The Strain is a story of terrifying vampires threatening to overtake the world. With all the influx of vampire romance stories, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Twilight, the romanticized, sexy version of vampires has risen into popularity. This novel brings back the inhuman, frightening vampires, whose only interest in the human body is for food and transmitting the virus. Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan created a wonderful novel to strike fear in our hearts and make us, once again, fear vampires.
The characters are extremely diverse, from an aged Holocaust survivor and a CDC employee to a young Mexican gangster and a vapid socialite. This not only shows the talent of the writers in creating believable and different characters, but the diversity of New York and the magnitude of the vampire disease. The descriptions made me immerse more into the story. It made the pacing slow a bit, but the trade off is worth it. It made me feel as if I were watching a movie instead of reading a book.
As I mentioned before, the vampirism was caused by a disease that completely changes or destroys the structures in the human body. It is so refreshing to finally see a different take on vampires, away from the dark, brooding, romanticism of recent series. The CDC characters and the details of what was happening internally were similar to Scott Sigler's Infected and Richard Preston's The Cobra Event, which are some of my favorite books. If you like books about diseases, I highly recommend this book. I can't wait for the next installment!
I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Guillermo del Toro at the Meltdown Comics for the launch of this book. I told him I greatly enjoyed his book and he told me to tell the world, so I am happy to say that I have done so.
5/5
4 comments:
I love Richard Preston! Love, love, love! This is so going on my wish list!
One question: What would rate this book if it were a movie?
Um, why have I not heard of this? Guillermo del Toro rocks my socks off! I have to look into this now.
I love, too, when authors ground the supernatural in something explainable. Nice review! Thanks for linking it up.
@Zombie Girrl: if this where a movie, I don't know what I would rate it. It would have to depend on the translation from the page to the screen, the visuals, and the acting. In my head, it looks awesome!!!
@Misty: Guillermo del Toro is awesome! Let me know what you think when you read it!
glad to hear this turned out to be a good one. loved guillermo's movies but wasn't sure how the book would be. how fun was that - a brush with fame ;-D
btw: you've just been awarded...again ;-D
http://vvb32reads.blogspot.com/2009/08/super-comments-award.html
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