Another vampire book... (The Strain - Guillermo del Toro)

Member Name: Trix1212

Product:	The Strain - Guillermo del Toro
Date:	18/04/09 (128 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some intruiging ideas, some well written parts, more to come...

Disadvantages: Not enough to hold my interest, felt a bit 'bitty'

I'm sure that many fans of Pan's Labyrinth will, like me, be intrigued to find out that the director of this amazing film, Guillermo del Toro, has teamed up with crime writer Chuck Hogan and produced this, the first in a new trilogy of vampire novels. In the wake of 'Twilight' and del Toro's success as a director I'm sure that this new horror will be a popular release and there will be many eager readers ready to discover something new. I know that I was expecting a lot from it (and I'm don't usually read horror) and opened it up with eager anticipation of something new and different.

Different it was, and very promising at the beginning. It starts with a very strange scenario - an airplane lands as usual except that it appears totally 'dead'. No light, no movement, nothing. Until it is opened and the entire crew and passengers are found inexplicably dead. Not your usual vampire story then! The actual spread of the 'vampires' in this book is treated as a virus and the man called in to deal with it is main character Ephrain, an expert in disease control (I know, hardly an original idea!). However, the spread and effects of the disease are certainly different and in the description of the victims some of the 'horror' of the book seems to be revealed (though I'm a total baby and I didn't find it all that scary!).

The characters are ok, though I didn't find them all that interesting to be honest and found Eph's relationship with his ex-wife and son a quite irritating distraction. There are some more elements of what I think of as a 'classic' vampire story in an ancient mythology and an old man whose childhood memories have led him to a life of studying the 'Master' who he believes is the root of all the problems. There seem to be a couple of interesting 'threads' of story which will presumably be drawn together later in the series and some very well written and fairly gripping scenes. But, for me at least, it didn't really pull together enough to hold my interest - it took me quite a long time to get through this one and I'm not sure I'll bother with the next, by the time it's released I may have forgotten all about it!

I'm always a little nervous about starting a horror book and usually end up disappointed - maybe it just isn't my genre... I'll be looking forward to seeing other opinions on this one.

It will be released in June 2009, in hardback at £12.99 (no doubt discounted at various retailers).My copy has just over 400 pages.

Summary: Not my sort of thing...