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Title | The Strain
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Author | Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan
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Cover Art | Ervin Serrano
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Publisher | William Morrow - 2009
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First Printing | William Morrow - 2009
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Title | The Fall
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Author | Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | Harper - 2011
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First Printing | William Morrow - 2010
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Title | The Night Eternal
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Author | Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan
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Publisher | William Morrow - 2013
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First Printing | William Morrow - 2011
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Category | Horror
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Warnings | None
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Main Characters | Abraham Setrakian, Dr. Eph Goodweather, Dr. Nora Martinez, Vasiliy Fet, The Master
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Main Elements | Vampires
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Website | ---
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 The Strain
A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Ephraim "Eph" Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.
In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing.
So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city - a city that includes his wife and son - before it is too late.
The Fall
Last week they invaded Manhattan. This week they will destroy the world.
The vampiric virus is spreading and soon will envelop the globe. Amid the chaos, Eph Goodweather—head of the Centers for Disease Control's team—leads a band out to stop these bloodthirsty monsters. But it may be too late.
Ignited by the Master's horrific plan, a war has erupted between Old and New World vampires. Caught between these warring forces, powerless and vulnerable, humans find themselves no longer the consumers but the consumed. At the center of the conflict lies an ancient text that contains the vampires' entire history . . . and their darkest secrets. Whoever finds the book can control the outcome of the war and, ultimately, the fate of us all.
The Night Eternal
The Earth lies shrouded in darkness...and it is our world no longer.
Two years have passed since the vampiric virus was first unleashed upon humanity and nuclear winter has cast the poisoned world into eternal night. The remnants of the living that were not turned have been subjugated, with many imprisoned in camps to be bred and bled for the sustenance of the Master's vast vampire army.
Yet the fight continues. Dr. Eph Goodweather, of the Centers for Disease Control's biological threats team; his former colleague and lover, Dr. Nora Martinez; and the exterminator Vasiliy Fet, lead a band of freedom fighters aided by Mr. Quinlan, the half-breed offspring of the Master, who now is bent on revenge. At humankind's darkest hour, one of them may hold the key to salvation. But a traitor is among them. And who will be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice so that others may live?
I'm basically reading this trilogy because I got two out of the three books for free, otherwise not sure if or when I might have decided to read it. Based on the blurb I figured I'd get something like The Passage by Justin Cronin but I'm not a huge fan of post-apocalyptic tales with zombie vampires. Well The Strain has zombie vampires in it, but it's more of a 'Salem's Lot kind of story. Instead of experiencing life after the apocalypse, we get to experience the apocalypse itself, there's some hope that humanity doesn't need to live in enclosures and ride aroun Mad Max style across desolate landscapes to avoid being turned.
I liked the choice of characters. You've got a doctor dealing with a freakish disease like nothing he's seen before (sometimes one wonders how we manage not to notice the vampires among us, you'd think they'd get into the occasional accident and end up in the morgue...oh wait, that's Forever Knight...) a rat exterminator, which is exactly the kind of expertise you need to root out a vampiric infestation (I'm being serious here, he got all kinds of handy tools and knows his way around underground nests and dens), and of course you need a Van Helsing character, someone in the know, who has studied the creature for years and has a vendetta against them. Toss in some romantic interests and children to round things out and up the stakes and you've got a pretty good mix.
Now the Master is a rogue vampire, trying to build up his own personal army. At the end of the first book we get hints that there are other master vampires out there, and they aren't particularly happy with how this one is behaving. In fact they were happy manipulating humans from the shadows, controlling the money and power of the world and moving things towards their own benefit (global warming and nuclear war are in their interest if they can mess up the atmosphere and keep the sun out after all). Sometimes the enemy of your enemy...is still your enemy.
But ewww...I know every author needs to reinvent his vampire, to explain scientifically how it could exist, make it a virus, or a parasite, or something to explain transmission so it's not just mumbo jumbo folklore magic...but worms? The body is taken over by worms that you can even see wriggling around? Gross! Well, it's horror so...guess the wormy bit did the spooky for me since vampires themselves don't really scare me. Still, icky, yucky...
Overall the characters were interesting, the plot moved along fast, the books were easy to read and well, del Toro has shown that he's good at making up good monsters, the Master is a pretty good one, I could just imagine what these things would look like in one of his movies. These ain't your pretty boys like Lestat, nothing sexy about being bitten by one of these creatures. An excellent Halloween read.
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