The Fall: Book Two of the Strain Trilogy [Hardcover]

Guillermo Del Toro (Author), Chuck Hogan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 2010 | Series: The Strain Trilogy (Book 2)

Humans have been displaced at the top of the food chain, and now understand -- to their outright horror -- what it is to be not the consumer, but the consumed. Ephraim Goodweather, director of the New York office of the Centers for Disease control, is one of the few humans who understands what is really happening. Vampires have arrived in New York City, and their condition is contagious. If they cannot be contained, the entire world is at risk of infection. As Eph becomes consumed with the battle against the total corruption of humanity, his ex-wife, Kelly, now a vampire herself, is ever-more determined to claim their son, Zack. As the Biblical origins of the Ancient ones are gradually revealed, Eph learns that there is a greater, more terrible plan in store for the human race - worse even than annihilation…

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Description
The vampiric virus unleashed in The Strain has taken over New York City. It is spreading across the country and soon, the world. Amid the chaos, Eph Goodweather—head of the Center for Disease Control’s team—leads a small band out to stop these bloodthirsty monsters. But it may be too late.

Ignited by the Master’s horrific plan, a war erupts between Old and New World vampires, each vying for total control. Caught between these warring forces, humans—powerless and vulnerable—are no longer the consumers, but the consumed.

Though Eph understands the vampiric plague better than anyone, even he cannot protect those he loves from the invading evil. His ex-wife, Kelly, has been turned by the Master, and now she stalks the city, in the darkness, looking for her chance to reclaim Zack, Eph’s young son.

With the future of the world in the balance, Eph and his courageous team, guided by the brilliant former professor and Holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian and exterminator Vasiliy Fet, must combat a terror whose ultimate plan is more terrible than anyone first imagined—a fate worse than annihilation.

A Q&A with Academy Award®-winner Guillermo Del Toro

Q: You’ve written screenplays and directed numerous movies, to name a few of your many accomplishments. What motivated you to write a novel?

Del Toro: Well, it’s a different challenge, but I've always written short stories and then, in my film work, storylines for movies (the storyline is a slightly "freer" form than screenplay writing) I have published some of my short stories in the past and it is my secret dream to write shivery tales for young readers. My favorite author in that sense is Roald Dahl who mixed it free-style between the grotesque and the magical. I love the short story form as a reader but if a novel has a terse structure I find it far more immersive and fulfilling. Nevertheless some of my favorite authors, Borges, Quiroga, Saki, etc. are masters of the short story form. The novel grew out of appetite and scope.

Q: You are one of the most extraordinarily imaginative and creative thinkers working in the arts today. What were some of the influences that have contributed to your success? Do you have any kind of a muse?

Del Toro: Curiously enough I regularly draw more inspiration from painters and books than I do from other films. Painters like Carlos Schwabe, Odilon Redon, Fliecien Rops, Bocklin, Freud, Bacon, Thomas Cole and many others, never fail to excite me and in the book front there are just as many authors... Dickens, does the trick every time as does Wilde, Rulfo, Quiroga, etc.

Q: Many of your movies have centered on fantastical characters. Why did you choose to write your first novel about vampires?

Del Toro: All of my life I’ve been fascinated by them but always from a Naturalist's point of view. Cronos, my first movie, wanted to be a rephrasing of the genre—I love the rephrasing of an old myth. When I tackled Blade II, I approached it with a myriad of ideas about Vampire Biology but only a few of those made it into the film. Tonally, the movie needed to be an action film and some of the biological stuff was too disturbing already... I love the idea of the biological, the divine and the evolutionary angles to explain the origin and function of the Vampire genus. Some of my favorite books about Vampirism are treatises on Vampiric "fact”--books by Bernard J Hurwood, Augustin Camet, and Montague Summers.

Q: There are many stories, movies, and even a television show involving vampires. The Strain Trilogy uses the idea that vampires are a plague, and that the lead hunter is a scientist from the Centers for Disease Control. What was your inspiration for this twist?

Del Toro: When I was a kid I loved The Night Stalker and I fell in love with the idea Matheson and Rice posited, of exploring a creature of such powerful stature through the point of view of a common worker, a man used to deal with things in a procedural way. "Just another day at the job...".

Q: How did you and Chuck Hogan come together to write The Strain Trilogy? How does your collaboration work?

Del Toro: It was a true collaboration. I had created a "bible" for the book. It contained most of the structural ideas and characters and Chuck then took his pass on it and invented new characters and ideas. Fet (one of my favorite characters) was completely invented by him. And then I did my pass, writing new chapters or heavily editing his pass, and then he did a pass on my pass and so on and so forth. This is the way I have co-written in the past. I loved Chuck's style and ideas from reading his books and I specifically wanted him as a partner because he had a strong sense of reality and had NEVER written a horror book. I knew we would complete each other in the creation of this book. What surprised me is that he came up with some gruesome moments all on his own! He revealed himself to be a rather disturbed man!

A Q&A with Hammett Award-winner Chuck Hogan

Q: What most surprised you about working with Guillermo Del Toro? Has working with him impacted your own work? In your former career as a video store clerk, did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine working on a project like this—with a legend like Del Toro?

Hogan: I'd never co-authored anything, nor had I published a true work of horror before, and here I was embarking on an epic trilogy with a master of the genre. I probably should have been more intimidated--yet I felt an immediate kinship with the material, as well as true excitement at the challenge of bringing the story to life, both of which carried me through. Guillermo is a daunting first audience, and yet an incredibly generous collaborator. Not to mention an amazing resource: it's just fun to have to ask him a question—say, about why the vampires run hot instead of cold—know that, not only will he take me through their intricate biology, but he will embroider the account with corroborating examples from the field of entomology, marine life, and some arcane fact about the function of human blood platelets.

Q: The Town, Devils in Exile, and The Killing Moon, probe the dark side of human nature. What draws you to this theme, and to the genre of suspense?

Hogan: Crime and horror are both genres of existentialism, and I am drawn to stories of man at his extremes, of people who find themselves tested, haunted, threatened. I believe a writer should challenge himself in his work just as he challenges the characters in his story—that anything less would be inauthentic and dishonest. What I love about The Strain is that the journey of the story takes this maxim and multiplies it by one thousand.

From Publishers Weekly

Set over the course of three intense weeks, Del Toro and Hogan's gripping second volume in their near-future vampire trilogy picks up where The Strain, the first volume, left off, as the undead, aided by elderly Eldritch Palmer, one of the world's three richest men, tighten their hold on the planet. Epidemiologists Ephraim Goodweather and Nora Martinez, Holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian, and Vasiliy Fet, "New York City Bureau of Pest Control Services worker and independent exterminator," oppose the vampires (or strigoi), as they did in the first book. Setrakian pins his hopes for stopping the vampires on tracking down a 17th-century grimoire that describes the origins of their leaders, the Seven Original Ancients. Despite the story's essential grimness, the authors manage to inject some sardonic humor, even as the plot developments will leave readers wondering how the concluding book can possibly end well.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (September 21, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061558222
• ISBN-13: 978-0061558221
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (167 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,037 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1964, Guillermo Del Toro displayed rare filmmaking talent from an earlier age. A film prodigy dedicated to Latin American cinema, he soon earned a place on Time magazine's list of "50 Young Leaders for the New Millenium." After executive producing his first feature at age 22, he worked as a special effects make-up designer for several years before forming his own company, Necropia. In 1993, Del Toro made his feature directorial debut with the film Cronos, which went on to win multiple awards, including the Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and eight of his country's academy awards. In the wake of that success he made his first foray into Hollywood filmmaking with Mimic (1997) starring Mira Sorvino. He returned to his native Mexico in 2001 to make The Devil's Backbone, a chilling ghost story set during the Spanish Civil War, a time period he revisited in 2006 in his masterpiece, Pan's Labyrinth, which garnered enormous critical praise worldwide and won three Academy Awards. He has also directed several successful comic-book inspired films such as Blade II, Hellboy I, and Hellboy II. He will direct two films based on THE HOBBIT, to be produced by Peter Jackson.

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55 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vampire Apocalypse, September 2, 2010

By 

Justin Gaines (Northern Virginia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Fall: Book Two of the Strain Trilogy (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

After unleashing a vampire plague on New York City in The Strain (The Strain Trilogy), filmmaker Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy) and Chuck Hogan (The Town: A Novel) are back to finish off humanity in the appropriately-titled sequel The Fall.

While The Strain spent a great deal of time on vampire biology and the spread of the virus, The Fall gets right to the struggle against the scourge. With the city (and soon the world) falling all around them, vampire hunter and Holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian and his allies (which now include gang leaders, CDC researchers, an exterminator and an aging Mexican wrestler!) mount a fierce resistance to the vampire strain. Their struggle against the vampire overlord known as the Master brings them in contact with the very first vampires, who want the Master stopped for their own reasons.

If The Empire Strikes Back taught us anything, it's that middle volumes in trilogies are downers. The Fall is no exception. Our heroes get battered and beaten, and the ending is so far from happy that you wonder if there will be anything left to save in book 3. The fight goes on though, and the story is so very compelling. Del Toro and Hogan have given us some very real, very believable characters and set up a truly frightening scenario that's both a great read and one that unfolds in a very cinematic manner.

The Fall is every bit as impressive as The Strain, and is one of the absolute best apocalyptic tales I've ever read. Like The Strain, I was compelled to read this book in one sitting, and was totally enthralled from start to finish. Waiting for the final volume in this trilogy is going to be tough.

27 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "The Strain" Was A Strain But I Fell For "The Fall"--Non-Stop Action And Great Characters Improve This Vampire Epic, September 21, 2010

By 

K. Harris "Film aficionado" (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Fall: Book Two of the Strain Trilogy (Hardcover)

Being a huge Guillermo Del Toro fan ("Pan's Labyrinth" was easily my favorite film of the year it was released), I was so stoked to hear he was partnering to author a modern vampire epic. It is not an exaggeration to say that "The Strain" was something I was super excited to read. But, probably unlike many other reviewers here, I actually did not like "The Strain." While its early chapters were creepily ominous and the creature conception was strong and unique, I just felt like that novel lacked a bit of heart. More concerned with staging battles and set-up, I didn't particularly care about the characters. The authors introduced a massive cast but, for some reason, I was disconnected from the humanity of the tale. It's hard to appreciate an epic battle when you're somewhat ambivalent about its participants. That said, I feel that "The Fall" has more than made up for what I felt was cold about "The Strain"--and I'm pleased to look forward to the final chapter!

Picking up immediately after the disappointing encounter with the Master, we are quickly reintroduced to the primary cast. The story remains the same, but a secret agenda for the fate of the Earth is uncovered throughout the pages. Vampire hunter Abraham Setrakian is still one of the story's most compelling characters. If anyone steps to the forefront in this chapter--it is him. He is the glue that holds the disparate members of a ragtag band together--including a CDC official, an exterminator, a street tough and a retired wrestler (my personal favorite). While the Master is still pure evil, I actually preferred the human antagonist Eldritch Palmer who uses his power and money to secure a place in the final plan. His confrontations with the Master in jockeying for leverage are among the book's stronger sequences and his story line plays out brilliantly.

Because I cared about the characters, the sense of tension and horror were much stronger in "The Fall." There is an introduction of vampiric children (which I won't spoil by saying too much) that are, to me, easily the most disturbing creation yet. Del Toro and coauthor Chuck Hogan do a great job interspersing history and back story into the current mayhem. The chapter breaks are often cliffhangers which propel the reader forward at a faster and faster momentum until we reach another inevitable confrontation. Not surprisingly for an epic, we lose some major players in "The Fall"--but things seem well positioned for the final installment. But is there anything left to save?

19 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars " In war there is no prize for the runner up" -- General Omar Bradley, August 28, 2010

By 

AlexJouJou (D.C.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Fall: Book Two of the Strain Trilogy (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

And boy does the cast of characters in The Fall: Book Two of the Strain Trilogy know it! The war has begun - and it's not looking so good for us humans.

It's been one week and what seems like one lifetime since the incident on the tarmac. Eph, Nora, Abraham, and Fet are hard at it trying to figure out how they can stop things from getting worse. There seems to be very little light at the end of the tunnel - or even in the tunnel itself.

People are falling like flies, chaos abounds, and it's spreading faster than an STD in a whorehouse. The Master, who they failed to defeat at the end of The Strain (The Strain Trilogy), is continuing with his plan. The industrial millionaire Palmer facilitating things that are, as of yet, unknown-at least not fully. It is evil. It is creepy. It is here. The fate of humanity hanging by a thread.

The characters are rich - as in the first novel Abraham ends up being a focus, albeit more intentional in The Fall. There is significant exposition on Abraham's back story and it is a doozy. Fascinating and obsessive - his tales of the past are vividly drawn - searching, sacrificing, hunting - heartache and resolve. Things you suspect from the first novel you find the answers on all while finding out new things that leave you hanging.

Fet takes more of an active role earlier on here - not as much comedic as before but engaging anyway just for being himself. You really get the sense he's found his calling - and he's blogging which is just way too hilarious.

Gus has become a slayer for the Ancients - and he has quite the purpose along with quite the posse. There's a new guy named Angel as well - who reminds me of a certain wrestler from Angel - Season Five (Slim Set).

Then there's the government - CDC, FBI, and so on - whose side are they on and who is pulling their collective strings?

Nora and Zachary round it out- and of course Kelly Zach's mom who will stop at nothing to get to her "Dear One". Shiver--you just know nothing good is going to come of her.

The action propels this second effort just as much as the first - with the added enjoyment of you being more invested in the characters and familiar with the world thereby making your attachment to the outcomes even greater. It will carry you away - in many ways I enjoyed this book more than The Strain (The Strain Trilogy) because I'm over my initial shock at what happened and am able to, like the characters, think about where it is all going - I'm more of a long range strategic planner myself so The Fall is right up my alley. The first book was really good but there were a few times I felt it was lagging a bit and I had to push to keep reading - not so this sophomore effort - no down time at all!

I had a few small quibbles but nothing that kept me from getting lost in this novel for several hours. If I had to pick a little the constant shift in character perspective was occasionally hard to follow - reminded me of a soap opera where you get a couple lines and cut to a new story. However it is an effective way to ratchet the tension and this is a trilogy. Some things were also far fetched - trains still running with people actually buying tickets without a complete stampede? Hmm..

BUT man oh man - the last 50 pages. Amazing! Of course, just like the first, there's a cliffhanger ending. Did you expect less from the middle of a trilogy? Like Frodo and Samwise - our hero's are looking up at Mt. Doom and wondering how on earth they can win against what seems like overwhelming odds.

While there is enough in here that you could read it as a stand- alone why the heck would you? If you haven't read The Strain (The Strain Trilogy) pick it up now and put this one down until you finish. You won't be sorry!

P.S. a word regarding my expectations so you get an idea of my perspective- I did not expect this to be great literature or allegorical or even full of deeper darker reflections on humanity as a whole. I picked this novel to be entertained, to see me some great kicka%$ action - to lose myself in a story for a few hours. The Fall more than accomplished the task.