Customer Reviews

The Passage: A Novel

5 star:		(502)
4 star:		(278)
3 star:		(228)
2 star:		(165)
1 star:		(152)

 

 

It has been a while since I've encountered a horror novel of such magnitude and scope, but Justin Cronin's hefty tome "The Passage" seems poised to announce itself as the latest true "horror epic." It's about time too! Ambitious and thought-provoking, but filled with propulsive action and bloodshed, "The Passage" is the thinking person's genre thrill ride. This massive book starts in the near future with a pretty unique combination of vampiric lore meshed with science gone awry. But Cronin, while nailing these explosive first chapters, has much more up his sleeve. The expansive (and sometimes it seems the story will never end) plot resets several times until we have followed the confrontations to their inevitable conclusion many generations later.

The comparisons to Stephen King's "The Stand" seem apt and, I believe, will be widespread. And in case anyone has a passing interest on where I fall on "The Stand," I think it's the best book of its type that I've ever read. Although the books are quite different in plotting and structure, thematically they share much. From the veritable destruction of the world as we know it, to the efforts to rebuild some semblance of a new world order, to the ultimate confrontation between good an evil replete with the requisite supernatural underpinnings--both books challenge ordinary citizens to rise to extraordinary levels to champion the human cause. In the right hands, these apocalyptic epics can be unforgettable--and I'll just say that Cronin's hands are quite capable.

Don't misunderstand the King reference, however, "The Passage" stands as its own unique portrait of a ravaged future. It's just that there are so few horror novels that set out to accomplish so much in storytelling. Cronin's novel is gutsy, challenging and filled with high level drama of the first order. It's not breezy or light entertainment, however. It's a serious reading commitment for those looking for their gore mixed with a lot of substance. A real change-of-pace and a welcome new addition to the ranks of horror lore, "The Passage" has earned the title of "epic."

If this review sounds disjointed, meandering and incoherent, forgive me, because I am exhausted. My eyes are gritty and I have a cramp in my hand because I fell asleep on it.

I got this book on Tuesday, read until my eyes were blurry and then snuck out of bed to sit in the icy cold living room so late at night (or early, depending on your point of view) to finish this book.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that this book is addictive.

First of all, I should tell you a little about my reading history. I've read The Stand, The Strain, Andromeda Strain, Red Storm Rising, One Second After, The Descent and World War Z, I could go on, but if you recognize any of these titles you will know that I have a thing for everything-goes-to-hell books.

The Passage, in my opinion, is as good as, if not better than the best of these novels.

I've gotten a bit jaded in my reading. Not only does it take more to shock me, it takes more characters, more excitement and mystery to keep me reading past the first five pages. When I read about the Passage on one of my favorite book review sites, I was interested, but not jumping up and down with glee to read it. After all, this was a book about Vampires.

I've read a lot of vampire fiction lately, and the bloodthirsty fangers just aren't as thrilling to me as they used to be. There's just two kinds of vamp books, good vamps and bad vamps. Count Dracula, Lestat, Angel and Spike would run away from the vamps in this book.

But, from the first chapter, I was drawn in by the characters. The destined for tragedy Jeanette, Wolgast, whose life has become one long waiting line, Amy, an innocent child with frighteningly wise eyes. All the side characters are intriguing too, Sister Lacey, Richards, Doyle, Peter, Michael, reminding the reader that the most placid surface can conceal the darkest depths.

As the reader, I was frightened. I put the book down about 3/4 of the way through and walked around my empty living room, trying to shake off the creeping horror of what was happening. I think the style of the writing makes it scarier, it's real, like a car crash and just as sudden. Cronin shows you the best of people one moment and then scares the hell out of you the next.

Some people might be angry about the world building. There isn't a lot of it, little clues let you know that the beginning of the book is in the future (no flying cars, gee whiz, it isn't that kind of story). The story and characters are the central focus, in this it reminds me of Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, like Thrones, you begin to see what the world is like because you are experiencing it along with the survivors.

The ending was unexpected. I don't want to say anymore about it, because you have to read this yourself.

Justin Cronin's 766 page, 2 + pound, mammoth epic of a novel, nearly gave me bursitis in my elbows, from hoisting it up in the air over a three night period. For the first 250 pages, I thought the pain was worth it; it was enthralling. Then the storyline jumps almost a century into the future, with a host of total strangers' inking out survival in the post-apocalyptic, virus infested world. I was shaking my head in total disbelief. Just who were these people, why should I care about them, and what happened to those I had become so invested in, besides the obvious, that is, my favorite character was presumed dead. Unbelievable! I kept trudging on thinking, 'I'll soon be reunited with a couple of them.' Well, not exactly! The structure of the book became my enemy, spoiling much of the enjoyment and crashing the ride.

There have only been a few books that I resorted to 'skimming' through in my entire reading history. I'm normally driven to read every word. However, I felt that there was so much filler, and situational redundancy, that wasn't integral toward driving the plot, that I simply lost the personal investment. I did revive my flagging attention span toward the end. Unfortunately, the end left me scratching my head, too, not quite comprehending the spiritual, and metaphysical viewpoints setting up for the sequel. I resigned that we were moving from mans' fight for survival toward the fantasy realm. In my personal assessment, this was throwing too many berries into the pie.

The military, bio-warfare, experiment gone awry, is not a new theme, but I had high expectations for this epic after reading the marketing campaign. I did not feel that it offered competition for 'The Stand,' or 'I am Legend,' both of which offered unforgettable characters. None of the characters in 'The Passage,' became that endearing to me. In fact, after finishing the book, I can only remember a few of the characters' names.

Overall, I view 'The Passage' as rather overly ambitious, AND, about 200 pages too long. Are there areas of greatness and creativity in this novel? Absolutely! I'd give the beginning 5 stars, but sadly the rest of it is only 2 stars---thus my average 3 star rating.

I gauge the success, of the first in a trilogy, on how anxious I am for the next installment. In this case, I'm not sure I will actually read the sequel.

First, I didn't know this was a trilogy, nor that the book was 800 pages long. A family member of mine who works at Amazon had said the latest "buzz" around the office was The Passage. I didn't have any preconceived notions and was going in blind. And the one thing about the Kindle that I just really do NOT like is that you don't have page numbers, just percentages. So throughout the book, I really had no idea how much I had left. I guess that has no bearing on this review, so forget that I just said that.

Second, the book, overall, is good. I liked it. After I finished (finally), I went to see what other people thought of the book. Looked at the five-star, one-star reviews, just a couple of each and as usual, the vast array of differing opinions is apparent. For me though, I have to agree with one of the one-star reviewers in that the character development at the beginning of the book is fantastic. Cronin does a tremendous job of giving them depth and intertwining their lives with one another. Then - BAM! - it's all "undone" having to start "over" again. I'm purposefully not being specific so I don't spoil anything.

The "over" again part was drudgery for me. I had invested in the beginning characters and grew fond of each one of them, and to then have to forget them and learn to like these new faces, it felt like starting a new book - not something that I wanted to do, especially since I just started this one. Anyway, after persevering, and while these new folks are fairly typical and devoid of substance, I did find myself finally coming to grips that these would be the main characters in the book from now on. Whatever, I guess.

Third and lastly, the ending (no spoilers, I promise) is...interesting. Again, without knowing this was a trilogy and more books would follow, I couldn't believe it ended the way it did. I felt robbed in that I still didn't understand so many things. So many loose ends untied. But after learning that this was the first of three, I guess it eased things a bit.

Overall, from start to finish, the book definitely had some painstakingly slow times, while others I couldn't get enough. I suppose this is good writing from the standpoint that you need to have the valleys to support the climactic apexes, but really...800 pages is a lot. If the vast majority of the book was devoted to the "original" character set, I think it would have been (or I hoped it would have been) a five-star slam dunk for me. The Passage was fun, definitely, and I would hope that as with any trilogy, the final novel will bring everything full circle or, better, yet, reveal further depth of characters.

I will have to say that even during the first 10% of the book, I could see Hollywood writing the script, Ridley Scott, bringing the virals to the silver screen. This has the all the ingredients for a blockbuster kind of picture, and unfortunately, I think the vast majority of the budget would be spent on the "new" characters, not the old. Only time will tell though, hopefully it would be a good blend of both.

So, would I buy this book? Yes, but know that it's a trilogy, there's more to come, and that it's long, very long. It's entertaining enough, and well written. Definitely enjoyable.

...and the book totally fell off a cliff. How is it possible for a novel to be so intriguing, so beautifully paced, so full of interesting people and situations, and then, boom, just like that, become turgid and awkward and stuffed to overflowing (and I do mean overflowing) with the world's most tedious characters? Really, I couldn't imagine what Cronin was trying to do. Someone in the Colony, let's say character A, who is the great-nephew of B twice removed, just got killed by a vampire. Or was he the second cousin of B, twice removed? Well, who cares, because we know nothing about him, except that he was related to someone else we also know nothing about. And that he just got killed by a vampire. And in any case, we're on to the next fifty characters, all just as sketchy, and all probably also killed by vampires. Isn't the author supposed to make us care about the characters in his novel? Cronin seems to do everything he can to ensure we won't give a damn about them. And, believe me, I didn't.

To make us care even less, Cronin uses the presumed-dead-but-really-still-alive twist, well, so many times I lost count (I'd really like to know what the grand total is, if someone managed to track it). I swear to god, one character was presumed-dead-but-really-still-alive not once, but twice. Sheesh. So whenever someone died I was like, yeah, right, see you in 30 pages. And if they didn't reappear in 30 pages I'd kind of forgotten about them anyway. So, for me at least, this was a masterful stroke that made me care even less about the fate of his characters than I did already. In fact, I was so tired of them popping back up I was really rather sad that I couldn't kill the damned things off myself.

Because the first 250 pages were so good I slogged through the next god-save-me 500 pages in a state of disbelief. I mean, it can't be this bad forever, can it? Well, yes, it can. It has to have some redeeming qualities someplace in 500 pages, doesn't it? Well, no, it doesn't. If, by some chance, someone reads this who is at about page 300, someone who is thinking, whoa, I'm shocked at how bad this has become, but I should finish it, shouldn't I? - well, let me tell you, clean your ovens, scrub your toilets, rather than wasting any more time on this book. Not only will you have clean toilets, I guarantee, GUARANTEE, that scrubbing toilets will be much more fun than finishing this awful mess.

You know why there is such a discrepancy in the reviews? It's simply this: aficionados of horror or post-apocalyptic fiction recognize this as a mash-up that doesn't really fulfill the expectations of either genre. Fans of literary fiction find it rather thrilling -- a 'good' writer tackling those supposedly lowbrow genres.

So in the end, your level of satisfaction will depend on your taste, reading experience, and genre expectations. No book can please everyone and The Passage is no exception.

For me, there were some beautiful and evocative sections, but as others have pointed out, I cared a lot less once the story jumped 100 years into the future. The 'new' characters are thinly drawn and largely stereotypes; the villainous creatures get progressively less dangerous and nowhere near as fast as they were in the beginning; the plot s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s out to less reward; and the resolution(s) are both complicated and easy. Plus you're left hanging until the sequels.

It's an experiment, really: putting a literary writer into the genre pit. He claws his way out, but the genre fans can't help but find his story rather ho-hum, which leaves the literary crowd to coo about this as a "startling achievement"--they just don't know any better.

You were warned!

In my opinion The Passage earns its right to be considered one of the best books of summer. It is one of the 2 best books I've read this year.

I have to admit I wasn't too sure about this tome when I picked it up but by the time I was 50 pages in I literally could not put it down. It is only a slight exageration to say all of my waking non-work moments were consumed with this amazing novel. It might sound strange but I was in the novel's "head space" for lack of better term for 3 whole days.

So let's get the whole vampire thing out of the way so all those who think they will find Spike or Angel (or Edward for that matter) on these pages turn back now. I love me some Spike and Angel but I wasn't looking for another "vampires are so misunderstood" read. These vamps/virals are not romanticized at all. They are fine tuned killing machines without mercy and without conscience, but with a still small voice inside of them that wonders who they are. I found the parts of the book where you get a bit into their mind to be the hardest to get through. It wasn't sympathy for them so much as puzzlement and uncomfortableness- given their transformation from human to an evil people killing thing I needed for them to be all bad and have no good at all. Not that there is good but there is something - no matter how small still inside. They are difficult to fight, they have only one weak spot really and they're fast, agile, and scary. Soon after they escape the military bunker/location they've been developed in the world as we know it disappears.

A word about plausibility. I felt like it was. Plausible. Unfortunately I could picture a world in the not so distant future where man creates this type of evil. There always seems to be a well meaning doctor or scientist who doesn't realize what he's done and is clueless to the dangers of the Frankenstein he's just created.

The book starts off with a bang and a major right hook. Better than Tyson I'm telling you. It is fast and furious for a while and then it tones down a bit so you can catch your breath. Then you do it all over again.

Like in many post-apocalyptic novels there's at least one human resistance area that survives by banding together and working as a group but they are few in number. The story divides between the time where these virals were created and how that happened (and, unfortunately, why) with the story of the last remnants of humanity. What will they do? How do they survive? The characters in The Passage, while numerous, are so well written you will feel as if they are your friends and comrades or people you know. I seldom read horror. It just freaks me out too much. While this novel wasn't overtly frightening (so that I would double check my windows and doors) there were definitely times I actually had to take a break because I was spooked a bit. I even dreamt about the events in this book.

The saving grace that kept me from looking over my shoulder for weeks is that, as a dystopian novel, it is about a potential tomorrow and thus you can keep some level of distance from it.

Even with that said the images that the author described stayed with me for some time and thought. Originally I believed it likely that the plot would take the scenic route but it really doesn't--it was pretty tight and that surprised me due to the sheer size of it. The epic length of the book matches the epic feel of it. Perfectly paired.

The writing is so superb, so outstanding that you can literally close your eyes and paint the picture the author wants you to see whether it is a burned out Las Vegas or the forest up on a mountain. It doesn't read like a book that clocks in at over 700 pages. It really doesn't. It reads quick and the prose is perfect (how trite is that to say..but it is true). This is a novel that everyone can enjoy. Don't be intimidated by its size!

I love a lot of books and I like a lot more. It is seldom a book has me so amazed I cannot stop talking about it for days. This is one of those books. I will be first in line for tickets to the movie and I actually was depressed for a day realizing that the next novel will likely take a while. Write fast Mr. Cronin!

You really do not want to miss reading this breathtaking novel. The story of human triumph, courage in overwhelming odds, and perseverence when hope is but a thread will completely captivate you.

I'm not going to restrain the beast. This book was 800-some-odd pages too long and by some miracle, made a post-apocalyptic vampire novel more uninteresting than fishing in a fishless pond with Pop Goes the Weasel endlessly on repeat. Justin Cronin could have shaved this down to 200 pages and I might have forgiven him for the threat of a sequel at the end. But he didn't, I don't forgive him, and I'm already rubbing my eyes with sandy cat litter to ease my suffering after The Passage.

I dug this book pre-apocalypse. I liked Amy, her situation, the prisoners, the army hideout with freaky mafia justice. Jump forward into the sparsely populated and very sad future and WHAT HAPPENED CRONIN? Why did the post-apocalyptic Colony become populated with dull brained goobers I knew only by name-basis for the next 600 pages? Why did you give pre-apocalypse America characters with colorful backgrounds, differentiating personalities, and quirks, and then dine and ditch? Cronin introduces us to 50 trillion new characters, and then expects us to just "hang in there" before we get to all the beautiful dues ex machinas at the end. The members of the Colony: Peter, Theo, Alicia, Sara Michael , Maus, Sanjay, Soo, Galen, Caleb, and the list continues into a faint ellipsis sunset... There are too many to juggle. Cronin gets lazy, most of these characters you know by a single trait. Sara is a nurse. Michael fixes machines. Maus is preggers. There is no one to like here.

That brings me to plot holes the size of planetoids. Amy, inherently the most interesting person in the story (and the most underused), has special abilities. No one uses them, not once. She can speak with her mind, but this is never utilized when the gang is in a jam. She can speak to "virals", but no one is exactly begging her to call of the dogs or tally the virals' numbers when they are being attacked. It's like having Jesus just trimming his nails in a room full of lepers. And oh, how the Colony gets themselves into jams. As the book progresses, the plot becomes a big imaginative dues ex machina monster, passing out easy exits like samples at Costco.

I'm not going to summarize the Colony's adventure to bring Amy places or stop the viral "leaders". The concept of the plot is great, but it's weighted down by uninteresting characters, needless filler, and Swiss cheese plot holes. It could have been a 1200 page book if I had liked the characters, but Cronin was desperate to make the Colony as boring as possible, and the length became cumbersome. Cool things do happen, yes, but why should I wait 400 pages for some "cool things"?

I had high hopes for this book after the ringing endorsement from Stephen King on the back and the dustjacket plot synopsis. The first act was interesting and kept my attention well. Did a great job at maintaining the tension. The novel fell apart in the middle and end, badly. I found myself skipping ahead five or six pages just to slog through it all. Others have covered it in great detail, but I was especially disappointed at the disjointed internal logic. [SPOILER ALERT]
The beginning, the first infection in the jungles didn't make sense in light of what followed. Jude jumping out from the bottom of the rail car? This did nothing to advance the plot, it was just silly. I can only think it was a way to write a scene that would be "scary" in a movie version of the book and a convenient way to make two characters die a "tragic" death. It felt crammed in. And then to explain it away by describing Jude as a "familiar" screwed it up even more. You never hear anything esle about "familiars" in the entire book. Just a throwaway comment in a crammed in throwaway scene. The other bad part was the ending. The army base gets overrun? Even though it seems more secure than anything? Huh?

All in all, a frustrating book in need of a good editing.

The Passage is a fascinating story, a generational epic written with depth, intelligence, and beauty. It's also a derivative tale, borrowing from scores of similar stories that have come before it (Earth Abides, Shore of Women, The Stand, Swan Song, etc.). The fact that the story works on its own, enhanced and not undermined by those that came before, is both surprising and refreshing. This is not a popcorn horror novel; it's dense in detail, deep in meaning, and challenging in scope. But, it's also the first of an announced trilogy . . . and that, unfortunately, keeps it from being what it could have been, a rare and wonderful novel all on its own.

The story is a familiar one - in the recent future, a cataclysmic (and man-made) event ends life as we know it, transforming the world into a sparsely-populated landscape infested with virally-mutated creatures out for human blood. The novel is written in two parts. Part one is, the story of the event itself (the combined effort of scientists and the military) and of 6-year-old Amy, who seems to be the only hint of light in what becomes a horrible darkness. Part two, beginning about 275 pages in and set about 100 years after the "event," tells the story of a group of survivors living in a fortified compound in California. When a mysterious 15-year-old girl shows up, she sets in motion a cross-country trek to find answers and maybe save the world from what it has become. Whether or not that mission is a success will wait until Book 2 . . . or Book 3.

One real problem with The Passage is the very jarring shift from part one of the story - Amy's story, and the story of three central characters we truly come to know and love - Lacey (a West African nun who survived a horrible event in her childhood), Wolgast (a burned-out FBI agent who lost his family), and Carter (a wrongly-convicted death-row inmate). Cronin writes beautifully about these characters, and he weaves for us a wonderfully interconnected story of their lives and their role in the disaster to come. When the novel shifts to the Colony in California, 100 years have passed and we are introduced to a host of new characters and a totally new story with a very different tone and focus. It feels like two different novels; and although Cronin does try to bring them both together as The Passage comes to an end, it feels somehow forced or like an afterthought. I felt much more connected to Amy and Wolgast than I ever did to any of the subsequent characters - their brief (and metaphysical) farewell near the end of the novel was the single most memorable scene for me.

Of all the comparisons mentioned in relation to this novel, I find it much closer to two of Margaret Atwood's works (Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake), especially in tone and literary style. Cronin is a literary writer, which can make his work less accessible to those looking for a quick summer read. Like Handmaid's Tale, portions of The Passage are told through journals discovered 1000 years in the future and discussed at an educational symposium; the story we are reading, we realize, took place a very , very long time ago, and that does have an impact of how we see the events in the novel itself. Like Oryx and Crake, the story is (at least on one level) about bioengineering and the foolish and egocentric desire to create a new race of humanoids. Those humanoids (the vampire-like "virals" or "smokes") are the one part of the novel that Cronin does't spend enough time on - they are not mindless ghouls or zombies; they are human beings, with memories and connections to one another. They are telepathic; they remember; their stories, even though we don't really learn enough about them, are sad and touching. I wanted to see this world from their perspective - prehaps in the next novel . . . or the one after that.

I accept the fact that Cronin (or his publishers, I should say) wants to write a trilogy - more money, after all. But I would have liked The Passage better if it had a real ending, and didn't feel so much like a commercial for the next book. I think sequels should be written because a book is so good and so loved by its readers that it demends another installment. Sequels shouldn't be planned for, like old-time movie cliffhangers whose purpose it was to sell next week's tickets. The Passage qualifies as "literature," and it should be able to stand on its own. But that's not how it felt at the end. Too many things were left unexplained, too many plot elements were left hanging (purposely, to make way for the next book). I enjoyed the novel; I was wrapped up in its story. But the last few chapters felt like a splash of cold water after a warm nap - "he's not going to end this thing," I said to myself. "He's going to leave us hanging for two years, after 800 pages." I'll probably read the next one (Mr. Cronin is grinning to himself; he knows I will!), but I doubt it will be anywhere near as good a book as this one started out to be. This could have been a masterpiece. Instead, it's a good book. Oh well, that's not such a bad thing, is it?