Justin Cronin’s The Passage is an epic story of enraged creatures roaming a post-viral Although fans of the now familiar post-apocalyptic horror genre will recognise some tried and true elements guaranteed to give them the creeps, The Passage nonetheless has enough originality and imagination to keep the reader’s interest for the book’s 700 plus pages.
The scenario of a virus gone wrong in the hands of the military, spreading at a ferocious and terrifying pace, recalls the finer moments of the film 28 Days Later, while the resulting creatures that hunt down the humans are a nasty combination of the vampires from I Am Legend and the Morlocks from The Time Machine. They hunt at night, travel through the trees and attack from above. You won’t see Robert Pattison playing these vile, enraged throat biters in a cinema anytime soon. All this makes for a wonderful sense of dread that buzzes throughout the novel.Justin Cronin has populated his novel with many characters that develop significant relationships within the core group of survivors, but even the infected, the “virals”, have a human history that adds complexity, even a certain poignancy, to the story. This close attention to the characters’ stories is combined with a detailed rendering of an American landscape utterly transformed by catastrophe.
If you liked Stephen King’s The Stand, you will probably appreciate the epic scale of The Passage. Although it has been many years since I have read The Stand, I think I prefer this book.Best not read alone at night or under a leafy tree on a windy day.
The scenario of a virus gone wrong in the hands of the military, spreading at a ferocious and terrifying pace, recalls the finer moments of the film 28 Days Later, while the resulting creatures that hunt down the humans are a nasty combination of the vampires from I Am Legend and the Morlocks from The Time Machine. They hunt at night, travel through the trees and attack from above. You won’t see Robert Pattison playing these vile, enraged throat biters in a cinema anytime soon. All this makes for a wonderful sense of dread that buzzes throughout the novel.Justin Cronin has populated his novel with many characters that develop significant relationships within the core group of survivors, but even the infected, the “virals”, have a human history that adds complexity, even a certain poignancy, to the story. This close attention to the characters’ stories is combined with a detailed rendering of an American landscape utterly transformed by catastrophe.
If you liked Stephen King’s The Stand, you will probably appreciate the epic scale of The Passage. Although it has been many years since I have read The Stand, I think I prefer this book.Best not read alone at night or under a leafy tree on a windy day.
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