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charles__ 's review for:
The Passage
by Justin Cronin
Recommended to me by a friend. Although, I was warned that its one of those all (entire trilogy) or nothing type of reads.
Starting out, I can see the author is an acolyte of [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg]. The story reminds me strongly of [b:The Strain|6065215|The Strain (The Strain Trilogy, #1)|Guillermo del Toro|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1326225354s/6065215.jpg|6241525] by [a:Guillermo del Toro|167605|Guillermo del Toro|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1244751075p2/167605.jpg]. That book was published before this one by a year or so.
Prose is very good. The author has good skills. Dialog is well done, as well as action sequences. There is a lot of detail in each scene that makes them very immersive. A lot of well chosen words are also spent on certain character's development.
Characters range from good, to horribly clichéd. That many of them are intentionally so sketchy is more than annoying. I suspect the author's intention to have a cast of thousands caused him to not lovingly craft many of them. In addition, the the author has no compunction about killing-off his most developed characters.
Plotting is more problematic. The story is a mash-up of tropes from: horror, hard science fiction, and fantasy. In addition, the book is broken-up into parts widely separated in time. Frankly, I think the author went one genre too far. The mystical, other worldly guidance certain characters receive is jarringly implausible in contrast to the realistic, science fiction elements of the story.
While I thought the writing in this story was very good, it's still a BET (Bloated Episodic Trilogy). It could have been written in a single book. Also, I'm at issue with the overuse of pervasive mystic guidance, which is just the crutch of Deus ex machina. So, that and my reading time is too short for me to be invested in yet-another-trilogy. As good as this book was in parts, I'm not going to be reading the next book [b:The Twelve|13281368|The Twelve (The Passage, #2)|Justin Cronin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1331230956s/13281368.jpg|14373498].
Starting out, I can see the author is an acolyte of [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg]. The story reminds me strongly of [b:The Strain|6065215|The Strain (The Strain Trilogy, #1)|Guillermo del Toro|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1326225354s/6065215.jpg|6241525] by [a:Guillermo del Toro|167605|Guillermo del Toro|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1244751075p2/167605.jpg]. That book was published before this one by a year or so.
Prose is very good. The author has good skills. Dialog is well done, as well as action sequences. There is a lot of detail in each scene that makes them very immersive. A lot of well chosen words are also spent on certain character's development.
Characters range from good, to horribly clichéd. That many of them are intentionally so sketchy is more than annoying. I suspect the author's intention to have a cast of thousands caused him to not lovingly craft many of them. In addition, the the author has no compunction about killing-off his most developed characters.
Spoiler
For example, for a large portion of the book, I thought Agent Walgast was the main character, only to find it was the cypher Amy Bellafonte.Plotting is more problematic. The story is a mash-up of tropes from: horror, hard science fiction, and fantasy. In addition, the book is broken-up into parts widely separated in time. Frankly, I think the author went one genre too far. The mystical, other worldly guidance certain characters receive is jarringly implausible in contrast to the realistic, science fiction elements of the story.
While I thought the writing in this story was very good, it's still a BET (Bloated Episodic Trilogy). It could have been written in a single book. Also, I'm at issue with the overuse of pervasive mystic guidance, which is just the crutch of Deus ex machina. So, that and my reading time is too short for me to be invested in yet-another-trilogy. As good as this book was in parts, I'm not going to be reading the next book [b:The Twelve|13281368|The Twelve (The Passage, #2)|Justin Cronin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1331230956s/13281368.jpg|14373498].