). The Passage is a novel about a post-apocalyptic world filled with virals (closely related to what we consider vampires) and sequestered clusters of survivors across the American continents. A quick synopsis of this book is virtually impossible since it spans decades and involves many different points of views. In a nutshell, it's about a military experiment to create human weapons through injecting a virus into 12 convicts that ends up going horribly wrong. The majority of the population is wiped out by the virals created by the Twelve, but holdouts remain, holding off the virals through primitive weaponry, fortresses, and bright lights that deter the creatures. The majority of the book focuses on The Colony, located in Southern California. When the batteries start getting dangerously low and The Colony is faced with impending darkness, a young girl named Amy makes her way into The Colony, altering the lives of all its inhabitants and setting events into motion that are the beginning of the virals' demise. Amy turns out to be the 13th victim infected by the Army for its experiment, but the effect it has on her body is one completely unlike the Twelve.
I loved that every character's story was told, that they became key players in their own right. Cronin gave each their 15 minutes' of fame, in a way that flowed easily and added depth to an already-deep novel. This book could have ended numerous times and still have left me satisfied. It ended up feeling like a great story built on top of a great story built on top of another great story. My only disappointment was in the ending, as I was ready to keep going for 800 more pages. I was shocked to find that my frustration at the ending turned into admiration for the author at building up the anticipation to his next installment.
I simply could not put this book down. I found myself dreaming of the storyline. It would not come as any suprise if this was turned into a major motion picture.
Cronin has delivered a masterpiece. Stephen King fans will rave over it, and even those who don't particularly like sci-fi (count me as one) will have a hard time not adding this to their top-ten list of favorite books!
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LibraryThing member fyrefly98
Summary: It's the basic stuff of pretty much every suspense thriller out there: secret government project goes horribly awry. But Cronin takes The Passage much farther than your average thriller, looking at the consequences of that government project years - decades - down the road. The project is
Review: It's been a long time since I've read much horror, or even very many thrillers, but within the first few pages of The Passage, two things happened to me. First, I was caught up in the flow and pacing of the story, with the short chapters and the multiple threads, and had an overwhelming flood of nostalgia for my junior-high and high-school years spent reading Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Second: I was scared. Seriously. Not even fifteen pages in, and I was already creeped out, and looking askance at dark corners, and desperate to know more. There's a series of one-sided e-mails early in the book, from someone on a research team in the South American jungles, and they've found some weird carvings, and evidence of a fire, and then they are attacked by killer bats that tear some of the scientists into pieces, and then the last line is just "Now I know why the soldiers are here" and that's it! That's all you get! It's an effective piece of horrific suspense, and it's a hell of a hook.
The vampires are pretty terrifying, too. Not that the book uses the v-word all that often, typically calling them "virals" instead. And that, too, I think is a calculated choice, given the glut of vampire stories out there... because these vampires are not so much like regular literary vampires. They are not sparkling-in-the-sun, swanking-around-in-frock-coats vampires, so much as leap-on-you-from-20-feet-away-and-literally-tear-your-throat-out vampires. They don't have delicate retractable fangs so much as slavering maws of teeth. And while the middle section of the book definitely has sort of a City of Ember "the lights are going out" vibe to it, there's a definite difference in consequences. In Ember when the lights go out, everyone will be trapped stumbling around in the dark, while in the world of The Passage, people aren't in as much danger of stumbling around in the dark... because the virals will have already killed and eaten them. Reading it before bed definitely made me leery of turning off my bedside lamp for the night.
This book did have two related issues that didn't entirely work out for me. First, I didn't realize when I started that the story of the first one hundred or so pages was not the same story as the other six hundred pages, so when section one ended and the story shifts radically, I was pretty severely wrong-footed. Second, I didn't know whether a similar shift was coming in another hundred pages, so it took me a long time to really get involved with - or even warm to - the characters. This was exacerbated, I'm sure, by the sheer number of them; for the most part, Cronin walks a very fine line of balance between worldbuilding and character development, but I think some of the peripheral character's chapters could have been cut, or at least shifted until it was clear that they were peripheral. I was also not aware until I was halfway through that this was the first book in a series. The ending of this volume, though, is satisfying, and the stopping point isn't arbitrary, plus it's got enough of a tease to definitely leave me wanting more. 4 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: Fans of thrillers or post-apocalyptic fiction are the two obvious audience bases here, or anyone who's sick of literary vampires having feelings other than bloodlust. It's too big to be a proper beach book, but it's got that same feel: fast-moving, plenty of action, and an interesting world that captures your attention... plus one that you will want to be reading when it's nice and bright and sunny outside.
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called Project NOAH, and it involves infecting humans with a virus in the hopes of turning them into super-soldiers. The virus makes them immensely strong and virtually indestructible, but it also turns them into terrifying bloodthirsty hunters, with powers unanticipated even by the scientists who study them. The twelve previous unsuccessful subjects have been death-row inmates, and now, in the final hour, a thirteenth subject is brought in: a six-year-old orphan named Amy. When everything goes to hell and the twelve escape, Amy is rescued by an FBI agent and taken into the wilderness. As the pandemic spreads across the country, the army attempts to respond, but the virals are seemingly indestructable. Eventually, all that remains of humanity is isolated in small outposts, like New Colony - protected by their high-powered lights, and unsure whether they really are the last people in the world. It seems to them as though the fate of the human race rests on the batteries that are slowly but inexorably failing... until the day that a mysterious young woman shows up at their gate.Review: It's been a long time since I've read much horror, or even very many thrillers, but within the first few pages of The Passage, two things happened to me. First, I was caught up in the flow and pacing of the story, with the short chapters and the multiple threads, and had an overwhelming flood of nostalgia for my junior-high and high-school years spent reading Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Second: I was scared. Seriously. Not even fifteen pages in, and I was already creeped out, and looking askance at dark corners, and desperate to know more. There's a series of one-sided e-mails early in the book, from someone on a research team in the South American jungles, and they've found some weird carvings, and evidence of a fire, and then they are attacked by killer bats that tear some of the scientists into pieces, and then the last line is just "Now I know why the soldiers are here" and that's it! That's all you get! It's an effective piece of horrific suspense, and it's a hell of a hook.
The vampires are pretty terrifying, too. Not that the book uses the v-word all that often, typically calling them "virals" instead. And that, too, I think is a calculated choice, given the glut of vampire stories out there... because these vampires are not so much like regular literary vampires. They are not sparkling-in-the-sun, swanking-around-in-frock-coats vampires, so much as leap-on-you-from-20-feet-away-and-literally-tear-your-throat-out vampires. They don't have delicate retractable fangs so much as slavering maws of teeth. And while the middle section of the book definitely has sort of a City of Ember "the lights are going out" vibe to it, there's a definite difference in consequences. In Ember when the lights go out, everyone will be trapped stumbling around in the dark, while in the world of The Passage, people aren't in as much danger of stumbling around in the dark... because the virals will have already killed and eaten them. Reading it before bed definitely made me leery of turning off my bedside lamp for the night.
This book did have two related issues that didn't entirely work out for me. First, I didn't realize when I started that the story of the first one hundred or so pages was not the same story as the other six hundred pages, so when section one ended and the story shifts radically, I was pretty severely wrong-footed. Second, I didn't know whether a similar shift was coming in another hundred pages, so it took me a long time to really get involved with - or even warm to - the characters. This was exacerbated, I'm sure, by the sheer number of them; for the most part, Cronin walks a very fine line of balance between worldbuilding and character development, but I think some of the peripheral character's chapters could have been cut, or at least shifted until it was clear that they were peripheral. I was also not aware until I was halfway through that this was the first book in a series. The ending of this volume, though, is satisfying, and the stopping point isn't arbitrary, plus it's got enough of a tease to definitely leave me wanting more. 4 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: Fans of thrillers or post-apocalyptic fiction are the two obvious audience bases here, or anyone who's sick of literary vampires having feelings other than bloodlust. It's too big to be a proper beach book, but it's got that same feel: fast-moving, plenty of action, and an interesting world that captures your attention... plus one that you will want to be reading when it's nice and bright and sunny outside.
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LibraryThing member JGolomb
It's as long as it is intense, deep, moving and thrilling. Justin Cronin's "The Passage" is a vivid and passionate story that freshens the saturated "vampire" media marketplace. A horde of roving virals, as they're called in this anonymous future, take on some of the mythological aspects of
12 people who are infected in a government human weapons program, escape their maximum security facility in Colorado and go on a country- and, aparently, world-wide feeding frenzy that infects most of humanity. Nothing, however, is ordinary about Cronin's take on this scenario.
The first third of the book establishes the background of the virus and the key players who orbit its existence. Several stories weave and interconnect to set the table for Earth's bleak future. Truly these introductory chapters could stand alone as their on short stories, as Cronin crafts wonderfully bold characters.
Amy is the lone viral who didn't go "wrong". She's well written and subtle, and though she had few lines of dialogue, was the most interesting character throughout - portraying an exquisitely innocent and delicate nature.
The story spans an epic 100 years, and while the action and violence is vivid, it's not grotesque nor over-the-top. The amazing strength from the story, though, comes from its very human characters, their characterizations and well-considered inter-relationships.
The popularity of this book demonstrates its success on multiple literary levels. I highly recommend this read.
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vampires - they can't get enough fresh blood, they seemingly live forever, and they have superhuman strength. But there's no romanticising of the fabled vampire in this story, and truly they're not vampires of the known mythologies that are all the pop culture rage.12 people who are infected in a government human weapons program, escape their maximum security facility in Colorado and go on a country- and, aparently, world-wide feeding frenzy that infects most of humanity. Nothing, however, is ordinary about Cronin's take on this scenario.
The first third of the book establishes the background of the virus and the key players who orbit its existence. Several stories weave and interconnect to set the table for Earth's bleak future. Truly these introductory chapters could stand alone as their on short stories, as Cronin crafts wonderfully bold characters.
Amy is the lone viral who didn't go "wrong". She's well written and subtle, and though she had few lines of dialogue, was the most interesting character throughout - portraying an exquisitely innocent and delicate nature.
The story spans an epic 100 years, and while the action and violence is vivid, it's not grotesque nor over-the-top. The amazing strength from the story, though, comes from its very human characters, their characterizations and well-considered inter-relationships.
The popularity of this book demonstrates its success on multiple literary levels. I highly recommend this read.
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LibraryThing member edgeworth
The Passage is inevitably going to be compared to The Stand, because Cronin has a similar writing style and because of the underlying premise: it's an epic end-of-the-world novel in which an American bio-warfare lab accidentally unleashes a terrible plague across America and the world (in which
In any case, The Stand is better. And The Stand isn't even amazing; just good. Not the best of King's work and not the best in the post-apocalyptic genre. So that leaves The Passage in a pretty sorry place.
The first third of the book is certainly the strongest, revolving around the U.S. government's top-secret "Project Noah," and the FBI agent assigned to collect death row prisoners for experimentation. The pace moves slowly (as it does throughout the book) as Cronin delves extensively inside the characters' heads, gradually revealling the scope and extent of the project: the secret base in Colorado, the staff comprised of convicted pedophiles, the fate of the research team that first uncovered the virus in Bolivia, and the orders for the end of "phase one:" execute all the staff, transfer the vampires to White Sands for testing. Phase one is never completed; the vampires break out and overrun the facility.
This is where any fan of the apocalyptic genre expects the juice of the story: the chaos that unfolds as the vampires wreak havoc across society. Instead we get about ten pages with a few scraps of information, and then the story jumps ahead a hundred years and introduces a completely new cast of characters, sheltering inside their fortified town in California.
In terms of pacing this is a bad move, one that perhaps could have been salvaged if Cronin hadn't insisted on introducing about twenty characters at once, without any indication as to which of them will be important. Cronin, bless his heart, seems to think that they're all important, and that I really want to read about the thoughts and fears and hopes and dreams (actual literal dreams!) of ancillary characters. This is not the case, particularly when even the main characters are unmemorable cardboard cut-outs. We have the Self-Doubting Leader, the Badass Amazon, the Magic Negro, the Wisecracking Teenager, the Socially Awkward Engineer, and so on. (Later we will be introduced to the Stern But Kind Commanding Officer.) And these characters are forced to support the weak middle section of the book, the hundreds and hundreds of pages about... well, nothing much in particular.
The Passage struggles back to life in the final act, once the wheat has been sorted from the chaff and the core characters set out on a mission. Things do come to a somewhat reasonable conclusion, and although the novel ends on a cliffhanger wih regards to some of the characters, I didn't care about them, so that was fine.
Justin Cronin isn't a bad writer - comparisons to Stephen King are a compliment - and The Passage isn't a bad novel, but it isn't a particularly good one either. If I could describe it in one word, it would be "bloated." Cronin easily could have cut out the entire middle third of the story, and probably should have. The characters are weak, and although I don't expect Atticus Finches and Holden Caulfields from a vampire novel, I will remember The Stand's Harold Lauder and Larry Underwood and Glen Bateman longer than I do... uh... Peter and company. But it does have its moments - as as I said before, the first act is intriguing and well-written, and there's a good creepy segment in the third act where the characters arrive at a settlement in Nevada where all seems to be well, yet there's something eerily wrong about the place (similar to a segment in Watership Down). In the end, however, The Passage's flaws outweigh its virtues. Marginal thumbs down.
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America is the focus and the rest of the world barely gets mentioned, as though Americans forget it's there; and when they remember, they dismiss it as unimportant anyway). There's a black woman who talks to god, a quest across the country to Colorado and Las Vegas (in reverse in The Passage), a nuke goes off at the end and... actually, as I'm writing this, I'm realising how derivative it is. There's definitely no way this book would exist without The Stand. The biggest obvious difference is that while King's superflu killed people dead, Cronin's virus turns them into vampires - pale, lean, unintelligent but exceptionally strong and agile vampires of the modern-horror variety, akin to the creatures of I Am Legend.In any case, The Stand is better. And The Stand isn't even amazing; just good. Not the best of King's work and not the best in the post-apocalyptic genre. So that leaves The Passage in a pretty sorry place.
The first third of the book is certainly the strongest, revolving around the U.S. government's top-secret "Project Noah," and the FBI agent assigned to collect death row prisoners for experimentation. The pace moves slowly (as it does throughout the book) as Cronin delves extensively inside the characters' heads, gradually revealling the scope and extent of the project: the secret base in Colorado, the staff comprised of convicted pedophiles, the fate of the research team that first uncovered the virus in Bolivia, and the orders for the end of "phase one:" execute all the staff, transfer the vampires to White Sands for testing. Phase one is never completed; the vampires break out and overrun the facility.
This is where any fan of the apocalyptic genre expects the juice of the story: the chaos that unfolds as the vampires wreak havoc across society. Instead we get about ten pages with a few scraps of information, and then the story jumps ahead a hundred years and introduces a completely new cast of characters, sheltering inside their fortified town in California.
In terms of pacing this is a bad move, one that perhaps could have been salvaged if Cronin hadn't insisted on introducing about twenty characters at once, without any indication as to which of them will be important. Cronin, bless his heart, seems to think that they're all important, and that I really want to read about the thoughts and fears and hopes and dreams (actual literal dreams!) of ancillary characters. This is not the case, particularly when even the main characters are unmemorable cardboard cut-outs. We have the Self-Doubting Leader, the Badass Amazon, the Magic Negro, the Wisecracking Teenager, the Socially Awkward Engineer, and so on. (Later we will be introduced to the Stern But Kind Commanding Officer.) And these characters are forced to support the weak middle section of the book, the hundreds and hundreds of pages about... well, nothing much in particular.
The Passage struggles back to life in the final act, once the wheat has been sorted from the chaff and the core characters set out on a mission. Things do come to a somewhat reasonable conclusion, and although the novel ends on a cliffhanger wih regards to some of the characters, I didn't care about them, so that was fine.
Justin Cronin isn't a bad writer - comparisons to Stephen King are a compliment - and The Passage isn't a bad novel, but it isn't a particularly good one either. If I could describe it in one word, it would be "bloated." Cronin easily could have cut out the entire middle third of the story, and probably should have. The characters are weak, and although I don't expect Atticus Finches and Holden Caulfields from a vampire novel, I will remember The Stand's Harold Lauder and Larry Underwood and Glen Bateman longer than I do... uh... Peter and company. But it does have its moments - as as I said before, the first act is intriguing and well-written, and there's a good creepy segment in the third act where the characters arrive at a settlement in Nevada where all seems to be well, yet there's something eerily wrong about the place (similar to a segment in Watership Down). In the end, however, The Passage's flaws outweigh its virtues. Marginal thumbs down.
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LibraryThing member bluenoser81
Disappointing. Flat and forgettable characters, tired post-apocalyptic plot, and a non-ending. I really laboured to get to the end of this one. The first 200 some pages are great and motoring along, but then it stalls with the introduction of a new story and never fully recovers. At 700+ pages, I
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can't recommend this book, but I feel tore because it had so much potential. Show Less
LibraryThing member kbailey9769
Long, plodding, couldn't build any empathy with the characters.
LibraryThing member Waterlylly
The word that comes to mind when I think of this book is Slow. As in, Desperately, Horribly, Slow. If nothing truly significant or interesting has happened in the first 100 pages except for what happened in the first 10 pages, I'm usually done reading. However, I kept going because this book has so
Finally, I started skipping ahead. The Big, Important Thing that drives the plot doesn't happen until nearly two hundred pages in. That's ridiculous, and frankly it's sloppy writing and worse editing. Surely some of the 700+ pages could have been cut or at least re-arranged to load the action closer to the beginning and make it less of a slog. Before that, the best part of it was the first 10 pages, which I read as a sample ebook. The rest of it did not live up to those pages. Ultimately, I have to admit that I skipped to the end and could see no good reason to continue the slog from where I was to page 700-and-way-too-many. There was nothing to make me care enough to read all those pages.
As for the story itself, it reads like a sad rehash of Firestarter and The Stand, except that it takes longer for anything to happen and by the time it does it's harder to care about the characters. I'd recommend skipping this entirely and buying one or both of those books, actually.
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much buzz and hype surrounding it, and I kept hoping it would get better.Finally, I started skipping ahead. The Big, Important Thing that drives the plot doesn't happen until nearly two hundred pages in. That's ridiculous, and frankly it's sloppy writing and worse editing. Surely some of the 700+ pages could have been cut or at least re-arranged to load the action closer to the beginning and make it less of a slog. Before that, the best part of it was the first 10 pages, which I read as a sample ebook. The rest of it did not live up to those pages. Ultimately, I have to admit that I skipped to the end and could see no good reason to continue the slog from where I was to page 700-and-way-too-many. There was nothing to make me care enough to read all those pages.
As for the story itself, it reads like a sad rehash of Firestarter and The Stand, except that it takes longer for anything to happen and by the time it does it's harder to care about the characters. I'd recommend skipping this entirely and buying one or both of those books, actually.
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LibraryThing member stellarexplorer
Good, not great. Long, held my attention for the most part. But it lacked some extra spark that would have elevated it for me. Interesting premise: medical experiments gone wrong turn people into viral beasts; humanity almost destroyed; becomes post-apocalyptic tale; a few vivid characters.
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Competent writing. Show Less
LibraryThing member jnavia
Most people I know who read this, loved this book. I had a hard time getting into it, even though I had been very excited about it when I read about the plot. I can't say what it was that kept me from wanting to read more, but I found it a chore to keep reading. This is the type of book I normally
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love -- a long dystopia with well-developed characters -- but I just could not get into it and, when I found out it was part of a trilogy, I gave up in the fourth part of the book. I only had a fifth more of this book to read, but I couldn't push through, knowing there might be three times as many words to read altogether. Honestly, I can't figure out what it was about it that made me just think 'eh', but I didn't miss the characters once I finally put the book down. Show Less
LibraryThing member NovelBookworm
The Passage by Justin Cronin is, in a word, WOW!! I know, I know, this book is the really getting the buzz this summer. But there is a good reason for that. IT’S REALLY GOOD!! So good, in fact, that I had a hard time synopsizing it, and I don’t think the blurb I swiped from the website does a
The book takes place over almost a hundred years, the first part is pretty straightforward, and then it takes a giant step forward ninety-two years. It’s a little disconcerting, how the manner of living has changed, slang used in everyday speech is a bit different, and the author doesn’t waste any time explaining these changes. But these differences are to be expected. We certainly don’t live or speak the same as our counterparts did in 1920. I really liked the expectation that we readers could figure out these changes on our own. I realized pretty early that I’d better pay attention, or I was going to miss something important. This might be a long book, but that’s not because it’s crammed with unnecessary filler, but because it’s an epic novel, and worth every single word. Even though The Passage is book one of a planned trilogy, Cronin manages a terrific ending. The conclusion leaves us with a great starting point for book two, and yet still has a sense of finality to it.
If I were pressed to come up with a complaint about the book, it would be twofold. My Sony Reader has spoiled me, and The Passage was a regular book. It’s heavy. And I would have loved to be able to have it on my Reader instead. I took it everywhere with me, so I could read while waiting in line, or for the gas pump to fill, the movie to start, etc. and did I mention? It’s heavy. I would have loved to have it on my Reader. My other complaint is that I have to wait until 2012 for the next book. 2012?? And then two more years for the last one? Arrrggghhh!!! I almost wish I’d waited until 2014 when I could read all three consecutively. Sigh…..I guess it’s a good thing that I’ve got myself a hardcover copy to go with the advance reader copy I already had. And okay, I put an e-copy on my Sony Reader as well. I’m just being prepared. This way, when I read it again, I can have a copy upstairs next to the bed, a copy downstairs next to my chair and a copy for my purse when I’m out of the house. (Did I mention…it’s heavy??) Oh yeah….I’ll be reading this one more than once…
The Passage by Justin Cronin is a hundred different kinds of awesomeness. The best book I’ve read this year. Beg, borrow or buy a copy, but dang it…get going…it’s worth every single page it’s written on and every single penny it’ll cost you. A new addition to my favorite books and favorite authors list, Justin Cronin and The Passage, WOW!!
(Review copy provided by Ballantine Books)
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very good job of it either. This book just grabs you in the first couple of pages, pulls you in and doesn’t let go. It’s sort of The Stand meets Patient Zero meets The Postman. (Hey…no laughing, I LIKED that movie.) The book takes place over almost a hundred years, the first part is pretty straightforward, and then it takes a giant step forward ninety-two years. It’s a little disconcerting, how the manner of living has changed, slang used in everyday speech is a bit different, and the author doesn’t waste any time explaining these changes. But these differences are to be expected. We certainly don’t live or speak the same as our counterparts did in 1920. I really liked the expectation that we readers could figure out these changes on our own. I realized pretty early that I’d better pay attention, or I was going to miss something important. This might be a long book, but that’s not because it’s crammed with unnecessary filler, but because it’s an epic novel, and worth every single word. Even though The Passage is book one of a planned trilogy, Cronin manages a terrific ending. The conclusion leaves us with a great starting point for book two, and yet still has a sense of finality to it.
If I were pressed to come up with a complaint about the book, it would be twofold. My Sony Reader has spoiled me, and The Passage was a regular book. It’s heavy. And I would have loved to be able to have it on my Reader instead. I took it everywhere with me, so I could read while waiting in line, or for the gas pump to fill, the movie to start, etc. and did I mention? It’s heavy. I would have loved to have it on my Reader. My other complaint is that I have to wait until 2012 for the next book. 2012?? And then two more years for the last one? Arrrggghhh!!! I almost wish I’d waited until 2014 when I could read all three consecutively. Sigh…..I guess it’s a good thing that I’ve got myself a hardcover copy to go with the advance reader copy I already had. And okay, I put an e-copy on my Sony Reader as well. I’m just being prepared. This way, when I read it again, I can have a copy upstairs next to the bed, a copy downstairs next to my chair and a copy for my purse when I’m out of the house. (Did I mention…it’s heavy??) Oh yeah….I’ll be reading this one more than once…
The Passage by Justin Cronin is a hundred different kinds of awesomeness. The best book I’ve read this year. Beg, borrow or buy a copy, but dang it…get going…it’s worth every single page it’s written on and every single penny it’ll cost you. A new addition to my favorite books and favorite authors list, Justin Cronin and The Passage, WOW!!
(Review copy provided by Ballantine Books)
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LibraryThing member booksandwine
I kind of sort of hate it when a book comes out and it is compared to all of the other popular books in it's genre. I understand the need for comparison,so when someone looks at a book they can say oh this was compared to BOOK A, I really enjoyed BOOK A so I will probably enjoy this one. However,
The first act of the Passage is brilliant. You see, the Passage is a vampire-crossoverinto-zombies book, but for grown-ups. What happens is the government, of course, creates this strain of disease to make people super human. Turns out they use death row convicts for test subjects, smooth move, Uncle Sam, smooth move. Of course, you all have seen delightful films such as 28 Days Later, so we all know what happens. THE EXPERIMENT GOES HORRIBLY WRONG. Me? I love that. I love seeing the breakdown of society. I like seeing that we aren't quite as infallible as we thought we were. Right, so there is this whole cast of characters in the beginning of the book which I got really attached to, and of course only one of those characters really makes it to the second part of the book. That character being Amy, who was also part of the experiment, but she's a normal girl, not a murderer, so she doesn't turn into a bloodthirsty viral.
Then, of course, we have the rest of the book to contend with. This part of the book does not deal with the same characters as the first half. Of course, the rest of the book is set 100 years into the future. Honestly, I thought that made the book a bit disjointed. I really did not care at all about the new characters at first, they were kind of just thrown at me. Later on, I did connect a little bit with the characters. However, they always seemed at arm's length to me, especially Amy who is in both parts of the book.
I think what Cronin does really well is society-building. He creates this community and gives it distinction and function. Then peoples the community with unique characters with quirks and personalities and such. The way he does this made his society believable. I think when you are building a world/community, you don't want the people's motivations and decisions to be contrived, so it really is something which I think takes skill and craft, which yes, Cronin has in spades.
I will say this book completely battered my emotions. It was tragedy, then oh ray of hope, then smash smash smash. I actually had to start reading a romance novel in the middle of reading The Passage, that's how much it affected my nerves. I mean, ultimately there is hope, but still I think so much tragedy is a cheap ploy on my emotions. I don't like being toyed with like that. Sure, it's wonderful when a book can have an emotional impact, I just don't know how to feel about it when that impact occurs over and over. It made me weary, and left me with conflicted feelings towards the book.
I would recommend this book with reservations. Don't read this expecting Abigail Freemantle, Larry Underwood, Trashcan Man, Stu Redman or Franny. Don't read this book expecting sparkling vampires. Don't read this expecting a super-quick read. I know I am a very fast reader, and this book took me over a week to read. Now, that's not a bad thing, it's just the book is literary so I had to take my time processing. Plus, hah, the pages are bigger than what I'm used to. However, if you are into societies, world breakdown, large casts of characters and epics, then by all means check this baby out.
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it does bother me when I've read all the books the upcoming read is compared to, so I wind up expecting it to be like them. This, friends, is what happened to me when I read The Passage. I had seen comparisons of the book to The Stand and to The Road, so I was leaning heavy on The Stand comparison, which I do think hindered the book for me. The first act of the Passage is brilliant. You see, the Passage is a vampire-crossoverinto-zombies book, but for grown-ups. What happens is the government, of course, creates this strain of disease to make people super human. Turns out they use death row convicts for test subjects, smooth move, Uncle Sam, smooth move. Of course, you all have seen delightful films such as 28 Days Later, so we all know what happens. THE EXPERIMENT GOES HORRIBLY WRONG. Me? I love that. I love seeing the breakdown of society. I like seeing that we aren't quite as infallible as we thought we were. Right, so there is this whole cast of characters in the beginning of the book which I got really attached to, and of course only one of those characters really makes it to the second part of the book. That character being Amy, who was also part of the experiment, but she's a normal girl, not a murderer, so she doesn't turn into a bloodthirsty viral.
Then, of course, we have the rest of the book to contend with. This part of the book does not deal with the same characters as the first half. Of course, the rest of the book is set 100 years into the future. Honestly, I thought that made the book a bit disjointed. I really did not care at all about the new characters at first, they were kind of just thrown at me. Later on, I did connect a little bit with the characters. However, they always seemed at arm's length to me, especially Amy who is in both parts of the book.
I think what Cronin does really well is society-building. He creates this community and gives it distinction and function. Then peoples the community with unique characters with quirks and personalities and such. The way he does this made his society believable. I think when you are building a world/community, you don't want the people's motivations and decisions to be contrived, so it really is something which I think takes skill and craft, which yes, Cronin has in spades.
I will say this book completely battered my emotions. It was tragedy, then oh ray of hope, then smash smash smash. I actually had to start reading a romance novel in the middle of reading The Passage, that's how much it affected my nerves. I mean, ultimately there is hope, but still I think so much tragedy is a cheap ploy on my emotions. I don't like being toyed with like that. Sure, it's wonderful when a book can have an emotional impact, I just don't know how to feel about it when that impact occurs over and over. It made me weary, and left me with conflicted feelings towards the book.
I would recommend this book with reservations. Don't read this expecting Abigail Freemantle, Larry Underwood, Trashcan Man, Stu Redman or Franny. Don't read this book expecting sparkling vampires. Don't read this expecting a super-quick read. I know I am a very fast reader, and this book took me over a week to read. Now, that's not a bad thing, it's just the book is literary so I had to take my time processing. Plus, hah, the pages are bigger than what I'm used to. However, if you are into societies, world breakdown, large casts of characters and epics, then by all means check this baby out.
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Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2012)
CBC Bookie Awards (Nominee — 2011)
Black Quill Award (Nominee — 2010)
Locus Recommended Reading (2010)
Whitcoulls Top 100 Books (15 — 2010)
Library Journal Top Ten Book (2010)
The A.V. Club best books (2010)
Time Magazine's Best Books of the Year (Fiction — 2010)
Call number
FIC H Cro