The Strain audiobook

*4.5

3.5

A nice and breezy read, though nice isn't quite the right word and the breeze is a bit fetid! The Strain is an increasingly rare (ahem) strain of badass vampire novels. There are no well-coiffed, sexy, maudlin vampires in this book, they just "vant to suck your blood" (without the Lugosi style Euro-accented declaration). Of course talking about how de-fanged, lame and sparkly vampires have become since the advent of Twilight has become a trope for vampire books review so I just want to get it out of my system. Besides, I believe Anne Rice started the trend with Interview with the Vampire, to her credit she told her story in a more thoughtful, literary and intelligent manner than Ms. Meyer (of no-link-to-author fame).Artwork for the graphic novel editionAnyway, back to badass vampires and the fun times to be had with them. The Strain starts off very well with a plane mysteriously landing with all the lights off and no communication or activity from the crew or passengers. Given the synopsis of the book (not to be found within this review), you can probably guess what happened to them. In this case being somewhat predictable does not detract from the fun as the story is nicely built up and the excitement mounts. I do enjoy the sci-fi-ish vampire design (that is some crazy proboscis!), and the more scientific description and rationalization of vampirism which is all too rare. For example:"It (a vampire's heart) was misshapen, shrunken. The arterial structure had been altered also, the circulatory system grown more simplified, the arteries themselves covered over with a dark, cancerous blight."No, this is not Gene SimmonsThis reminds me of GRRM's Fevre Dream and Brian Lumley's excellent Necroscope series, I am reliably told there are others like Justin Cronin's The Passage but I have not read them yet. I am leery of reading vampire fiction these days, I am afraid (very afraid) of coming across more Edwards, Stefans, Damons etc. The co-authors did a good job with the plot structure, the action and the accessible / readable narrative. The prose style and characterization seem a little pedestrian to me, no linguistic flourishes to be found here, not that such a thing is necessary of course, but they add to the reading experience. Guillermo del Toro is of course a highly gifted director of popular genre movies like Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy movies. The book's action scenes do seem to be quite cinematic and visual, though I could have done without some of the soap opera elements. His co-author Chuck Hogan was a very popular wrestler in his heyday before turning to writing is the author of several best sellers which I have not had the pleasure of reading (I do wonder what his prose style is like in his solo endeavors?). The end of the book is inconclusive without being a cliffhanger, clearly due to this being the first book of a trilogy and the authors want to entice the readers to come back. The book is fun but I am somewhat ambivalent about reading the rest of the trilogy, something is missing here, may be a staked heart.Vampire Homer_______________________Notes:• The Passage by Justin Cronin is a similar bio-vampire book, also a commercially successful series, and also being adapted for TV. It is mostly set in a far future post apocalypse world. It better written than The Strain I think, but suffers from excessive length.• I have seen a few episodes of the TV show based on this series, gave it up after these few. Didn't really work for me, the acting and the script was not up to par I think; some of the special effects were fun.Cool artwork for the TV show. Look at that damn proboscis!

This was good, really good I have the sequel waiting at home for me and can't wait to start.There are a lot of characters so it did take time for me get everyone straight.For whatever reason everytime Gus come around I was like "who the Hell is Gus" and had to sort of go back and get reaquainted with him. I appreciated that this was shorter then The Passage(what isn't? am I right?). It seemed like Hogan and Del Toro got everything right for me, the length, not too much gore, lots of eerie creepy suspense. Quick Jessi Note:At one point there are Saint Bernards, I own a Saint Bernard(the cutest one ever) the moment it was said how sweet and loving they were I knew they were not long for this book. Which made me then concerned about my own escape plan if Vampire/Zombiepocalypse ever occurs. It is not a stress I need in my life right now but I will be working on it hopefully by the time I finish the second book I will have a revised escape plan that ensures the safety of my son and our gigantic dog

Heck yes!! This book was legit the perfect combination of action, suspense, science fiction, horror, drama, it had it all!! I've been a huge fan of the TV series for a long time now and decided to re-watch the entire series during the month of October, which got me wondering how the novels read in comparison. I will say that book one covered about half of the first season, but it read very much the same as the show and there weren't really any changes that I noticed, so it will be very interesting to see how the remaining two books compare to the remaining seasons of the TV series (or vice versa)! I'd definitely recommend this to any fellow horror/vampire fan, with caution as it is incredibly gory and not for the faint of heart!

* Note: I reviewed this some time ago but updated it today (1/8/18) to fix a typo.Well....I like this book, though it's got some really annoying parts. I vacillated from 5 stars to 3 stars.This is another take on the vampire legend. Those are a dime a dozen now of course, but this one isn't bad. (It's not a spoiler to let you know that the religious remedies don't work again...as usual now). This time vampirism is spread by a virus. Not a new idea, but it's done well here. The book may put you in mind (at different places) of various books you've read and movies you've seen. There are stereotypes here and there are well used plot points. That said it's very well done and drew me in from the very first lines.You'll get to see here the set up for a longer story and also get some background as to how the "plague" spreads and works. (view spoiler)[ But we are still left with a mystery as to who and what the Old Ones are. (hide spoiler)]I was pretty sure this one would be a 5 star read for a good while...but the main character is written in such a frustrating way (for me any way) that I had to drop it. Then there's a climatic scene that is so annoying and even somewhat illogical that I considered dropping the rating all the way to 3. You'll pretty much have to read the book and see what I mean as should I go into it it would be a major spoiler and reveal most of what you're finding out through the book. That said, I'll put what it was under a spoiler warning...then you can decide.(view spoiler)[ In the climatic battle the Master is backed almost into the sunlight and being faced by one man. Just then our "hero" (Eph) stops to save Abe's (Abraham Setrakian) life (he had a heart attack due to the stress of the battle)...leaving the lone man to face death, allow the master to get away and in short fail to save the "whole frickin world!" That is instead of helping destroy the Master. Later his wife, changed to a vampire shows up and goes for their son. He pulls his son back but when one of the others goes to kill (or release) the vamp-mom "Eph" grabs his arm... Thus he allows his vamp-wife to escape, and remain a threat to their son and everyone else. The guy's an idiot suddenly. (hide spoiler)]Okay anyway whether you read the spoiler or not, on the whole I really do like this book and am hooked on the story...really. I plan to download the second as soon as possible.Even though I still have a huge stack of library books to get through.Life huh? Still too many books I want to read is a good dilemma...So recommended, enjoy.

4.5 StarsThis book is definitely the scariest book I’ve ever read. I’ve read many books that were disturbing and had me thinking for a long time but none, save The Strain, that have made me scared of the dark and mistrusting of basements and attics.Through the majority of this book I would have easily rated this book 5 stars. The writing is incredible. Absolutely incredible. Everything is explained brilliantly and the visuals are outstanding. Some of the writing sounds almost like poetry it’s so devastating. My only issue with this book is that the end turned rather Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not to say that that is bad since I am a huge Buffy fan but it didn’t match the tone of the first 3/4th of the book. Suddenly we’re dealing with vampire hunters and specialty weapons. It got really hooky. Still a great story with excellent writing but….I think my issue is more that I’m a zombie fan over a vampire fan and I loved the mindless horde mentality of these monsters and as soon as there was a thought process and a goal I kind of lost my footing on the theory behind it. Not to say that I didn’t love love love the back story involving Setrakian and Sardu. But the type of hierarchy these creatures had was different. Not bad, per se, but different.I also love that they squelched a possible(view spoiler)[ love triangle by killing off Kelly. I was starting to get disinterested in Eph, Nora and Kelly when it started to seem like Eph would have to make ‘the choice’ (hide spoiler)] but you can tell this book was written by men and that little side story was cleaned up quite nicely…Thank you very much!! This is a favorite and will be re-read often in the future. I’m looking forward to reading the next two.

He visto todas las películas de Guillermo del Toro, me encanta su imaginación, sin duda nos ha demostrado que es único y original al momento de crear personajes fantasiosos, no había leído nada de él, aunque generalmente lo que hay publicado son los guiones de sus películas, esta es una novela de terror en toda regla.La idea original es de Guillermo del Toro, la historia, los personajes y el desarrollo de la historia son completamente suyas, sin embargo, es buen cineasta y director, pero no es escritor, así que se asoció con Chuck Hogan para escribir esta trilogía.Aquí lo primero a destacar es que Del Toro sin duda nos entrega una historia nada convencional de vampiros, no va para nada con el estereotipo, a ver si, que viven de la sangre, pero el planteamiento del personaje malévolo, diabólico es muy diferente a lo que conocemos, ha sido fácil en mi mente ver a estos seres en mi mente, no ha sido bonito pero si que ha sido fascinante, y eso me encanta de Del Toro, la manera en crea este tipo de personajes es impresionante, original, único y fascinante.Por otro lado, también como algo ya muy sello de él, los protagonistas no son en absoluto algo convencional, a ver, no hay superhéroes, nos encontramos con un judío prestamista con las manos destrozadas y viejo, un especialista en infecciones buscado por la policía, un cholo mexicano joven y un cazador de ratas, ninguno es un estereotipo per sé para este tipo de historias.Ahora, tiene un ritmo impresionante, no hay retrospectivas de ningún tipo, aquí todos van a lo suyo, no hay tiempo para explicaciones, para dramas o para nada que no sea hacer lo que hay que hacer, así que esta historia te envuelve y te lleva a momentos increíbles de acción, de terror y de aventuras.Quedan cosas en el tintero, pero por supuesto es una trilogía así que asumo que lo que me ha faltado por saber viene más adelante.Un libro fascinante y del que me estoy enterando que tiene una serie de televisión, a ver si la busco y a ver si los personajes que me he imaginado son como los plantea visualmente Del Toro.Utilizar algo tan conocido como lo es la imagen de un vampiro para lograr algo original y nuevo… solo Del Toro, por cierto que estos vampiros pasan a ser algo así como zombivampiros, en realidad es algo muy novedoso, me ha encantado.

This review refers to the audiobook version.4.5 -- but I am going with the 5 above because, you know, I am usually really mean and it is the holiday season.First, I am shocked and appalled, well actually just shocked, that my most trusted Goodreads reviewers only gave this an average of about 3.5 stars. Usually I feel like I am the one who is too critical and won't give a novel that isn't on some book award list somewhere more than 3 stars. Nonetheless, I loved this book despite the rousing okay from my friends. Hmm?Okay, maybe my rating is influenced by at least one of the following factors:* Being sick of vampires with souls (whether they sparkle or not) or vampires having personalities and forming relationships and please, God, vampire romances with human or inhuman partners. (Note: BTVS is so excluded);* 'Salem's Lot , which is just frickin' awesome;* Apocalypse!* Ron PerlmanThis book has old school nasty vampires that are all about turning you into a blood-sucking fiend and are not about taking you to prom. + 10 points. (view spoiler)[ I am currently ignoring the whole end-bit where suddenly 6 other master vampires exist who are masterminding something and there are some sort of vampire rules and blah blah blah general yuck (hide spoiler)].It reads like 'Salem's Lot in the sense of random-ish collection of evil-fighters aligning against ancient evil. The Strain, unlike 'Salem's Lot , leaves God out of the equation, so we have no worries about one of our heroes' faith falling short, but who cares, our motley (kinda -- I guess add Vasily and that makes it motley) crew is stepping up and fighting primordial evil with more humanistic sort of weaknesses. We get a ton of creepy fun time, just like in 'Salem's Lot , including bad things that happen when you are outside as well as when you are inside ! (Personal note: I was listening to this on my deck while my dogs were out in the backyard, saw some sort of shadow in a bush and almost had a stroke. There is really no way I can give a bad review to a scary book that causes freak out for no reason or makes you want to stake a squirrel). And you have a Master and a coffin and helpers and tons of turned vampire citizens -- I can't help myself, what is not to love?That The Strain decides to go for all out destruction of the human race via vampire plague is just too cool for school for this gal who loves herself some good end-of-the-world action. It was like following the beginning of the zombie apocalypse without having to yet again read about the zombie Apocalypse.Ron Perlman is just awesome. Granted, you can tell that he is not a typical narrator, and so many narrators do have something on him, but he was just terrific in speaking this tale.Bad bits:Too much fighting at the end. I know, there are swords (!) and nail guns (though that UV light seems less than spectacular descriptively), but come on already -- I was so tired of first fighting this group, then that group, then the Master, etc. etc. etc. that I was really amazed swashbuckling could become tedious.The beginning could have moved along a bit faster. I am not this book's editor, so let her figure it out, but I do know that it was very easy to put this audiobook down for long periods of time without wondering about it.Naturally, there are the other flaws you see in popular fiction such as things like character development being a little sketchy, some stuff is just patently ridiculous/too Deus ex machina without reference to "fate"/divine intervention, and the fact that this just reads like it is made for motion pictures/TV mini-series (of course, turns out to be actual TV series, so, uh, surprise?). Regardless, I thought this was just good old fun and it has been awhile since I have had that with a book. So, -.5 for my bad bits, +4 for being a treat. Now I just have to re-read my friends' reviews to find out what they saw that I just happily ignored...

Esta historia no es para todos los gustos, ya que el tema central gira en torno a un virus vampírico. La secuencia de la trama me hizo recordar mucho la prosa de Dan Brown, cuyos libros son de acción vibrante para leer horas sin agotarte. En este caso, al ser uno de los autores un brillante director, es sobradamente entendible que la prosa pareciera una película que estuvieras viendo.La versión que leí contiene 550 páginas, de las cuales las primeras 450 parecieran de desarrollo, hilvanando la idea, que a decir verdad no me aburrió, pero luego sentí que las últimas 100 páginas fueron estrepitosas una culminación muy muy abrupta. A mi parecer, los autores tuvieron que haber realizado alguna de estas dos cosas, disminuir un poco las acciones de las primeras 450 paginas para brindar un mejor desenlace o de todas todas alargar las acciones del desenlace para que fuera digerible.Por otro lado, también le bajaría algunos decimales de puntos por varios párrafos que me parecieron pobres desde el punto de vista de la redacción o la literatura, como se desee llamar.De igual manera, continuaré con esta historia en sus siguientes dos libros para luego continuar con su serie de tv.