Summer

31 January 2010

THE STRAIN - Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan, narr Ron Perlman

From the back of the BOCD: They have always been here. Vampires. Nesting and feeding. Now, their time has come. In one week, Manhattan will be gone. In one month, the country. In two months...the world.
A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK, when she suddenly stops dead. All communication channels have gone quiet. An alert goes out to Dr Eph Goodweather, head of CDC's rapid-response team that investigates biological threats. What he finds makes his blood run cold.
So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by former professor Abraham Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city---before it's too late.
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I had a difficult time with some of the scenes in this book. I admit to fastforwarding through anything that had to do with the killing of kids or animals. The writing is so well written and graphic, I got a tad nauseous with the attacks on the adult characters. I listened to them, but barely made it. *shudder*
It's an interesting take on the vampire lore, it is indeed a virus that is transmitted through the bite, but it's not a typical vampire teeth gnaw. It's a growth under the tongue that lashes out and goes to town on the victim, which turns the victim into a vampire almost immediately. The affected vamps don't like sunlight and silver can do a big ol' number on them. Killing by beheading is the best way, crosses and holy water aren't very effective with this virus.
Because of the fastforwarding scenes and fast switching from one scene to another caused me to not like the story as much as I could have. It's a good horror story, though, and worth a listen or a read.

Four vampiric virus beans....

3 comments:

Mary (Bookfan) said...

Just reading that you had to fast-forward through some of the scenes tells me to skip it altogether! I just can't read books that might give me nightmares. I'm such a wimp. 4 beans from you is pretty good, though, so it sounds like the rest of the book was decent.

Vickie said...

Mary: I rarely fastforward through a story, but there were scenes I just couldn't handle. The rest of the story was really gripping and had me sitting in the parking lot or driveway to see what would happen next, so it definitely gets four beans.

Becky LeJeune said...

I think it's great that Ron Perlman was the narrator! I read the book, but I'd definitely like to give him a listen (I'm a fan!).