The Passage: A Novel

By:

Synopsis
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.
Copyright:
2010

Book Details

Book Quality:
Excellent
Book Size:
770 Pages
ISBN-13:
9780345504968
Publisher:
Random House Publishing Group
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Justin Cronin
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
Horror, Literature and Fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy
Submitted By:
Liz Halperin
Proofread By:
Liz Halperin
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

Reviews

4 out of 5

By on

What a fun read and twist away from historical generally-accepted ideas of vampires. No Count Dracula here, no hints at sexually-fulfilling vampire bites. Bram Stoker, move over. What we have here is the military developing a virus to use as a weapon. The virus turns people into somewhat physically familiar beings, with rows upon rows of teeth which keep falling out as replaced by others and superhuman strength. The virus gets loose (of course) and like all viruses, its main purpose is to reproduce. Reproduction occurs as a Viral attacks a human and drinks its blood. (Blood-drinking is the only point of comparison with traditional vampire tales.) The Passage mainly takes place over a 100-year span, both pre- and post- apocalypse. The earth is forever changed as small groups of still-humans wonder if they are the last on earth (we never do learn about Europe and some other continents). We follow the new human culture that develops because of the changes and dangers. In the end, we might wonder what happened, did the earth die as the Virals completely took over? We are subtly answered by the named source of some of the content, which is noted to be presented at a conference 1,000 years later. But in what condition were the humans, the Virals, the earth at that time? We don't know. A sequel might be in order here, although maybe not in the 700+ page range.