The Passage

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$13.48
Date Created :
Jun 24, 2010 16:19:06

“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.

With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.

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±1±: Best Buy This is a story with a wonderful mix of horrific fantasy and all too recognizable reality. Yes, it's vampires..technically...but the point is more the heedless pushing of natural boundaries in the pursuit of ultimate military power. It's the build up and aftermath of the unchecked scientific manipulation of nature when bolstered by greed and the pursuit of domination. It's a contemplation of what it means to be human versus monster and how frequently those two things intertwine. It's also a tight, entertaining read about a vampire apocalypse.

What could basically be two novels, The Passage is split between cause and consequence. The intent and mode of a catastrophic event and its aftermath, all tied together by Amy, a girl who stradles the gap between monster and man. The narrative itself weaves, uninhibited, from character to character, switching place and sifting through time attached to a menagerie of actors (large and small). There are journal entries, stream-of-consciousness ramblings, and pieces of exposition only vaguely tied to any specific person. By doing this, Cronin keeps a reader chugging through his 800 page behemoth with only the rarest fits of boredom or confusion. Though, at times (especially in the first half) I found it hard to keep up with which character was which. At some point you have to wonder, when is too much really too much? But, despite that, I was still driven to see it through to the 'end'. 'End' because regardless of the last page's cliff-hanger, the author has expressed that this is merely the first volume in a three part series.

The best indicator of a book that's an introduction to a series is simply; will you read the second? And, yes, though I have some disappointments with this book, I am eager for the next addition to this story.

Cronin's action is intense, visceral, and most important, easy to follow. I never felt lost or needed to re-read a section just to wrap my head around what was actually happening. But where that was excellent, I felt repeatedly let down by his attention to character relationships. The most gut-wrenching emotional moments are watered down, glossed over, and disappointing. I'm not saying I want sobbing and heartbreak, but characters are what drive a book and the interactions between them, joy and pain, are what make a reader bond emotionally with a story (corny...I know). Each time a character was led to emotional epiphane, tragedy, or miracle, Cronin shied away from the actual moment and instead referred to reunions and deaths in little more than exposition. Again and again character build-up was met with anticlimax and a feeling near frustration. People die, are rediscovered, are wrenched apart and reunited, but those poignant moments are sloshed together with all the rest of it. Why else do we read than to feel something? Than to leave our world for a few hours and dip deeply into another's? This is a book that asks a reader to imagine what it may be like to have all normality, all HUMANITY stripped away, yet Cronin shies away from the core of what all that really means. How can I regret the loss of something he never asked me to feel?

So, will I read the next two? Yes. Will I be disappointed by the characters' continued anti-climax? Probably, but I hope that while he continues with top rate action story-telling he'll put as much strength into developing his people and their depth. on Sale!