The Strain

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Omi Mccarthy, January 30, 2013 (view all comments by Omi Mccarthy)
This was one of the scariest books I've ever read. I had nightmares for days. It takes all the sexy out of being a vampire, a refreshing change after all the Twilight stuff. This series should be made into a mini-series or movies.

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Harrisonbergeron, September 12, 2012 (view all comments by Harrisonbergeron)
Oh boy, is this a terrible trilogy (The Strain, The Fall and I forgot the title of the last one even though I just read it). Have you ever read a series, expecting, hoping, it will get better? But it never does? And then you realize you spent more time reading the books than the authors did writing them?

The opening of this trilogy has a great motif: a plane full of dead people lands in New York. What's going on? Sure, it's a riff on Nosferatu's ship but it just hooked me. On top of that it has an epidemiologist as the hero (so what if Hogan and Del Torro don't know the difference between epidemiology and dermatology?).

But it goes straight downhill, bouncing off of every possible predictable cliché:

Viral cause for vampires? Check
Nazis were vampires? Check
Overwrought father-son conflict arising from silly misperceptions and evil-doer manipulations (resolved through heart-felt love?) Check
Many, many-too-many, way-too-many (and then so many more that they become dentist-drill painful to read) narrow escapes by pure-hearted heroes and heroines? Check
With lots of silver-encrusted sword fights? Check

These two very accomplished authors phoned in this trilogy using Night and Weekend minutes. The only weird, interesting thing about this series is an odd Old Testament metaphysical premise that is jarringly thrown without any coherent plot resolution. I picked this book up in part because I liked Chuck Hogan's strangely ambivalent novel "The Standoff" with its complex heroes and villains. But this is not a good, trashy series. Inexplicably, there wasn't even any hot vampire sex--the one hackneyed trope they missed. It is interchangeable with Justin Cronin's mind-numbing "The Passage" series, which is another publisher-inspired, "get 'em while they're hot vampire virus apocalypse Big Books". Pick either one if you are really desperate for something to read, or try instead:

Vampire-virus apocalypse? Matheson's "I am Legend"--a surprisingly complex, dark book.

General, good-old-fashioned, apocalypse? Try Walter Miller's "Canticle for Liebowitz". Maybe even "Cat's Cradle" or "Galapagos" by Kurt Vonnegut if you like your despair with a little humorous irony.

Evil Nazi-vampire Big Book trashy reads? "Carrion Comfort" by Dan Simmons (come to think of it, he also wrote about vampire-inducing retroviruses in the more mediocre "Children of the Night").

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crowyhead, July 29, 2011 (view all comments by crowyhead)
This is a bit fluffy, probably on par with the Preston/Child Pendergast books that I devour so readily, but like those books, it's a load and a half of fun. Imagine a biologically-based vampire plague in NYC, with shades of zombie apocalypse, and you've pretty much got it. The vampires will be somewhat familiar to anyone who's seen "Blade II," although they've been refined and modified.

I don't know if I'm the only one, but I was definitely casting the movie version in my head as I read this, trying to figure out which characters would be played by Del Toro favorites like Doug Jones and Ron Perlman (my best guess: Doug Jones = the airline pilot and several other heavily made up characters; Ron Perlman = the Russian exterminator).

This is not destined to be my Favorite Vampire Books Ever, but it is diverting. Sadly, I was unable to get into the sequel: the writing here is clunky, but the story carries you along. I did not have the same experience with The Fall -- it was just too much of a slog.

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Colleen Gray, January 11, 2011 (view all comments by Colleen Gray)
I thought this was a great book. Not only was it scary but it hade a great storyline. I think that horror fans will enjoy it as well as those who are just interested in a great read. I read it when it first came out and it was so hard to have to wait for this 2nd book in the Trilogy.

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emmayhem, January 7, 2011 (view all comments by emmayhem)
As a big fan of del Toro's films I went into this with a lot of expectations and thankfully, I was not disappointed. I read The Passage this year as well and, although I think these 2 books are very similar I quite simply liked The Strain better. I read it in 3 days, which is really saying something since I don't find a lot of down time to read. I'm old fashioned when it comes to vampires and I think I will always prefer the Anne Rice brooding, sexy variety but as far as virals go, Hogan and del Toro nailed it.

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