Title: The Passage
Author: Justin
Cronin
Series: The
Passage #1
Synopsis: “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. He 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 –
towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.”
Review: I loved
this novel. It’s truly epic, spanning a
large period of time and multiple characters.
If you’ve read my other reviews then you know that I love zombie novels
and apocalypse novels. I found this to
be a unique take on the traditional zombie apocalypse. The use of vampires instead of zombies is not
all that original. What I found unique
is that the majority of the vampires are just mindless feeding creatures, semi
controlled by twelve elder vampires; and then there’s Amy. She is a different sort of creature. She is not human anymore, but she isn’t like
the vampires either.
I especially enjoyed
the sections of the novel dealing with the human compound struggling to survive
90+ years after the start of the apocalypse.
They have struggled for more than 90 years to keep the lights on and the
vampires at bay. They have created their
own government, and their own laws to keep their civilization alive. The Passage is a vast and complicated novel
that sucked me in and wouldn’t let me go.
I was only halfway through when I went to the store and purchased the
next two in the series. Cronin has
created a masterpiece. The world
building and the character development are spot on. Once you start reading The Passage you won’t
want to stop.
Publisher: Ballantine Books
If you like this book you may want to read:
Dies the Fire (Emberverse #1) by S.M. Stirling
Feed (Newsflesh #1) by Mira Grant (read BookGirlR’s review here)
The Twelve (The Passage #1) by Justin Cronin
