Justin Cronin: The Passage

Honestly, I don’t remember the last time I read such an engrossingly haunting and incredible book.
And before you go thinking it’s something lovely, it isn’t. Not even close.

It’s basically a horror story of what we as people can do to ourselves. Well, in my opinion not a true horror story, most post-apocalyptic stories feature some kind of deformed human predator which in this case are the virals (which is possibly why some people call it horror).
I’ve seen reviewers calling this a vampire story but I would never refer to it as that just on the account of virals who have some similarities with vampires but in my mind only barely. passage
The scariest part of the story for me was the fact that people keep tinkering with things they don’t really know anything about because they feel they can gain something out of it. And thinking that they have it under control. But that is only an illusion.

Which is pretty much what happens here and how world descends into apocalypse. It’s also very scary reading about the atrocities people can do to each other. And I’m not discussing virals now but people.

The beginning reminded me a lot of Terry Brooks Shannara world building – the World/Void books. Here we follow a slow decline of the world through all the bad choices we, as the people, make.
In the beginning I got very upset that I had to wait for understanding of different story lines. I mean, the different story lines make perfect sense in the way they build up to a full story but it takes a while for that to happen. Until then, you are hooked trying to figure out what will happen. And that lasts until the end (which is long time coming). 🙂

It also took me some time to figure out the story is not happening in present day but in close future.
The really scary part of this book is the fact that it’s possible. Probably not as imagined in this book but the virus tinkering is a quite real possibility.
Can I just add that the collective of the twelve reminds me a lot of the Borg? 🙂 Couldn’t help it, the association just appeared. I don’t want to spoil the book so I won’t be explaining this further, if you read it, you’ll know what I meant.

If you enjoy post-apocalyptic worlds, I would highly recommend this. While reading it, it might feel like you’re in the Twilight zone but it will be worth it.

Tagged: Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, Book review, Justin Cronin, Passage

8 thoughts on “Justin Cronin: The Passage”

Suzanne January 11, 2013 at 17:21 Reply

Ines, after our email exchange, I did look this one up on Wikipedia. Your hunch that it’s not my kind of read is correct, but I’m still glad I looked it up and glad I read your post, because it expands my world a bit … and most importantly, it lets me see who you are. I like that … and the fact that we can share a collective shudder at the thought of virus tinkering. 😦

On a lighter note, I found a place to run yesterday where I can get my five miles in and not be hampered by snow (though luckily, our snow is melting now). It’s a hilly and quite lovely housing development not far from my house, and I have to run loops through it, but not too many. Much better than a track … its multiple hills give me a good workout. 🙂

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Ines January 13, 2013 at 13:38 Reply

Good for you Suzanne! 🙂
I finally started attending trainings somewhat regularly (two in the last week) and now it’s snowing again. I wonder if someone is trying to tell me something…? 😉
I’m lagging a bit behind my group but I don’t mind as the most important thing is I’m going again. I’ll catch up eventually.
In the meantime, muscle ache is a constant part of my life. 😉

As for The Passage, I could tell by the books you talk about on your blog, that this might not be to your taste, but if you ever get a wish to read something strange where the story is rather well constructed, this is it. 🙂

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