Frank Burns reviewed The strain by Guillermo del Toro (The strain trilogy -- bk. 1)
Review of 'The strain' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Couldn't finish. It just didn't grab me.
mass market paperback, 608 pages
Published March 30, 2010 by Harper.
The Strain
3 stars
(3 reviews)
The visionary creator of the Academy Award-winning Pan's Labyrinth and a Hammett Award-winning author bring their imaginations to this bold, epic novel about a horrifying battle between man and vampire that threatens all humanity. It is the first installment in a thrilling trilogy and an extraordinary international publishing event.The StrainThey have always been here. Vampires. In secret and in darkness. Waiting.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 and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the …
The visionary creator of the Academy Award-winning Pan's Labyrinth and a Hammett Award-winning author bring their imaginations to this bold, epic novel about a horrifying battle between man and vampire that threatens all humanity. It is the first installment in a thrilling trilogy and an extraordinary international publishing event.The StrainThey have always been here. Vampires. In secret and in darkness. Waiting.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 and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing...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 Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city—a city that includes his wife and son—before it is too late.
Corey reviewed The strain by Guillermo del Toro (The strain trilogy -- bk. 1)
Review of 'The strain' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
"The first half of The Strain is where the mix of classic horror and 21st technology works the best. There is real menace in the early going-ons, and the authors expertly raise the tension through the addition of flashbacks to the life of Abraham Setrakian, the novel's Van Helsing, who became obsessed with tracking down the monsters after an encounter at the Treblinka extermination camp in World War II. There are also glimpses of an overarching narrative that will no doubt be fleshed out in the second and third novels, a hint that there is far more to the vampire empire than the almost mindless creatures that begin decimating the neighbourhoods of Manhattan...Where Strain disappoints is in the creation of terror. Perhaps it's del Toro's cinematic background, but the narrative is shallow, with very little in the way of deeper characterization. Goodweather is a bland lead, with the stereotypical ex-wife …
"The first half of The Strain is where the mix of classic horror and 21st technology works the best. There is real menace in the early going-ons, and the authors expertly raise the tension through the addition of flashbacks to the life of Abraham Setrakian, the novel's Van Helsing, who became obsessed with tracking down the monsters after an encounter at the Treblinka extermination camp in World War II. There are also glimpses of an overarching narrative that will no doubt be fleshed out in the second and third novels, a hint that there is far more to the vampire empire than the almost mindless creatures that begin decimating the neighbourhoods of Manhattan...Where Strain disappoints is in the creation of terror. Perhaps it's del Toro's cinematic background, but the narrative is shallow, with very little in the way of deeper characterization. Goodweather is a bland lead, with the stereotypical ex-wife and son that he absolutely must save. Setrakian is more interesting, but as a vampire hunter, he's had the more interesting life. But his main purpose appears to be to fill in the gaps of the narrative. Other characters flit in and out, but make little impact."
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