The Passage - Justin Cronin

THE PASSAGE 

Book 1 of "The Passage"

ISBN : 9780345504968
FIRST PUBLISHED : 2010
PAGES : 766 (Hardcover)
GENRE : Sci Fi/Horror
PUBLISHER : Ballantine

AUTHOR - Justin Cronin

SYNOPSIS - An epic and gripping tale of catastrophe and survival, The Passage is the story of Amy—abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions. But Special Agent Brad Wolgast, the lawman sent to track her down, is disarmed by the curiously quiet girl and risks everything to save her. As the experiment goes nightmarishly wrong, Wolgast secures her escape—but he can’t stop society’s collapse. And as Amy walks alone, across miles and decades, into a future dark with violence and despair, she is filled with the mysterious and terrifying knowledge that only she has the power to save the ruined world.

QUOTES - 

• We live, we die. Somewhere along the way, if we're lucky, we may find someone to help lighten the load.

• So perhaps the greatest worry of all was that one day you would realize that all the worries of your life amounted to one thing: the desire to just stop worrying.

• It's different being afraid when there's the hope it will amount to something.

• He breathed once more, holding the air in his chest, as if it were not air but something more--a sweet taste of freedom, of all cares lifted, everything over and done.

FL Speak - Oh boy, this was long pending.

Welcome to the end of the world. As the world explores immortality, life fucks you back.

I'm not a big fan of post-apocalyptic books but this one hit where it hurts. The Passage brings out the horror in a realistic model of the current world. Amy, a child of a thousand years is probably the answer to everything that went horribly wrong.

The book started with intrigue, continued with boredom and ended with the question "there's more?" What was supposed to be an uber secret mission to extract super bat DNA to make soldiers turned out to be the key to doomsday. Trust the armed forces to fuck things up. Fast forward to the future and there's no technology and a lot of vamps/virals roaming the world, hunting for game, breeding to continue existence and probably pod in pod with the girl you once slept with.

The first half set the ball rolling, the second half struggled to keep up and the climax was over before I could pull out. I'm fucking glad that this wasn't a "shoot-you-in-the-head" vampire story. I was expecting them to become smart as the years progressed and am glad that they did. There wasn't a vamp as classy as Count Drac but some of them were pretty neat sans the fashion sense.

I just read the synopsis of the second book and saw none of the characters from book 1. Well except Amy and god knows what she's becoming.

Should I continue this series? Hmmm... 

Oh yes, worth the bullshit midway. 

RATING - 4/5