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wyrmdog 's review for:
The Strain
by Guillermo del Toro, Chuck Hogan
While the story is fun the writing is mechanical, the plot decisions predictable, and the characterization makes me groan. You know immediately who has plot immunity and who doesn't, the writing has very little sense of immediacy, and there are constant condescending asides.
Worst of all is that the main character takes an overdose of stupid pills near the end of the book and makes decisions that endanger the less narratively important characters rather wantonly. Probably the worst...
[SPOILER ALERT]
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...is when he keeps another character from destroying his vampire ex-wife, and then IMMEDIATELY starts lamenting about how she's going to hunt her son forever, that their custody battle isn't over...now it's supernatural! Thanks for spelling that out for me. I don't know that I'm smart enough to have figured out the parallel themes there on my own. =/
Bad guy gets away, vague menace over plot-immune son of main character persists (thereby removing all tension when he's supposedly in danger), new menace introduced. It almost reads like it was written by numbers. Anyway, it was fun, but the end was more aggravating than cathartic or gripping, and I'm normally an easy mark for this sort of story (I quite liked 13 Bullets, Obsidian Butterfly, They Thirst...).
I'm hoping they get better, because I already own all three!
24SEP13 Update: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strain_(TV_series) dear god I hope it's better as a TV show than a book. I have a lot of faith in FX due to the Bridge and the Americans, but... *crosses fingers*
Worst of all is that the main character takes an overdose of stupid pills near the end of the book and makes decisions that endanger the less narratively important characters rather wantonly. Probably the worst...
[SPOILER ALERT]
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
...is when he keeps another character from destroying his vampire ex-wife, and then IMMEDIATELY starts lamenting about how she's going to hunt her son forever, that their custody battle isn't over...now it's supernatural! Thanks for spelling that out for me. I don't know that I'm smart enough to have figured out the parallel themes there on my own. =/
Bad guy gets away, vague menace over plot-immune son of main character persists (thereby removing all tension when he's supposedly in danger), new menace introduced. It almost reads like it was written by numbers. Anyway, it was fun, but the end was more aggravating than cathartic or gripping, and I'm normally an easy mark for this sort of story (I quite liked 13 Bullets, Obsidian Butterfly, They Thirst...).
I'm hoping they get better, because I already own all three!
24SEP13 Update: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strain_(TV_series) dear god I hope it's better as a TV show than a book. I have a lot of faith in FX due to the Bridge and the Americans, but... *crosses fingers*