The action shifts from the %E2%80%9Cpresent%E2%80%9D%E2%80%94five years after the First Colony, a refuge, has fallen to the virals%E2%80%94to Year Zero, when the virus that caused the catastrophe was unleashed, but the value added by the flashbacks isn%E2%80%99t obvious. The struggle for survival between humanity%E2%80%99s last hope, personified by Amy Harper Bellafonte, and vampire-like virals comes across as watered-down Stephen King, short on three-dimensional characters as well as genuine scares. Justin Cronin reads at Barnes & Noble Tribeca Tue 16.Bestseller Cronin%E2%80%99s bloated apocalyptic thriller, like many a trilogy%E2%80%99s middle book, falls short of the high standard set by its predecessor, 2010%E2%80%99s The Passage. But real horror fans may hope that the final installment, due in 2014, has a little more going bump in the night.
This brick of a book is as breathless a read as the trilogy’s first, satisfying for anyone who stayed up nights with The Passage. The dozen infected ringleaders-the 12 that anchor the monster plague-are never as sharply drawn as the normal people Cronin successfully combats this by introducing some new vampire-human hybrids with more interesting and complex stories. The end of the world is even worse when you can’t think straight. He excels at conjuring the varying states of mind that arise during the vampire crisis: confusion, denial, horror, insanity.
Like Stephen King before him, Cronin is at his best when tracing the minutiae of life after civilization, winding his way through the patched-together world of human survivors in Texas. Those post-post-apocalyptic sections are strongest, following Cronin’s ragtag band of vampire hunters, including the immortal little girl who might hold the key to humanity’s survival. military’s supersoldier virus instead made supermonsters, who’s surprised?-and at a point in the future, several generations later. As with part one, the book takes place both right when things went to hell-the U.S. In this second volume of the trilogy, the creatures (called “virals”) are back also, the series continues to feel like a mishmash of The Stand, World War Z and The Walking Dead as whipped together by a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Shelve your vampire crushes and prejudices-the super fast homicidal bloodsuckers of Justin Cronin’s 2010 blockbuster The Passage aren’t the sparkly, sexy type.
0 kommentar(er)
