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    The Strain
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    The Strain
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    The Strain
    Audiobook13 hours

    The Strain

    Written by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

    Narrated by Ron Perlman

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The high-concept thriller with a supernatural edge from the world-famous director, whose films include Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy.

    A plane lands at JFK and mysteriously ‘goes dark’, stopping in the middle of the runway for no apparent reason, all lights off, all doors sealed. The pilots cannot be raised.

    When the hatch above the wing finally clicks open, it quickly becomes clear that everyone on board is dead – although there is no sign of any trauma or struggle. Ephraim Goodweather and his team from the Center for Disease Control must work quickly to establish the cause of this strange occurrence before panic spreads.

    The first thing they discover is that four of the victims are actually still alive. But that’s the only good news. And when all two hundred corpses disappear from various morgues around the city on the same night, things very rapidly get worse. Soon Eph and a small band of helpers will find themselves battling to protect not only their own loved ones, but the whole city, against an ancient threat to humanity.

    Perfect for fans of Dean Koontz’s The Eyes of Darkness

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 2, 2009
    ISBN9780007329724
    Author

    Guillermo del Toro

    Guillermo del Toro is the award-winning director of numerous critically acclaimed feature films, such as Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy, Pacific Rim, and The Shape of Water (Oscar Award winner, Best Picture). He is also the co-author (with Chuck Hogan) of the bestselling Strain Trilogy. Del Toro lives in California with his wife and two children.

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    Reviews for The Strain

    4/5

    210 ratings182 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Flight 753 from Berlin to New York has landed and it is full of bodies. There are only four survivors. NTSB is investigating what went wrong and all the usual causes of death are not to blame. Investigator Ephraim Goodweather has to give up his weekend with his son to come and find out what went wrong. He never suspects the true cause vampires. Now the vampire virus is spreading because the survivors were allowed to go home and no one knows it the human kind will survive. The beginning of the Strain is quick to hook but the end grow long and is not as interesting. A strong idea will give more to the vampire mythology but the slow ending of this novel may cause readers to abandon it. The Strain comes from the older monster mythology of vampire. These monsters are not romantic and that are here to kill.
    • 5/5
      Fantastic writing with incredibly creepy images that are hard to forget. Del Toro brings his extensive expertise on anything vampiric and the results are amazing. Was hard to put down and had me waiting for the next installment of the trilogy.
    • 5/5
      Let me make this quite clear - The Strain is awesome. What starts as a techno-thriller, crammed with absorbing technical details soon becomes something more. The Strain, as long as you avoid any spoilers, is a cracking piece of fiction which will immediately captivate you, then throw a great curveball at you, and finally take you on a roller-coaster ride full of exciting and suspenseful scenes. The character development is superb, quickly creating a raft of protagonists which are easy to idenitfy with yet not two-dimensional. The content is well executed, providing a level of realism that is both surprising for this genre and delightful to read. This is the start of trilogy that will be in book-lists everywhere. Del Toro has created a compulsive and absorbing vision - faultless!
    • 2/5
      I didn't like this version of "vampires". This book was more like a creature book then a vampire story. In my opinion WAY too much time was spent on the plane, boring..... The ending was not good. I won't rush out to read the second book! The Passage was a much better Vampire book and more worth my reading time.
    • 3/5
      This book is all kinds of dumb, but when it works, it really works. Some of the early scene-setting moments are fantastic, and the "getting the team together" moments crackle. The action feels so by-the-books, though, and the prose is...it's not bad, but it's sometimes too punchy.
    • 3/5
      My husband picked this out for me because I liked the Twilight series and Sookie Stackhouse, and although it deals with vampires this is a very disturbing look at vampires. It features vampires whose heads flip back and reveal a blood sucking tongue (for lack of a better word) and some worm like things. Definitely in the "horror" genre and only for those with strong stomachs and not prone to nightmares.
    • 4/5
      A good take on the vampire legend, added with the ever present fear of disease spreading. A fast paced read without gratuitous violence and sex that seems to be a staple for some authors in the horror genre.
    • 2/5
      UPDATED : Finally got this from the library and finished it off. It was interesting and proposes a new, scientific approach to vampire legend, yet rambled and some of the events jumped around in a way that made it feel like a movie that had too many scenes cut out. I'll probably give it another chance and pick up the next one, just because I'm a vampire junkie, yet I can't REALLY recommend this book unless you've got some time to kill on a plane or something.(old notes)Mr. Burns peed on this book so I had to pitch it. Apparently he's sick of all the vamp media I've been involved in lately (just finished True Blood season 1, and have been watching Being Human on BBC America). Anyways, this one got sidelined : glad it wasn't a library book!!
    • 1/5
      I don't know what I was expecting, but this book was a poorly written "cookbook" that followed a recipe for thriller pulp fiction. There was nothing new or even mildly interesting here.In contrast, Justin Cronin's [The Passage] at least created an interesting future world, with well developed characters and a less predictable plot. I will be reading that sequel. I will try to forget all about [The Strain.] It won't be hard.
    • 4/5
      The Strain, by authors Chuck Hogan and Guillermo Del Toro, has a vampire apocalypse decimating NYC and the audiobook is read by actor Ron Perlman? Cool! And this novel is just the first in a trilogy. The audiobook did have weird musical interludes after several chapters, I guess to add a spooky mood at key points. I enjoyed the science of the spread of the vampire plague and the myriad of characters affected by it.
    • 5/5
      Now after reading that description, you know that I just had to have it! As I've stated quite a few times am a HUGE vampire fan. I've read so many vampire books that it's not even funny. But getting back to this book - these vampires are not in the very least romantic - they are pure evil!I was hooked right from the get go with what was happening to the plane when it landed at the airport. Everything black and everyone appears to be dead - for the most part - save 4 survivors. But these so called survivors also have become infected. This is where it really started to get interesting. Because when I think of vampire, I think razor sharp teeth. But these vampires are different. I don't know whether I really want to tell you what they have instead of that, but I'm going to keep my mouth shut, because they are nothing - nothing like what we've come to know as the modern vampire. These creatures are ancient and behave way beyond our comprehension. Yes, they have been in our world forever, but not in the way we've come to know them!That is really what made this book so exciting. So much action and you never knew what was going to happen next. Just in my first sitting - I read 100 pages in less than an hour!Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan certainly want you to forget about what we've learned about vampire myths because they have brought them into a whole new dimension! They other characters in the book, Eph Goodweather, Nora and Setrakian, who was there years ago and came face-to-face with the "Master". The characters evolved over the book. Eph and Nora were the scientists and tried to find a scientific reason for the outbreak, but when they were approached by Setrakian - things changed and they really had to bcome openminded as to what was going on around them.This is the first book in the series and I'm really looking forward to finding out what is going to happen next! I just can't wait! As The Strain isn't offically released until June of this year, I highly recommend that you get yourselves a copy of it!!!
    • 5/5
      I read this book because I wanted to see how it differed from the TV series that aired on Fox. I am happy to say that the book differs enough to warrant reading the rest of the trilogy. The main characters are all there plus a few extras to paint a better picture of what is going on in the book. It's not quite the page turner that I thought it would be but that's likely because I've seen the TV series already. I look foreword to reading the other two books.
    • 4/5
      Rating: 4 of 5Status updates - 2/7/2012, page 185: For sure a real page-turner. The "vampires" make me think of Blade II; I wonder if there will be other similarities to del Toro's films?2/13/2012, page 401: Enjoyed the Ancient Ones aka Masters. The virus wasn't original. A lot of characters to track at first. Want to know more about slayers.
    • 3/5
      After really loving Justin Cronin's 'The Passage" I was up for another vampire-scifi sort of story & this fit the bill. It felt a little meandering at the beginning but possibly that was because I was itching to get to the outbreak & gory details. This one delivered & while the format didn't really pull me in to any character in particular, I enjoyed it. I'm glad I picked this one up at the library & I will continue with the series.
    • 5/5
      This vampire story is one of the most detailed I have read. It is one of the most detailed books of any kind I have ever read. The authors have a great understanding of allowing the reader into their world by having complete characters and settings. There is nothing left to the imagination on who these people are, what they look like, how they feel, and how they live. The story is completely immersive.When I finished the first 50 pages, my thoughts were that I was going to have nightmares when I slept that night. (Lucky for me I didn’t.) Throughout the book I was disgusted and appalled, in a good way, at the events they were describing. These are NOT the vampires that sparkle. Days after I was done reading the book, while renovating the patio, I got the heebie-jeebies as a little milk white worm was wiggling around trying to make its way to me. I shiver just thinking about it again, that is how under the skin this story can get.While parts of the book are dizzying, like trying to keep straight the loads of characters in the beginning, it is justified once their paths all cross. The book is part of a trilogy, so the story is open ended with a war of vampires on the way. I think the second book will be even more interesting once we get to meet more of the supernatural creatures instead of focusing on the beginning of the parasitic infection. Book 2, The Fall, will be released September 21, 2010.
    • 3/5
      I actually started reading this book at night while traveling on an airplane and had to put it down after the first few chapters because it gave me a case of the willies. The story begins with the discovery of a plane which had landed at JFK with all aboard dead, not something that I wanted to be reading up in the air. After I got home and picked it up again, the willies disappeared and disappointment set in. The Strain has its moments, but if you've read any vampire novels at all, you've read this book. Not only are there replays of several vampire books (especially Matheson's I Am Legend, but also They Thirst by McCammon, Salem's Lot by Stephen King, Brian Lumley's fabulous Necroscope and more) but if you've read any of the Repairman Jack series or the Adversary cycle of F. Paul Wilson (especially elements of The Keep), you will recognize basic character and plot elements in the story. In short, this has all been done before, which is very sad, because basically reading a rerun tended to make the book much less suspenseful, and I have to say that I accurately predicted the end which most likely leads to the action in book two. I haven't really had a good horror novel in my hands lately, and had been hoping to allow myself a good scare, but alas, it was not to be with this book. I really wanted to like it, but I did not.However, the overall rating everywhere seems to be a 4/5, so maybe I'm just more demanding in what I'm searching for in a horror novel. I'd recommend it to readers of vampire horror fiction, with the caveat that if you've read some of the best books in the genre, be prepared for a rehash mishmash.
    • 4/5
      With all the hype lately for the Stephanie Meyer books and those movie adaptations, it's heartening to see someone return to the good old fashioned blood-curdling, mind-numbing vampires of old. When I picked up 'The Strain', I was initially concerned, finding myself asking: "Why... are they doing this?" Based on the back cover blurbs, The Strain was geared up to be a mash-up/homage of Salem's Lot and I Am Legend. And I immediately thought - Why? Why do we need this, since those two are basic classics in the genre to begin with? And secondly - do we need this to be a three-part series (concluding in 2011)? But I read it anyway, intrigued by the press, the reviews and the concept, and - if for nothing else I'd get a good Halloween read in, and have a chance to clear my mind of all the young-adult vampires flying around out there. I'm glad to say it was mostly worth it: the setup is Salem's Lot, except instead of King's typical small town horror, del Toro and Hogan have elevated the stakes, centering on New York City (where we'll end up having the implications of I Am Legend in terms of a more massive scale infestation of vampires). All this is great, well-written and suspenseful. And very disturbing. There are a few new twists on the vampires, the virus at their core, and their powers and limitations that make this all fun. And I am looking forward to the next two novels. But I do have some problems. 1) Why name the protagonist 'Abraham'? Come on. We get it already. He's Van Helsing, exactly, down to his East European background, his accent, his beliefs, everything. It was enough to have him as the wise man who has had run-ins with the vampires and will counsel the other heroes on how to kill these things. There's going to be enough comparisons and criticisms of this work based on its borrowing from other classic that you don't need to encourage it. 2) I know Dan Simmons even gave a nice blurb on the back cover, but with all due respect, his CARRION COMFORT was a much more original, epic vampire novel, one that I'd argue is the best vampire novel ever written - about a group of psychic vampires who use humans as cattle - and pawns in their own power struggles. This is a concept The Strain also 'borrows'/introduces late in the novel as we realize The Master has broken the vampire rules, and that the other vamp lords are pissed. So again, it's not original, and Simmons' work is a tremendous classic, and one that actually ends in one novel, albeit a long one that could have been likewise broken up into three if he were greedy. 3) I agree with some of the other reviewers in that the biological/supernatural 'rules' these vampires follow (reflections in mirrors, sleeping in dirt, crossing running water) need to be fleshed out better - and I hope that gets addressed in the next novels. But right now it seems the authors are trying to have it both ways. 4) Maybe I missed something, but if the point was to get the Master into the new world so he could begin the plague to spread the virus and control everything, and if crossing water is a real problem - why choose New York, which is an island? Again, maybe I missed it, but it seems, as Abraham hopes - we've got a way to contain this virus already. Thank God the Master didn't land in Phoenix or LA or something where there would be no stopping the spread... So again, The Strain was a fun read, and I'm glad to see the monstrous vampires and their viral implications returning to the spotlight, but it just doesn't feel that original to me, serving more as a current diversion, and a reminder that I should go back and reread the other classics from which it borrows its material: Carrion Comfort, Salem's Lot and I am Legend (and of course, Dracula).
    • 5/5
      The Strain is brings a very unique perspective to the vampire mythology by modernizing it and bringing in epidemiological elements. Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan weave a cinematic story; the suspense and atmosphere, particularly in the first section of the book, are well maintained. Eph, Nora, Zack, Abraham, and Vasily are characters I like, and I want them to succeed in their almost-hopeless seeming battle against the Master. My (very few) complaints about the book were that the action was sometimes choppy and rushed, especially towards the ending; and the battle with the Master at the very end of the book seemed forced and wasn't as well written as earlier sections of the novel. It was almost too coincidental that both times they came up against the Master, individuals were injured, but no one was killed, especially since the Master has been around for hundreds of years and all of the main cast, except Satrakian, have not experience fighting vampires at all. Overall, I really enjoyed this book; this is one of my favorites that I have received through the Early Reviewers program, and I definitely want to read the rest of the trilogy when it is out in stores. I am very curious to know what is going on with Eldritch Palmer and why he made an agreement with the Master, as well as what is going to happen to Gus, now that he has been captured by a different group of vampires.
    • 5/5
      Both this series, and Justin Cronin's The Passage leave me rejoicing! Vampires are finally returning to what they should be, which doesn't include potential dates, sparkly or not. When a Boeing 777 rolls into JFK and goes dead, people are concerned. Then it is discovered that all but four people on board are dead, and then it gets exciting. No surprise considering the author, The Strain (and its sequel, The Fall) feels like a blockbuster movie that is Alien meets Underworld. I will be surprised if it doesn't become a movie. The role of Fet had better be played by Ron Perlman.
    • 3/5
      I really had higher expectations for this. I read a review that stated this story started off strong and lost steam along the way-I agree. I did enjoy the zombie twist on vampires though.
    • 4/5
      A plane lands at JFK airport and goes dark. No one can raise the pilots and no signs of life exist. The window shades are drawn and there is no movement to be seen. Unsure of what to do and concerned about a deadly infection, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is called in to investigate and asked to find the cause of what is believed to be the simultaneous deaths of all the passengers on board.Dr. Ephraim (Eph) Goodweather heads up the CDC 's Canary Project, a rapid repose team setup to deal primarily with problems of this nature. He gathers his team and heads to the airport and once there finds what appears to be a plane full of dead passengers with no explainable cause of death. There are no visible injuries and the air is clean making an initial diagnosis impossible. While checking individuals for signs of any struggle or sickness, four survivors are found. Also found, a large black box full of dirt in the cargo hold that is not listed on any manifest.Back at the hospital, Eph is not able to find anything wrong with the few survivors and the coroner is finding more than he can explain in his lab. Not knowing what they are dealing with, Eph makes an attempt to lock down the few survivors and hold bodies in the morgue but is unable. Soon after, bodies go missing from the morgue, and unbeknown to Eph and anyone else at the hospital or the CDC, the four survivors begin to evolve into something dark, sinister, and deadly.Enter Abraham Setrakian --- vampire hunter. His first attempts to plead his case to Eph fail but eventually his is able to convince him with an interesting show and tell display with a one of a kind specimen. With help from Nora, a member of Eph's Canary team and Fet a city rat exterminator, they move to end the infestation.Del Toro's screen writing experience is key to this book. You see and feel exactly what he wants you to --- slowly inching up the tension, keeping you in suspense wondering if the noise you heard in the hall is really just the floorboards creaking or something unholy making its way to you. His take on the vampire follows some of the old traditions but he adds enough to make it feel fresh and exciting. If you prefer a vampire story that holds true to the Dracula mythology than this book may not hold your interest but it's worth the read to experience his take on the vampire mystique.The first 50 or so pages of the book are intriguing. He holds back a lot, playing only a few cards and slowly building the story. While he does keep the pages turning, the story slows a bit in the middle and feels like too much of a re-telling of each new vampire being born. He quickens the pace at the end and leaves readers creeped out and anxiously waiting the next installment and probably sleeping with the lights on.As a side note, I loaned this book to two people who both told me it qualifies for read only in daytime status --- least they worry someone come bite them in the night.
    • 4/5
      I found The Strain a fun, page-turning vampire thriller. It was appropriately creepy and gave me a few chills along the way. Is it over the top, well yes, but in an entertaining “Vampires are taking over New York City” kind of way. This is a book that grabs your attention right away and delivers a pretty good story of good versus evil.Of course these are far from the popular vampires of today’s romance fiction, the strain are evil, nasty, terrifying creatures that need to be put down in as many bloodthirsty ways as possible. I thought it was obvious that at least one of these authors is used to working in visual entertainment as the gore descriptions were detailed and vivid.The authors put a new spin on the old staple and delivered a story that was fresh and different yet still incorporated many of the traditional aspects. Do I recommend this book. Yes, to lovers of horror stories. Will I continue on with this series? Well, I won’t rush to the next book, but when I am ready for a good vampire tale, I can certainly see picking up the next one.
    • 5/5
      Wow! I blew through this book like the virus is blowing through NYC. A very fast read and very engaging. I could not put the book down! I loved the pace and I really liked the characters. Being Del Toro, I can easily see this being made into a movie. Can't wait for the Book Two.
    • 4/5
      Guillermo del Toro's The Strain is absolutely fantastic. This is the first book in the series, and I cannot wait to read the rest. These are vampires that do not sparkle, but are true to the traditional vampire lore in that they are creatures to be feared and fought. In Toro's book they are a plague upon this earth, terrifying to behold, and cannot be easily destroyed. The motley vampire-hunting team of Abraham Setrakian, Ephraim Goodweather, Nora Martinez, and Vasiliy Fet might be New York's only chance of defeating the Dark One even as his "turned" hordes grow exponentially. Although the book reads like a horror film, there are no cheesy one-liners, no unrealistic hero with divine weapons or powers, no hope for survival save for what humanity's basic instincts can provide. Honestly, the zombie apocalypse would be preferable to the one del Toro describes, the odds are that grim indeed. But not only does this book have an intense plot, but the characters are brave, vulnerable, desperate, intelligent, all from different walks of life, and the reader can't help but become attached to every single one of them. This is the perfect read for someone who enjoys great horror literature, and doesn't want to stoop to teenage drama novels or cliche gore-filled comic books to find it.
    • 3/5
      The Strain is the first book of a trilogy. The Strain is followed up with The Fall and Night Eternal.When I read the synopsis of this book, I thought it was going to be a decent apocalypse. I saw that the guy worked for the CDC and that "A terrifying contagion has come to the unsuspecting city, an unstoppable plague". Seems like an end of the world cause of a bad ass virus book, right?As I read I was highly entertained. It is a well written book. A bit of purple prose here and there but overall an incredible page turner. I made it to about page 70 or so before they discovered the coffin. Yep. The coffin. It's a vampire book. I wanted to throw the book against the wall. I felt robbed.That's when I noticed the blurb on the cover, "Bram Stoker meets Steven King meets Michael Crichton." I re-read the synopsis: " an unstoppable plague that will spread like all-consuming wildfire—–lethal, merciless, hungry . . . vampiric." Argh. I wanted to throw the book against the wall again.I am so sick of vampires. I'm sick of the shiny ones, the dark ones, the funny ones. It's getting to be a bit like zombies. Just stop it.It is a well written book though and as a dedicated reader, I decided to continue on.Turns out, there's a virus that turns people into vampires. But they act a lot like zombies. They all report to "one of the ancient ones" who is called "the Master." Argh. Book tossing time.But get this, I kept reading. I couldn't put the fricking book down (after walking to the wall and picking it back up, of course). I realized that the book is written like a movie. This is not literary at all. It's a little slow to get started, but then it zooms and never stops.Once you are on the roller coaster, it's hard to walk away. There are scenes right out of a zombie flick followed by vampires followed by sci-fi movie cliches. But it all works. I'm serious. Now that I've finished it, I actually like it.This is more of a dawn of the dead meets blade meets the syfy saturday movie. I couldn't put it down but I considered poking myself in the eye with a sharp stick. Have you seen those syfy movies like the 2 headed shark mated with godzilla and a snake? Cheesy but fun. The strain is cheesy but fun and with a few decent twists. What it does have is excellent writing. Even with the cliches, it is a good, painless read.Now that I have gotten that off my chest, here is the story in a nutshell: Doc from CDC gets a call on his weekend with his son (divorced cause he works so dang hard) to go meet an airplane that landed but went lights out before rolling off the runway. Turns out that dracula is on board and not only did he suck all the passengers blood, he took a huge dump all over everything (seriously, that's worth reading all by itself). In the course of finding out that this is a vampire plague, he gets framed for killing someone (vampire nats) and goes on the run. In comes a holocaust survivor who's been chasing the boogeyman since the old country (no his name is not Van Helsing). Turns out a rich, sickly dude wants to live forever so he's bankrolling dracula. Then there's some rats, zombies, chases, face to face encounter. Syfy, right?So, my verdict? If you like this kind of thing, I recommend it. I will probably read the next two books in the set. When it comes on Syfy one saturday night, I'll probably DVR it.
    • 5/5
      This is a modern thriller that begins when a plane that has just landed at JFK airport goes dark and all on board are found dead and evolves into an edge-of-your-seat vampire hunt. The cast of characters is somewhat formulaic—there’s the skeptical scientist, the seemingly crazy old man who claims to know what’s going on, the titan of industry with dark motives, and more than a few innocent bystanders who get swept up into something they’re only beginning to understand—but the collaboration between del Toro, a film director with grand visions and a keen eye for detail, and Hogan, a skilled writer who knows how to keep a story moving, makes the story interesting, suspenseful, and satisfying in all the right places.
    • 4/5
      Del Toro’s and Hogan’s novel—the first of a trilogy—is carefully crafted as an episodic and well-plotted narrative that focuses on an invasion of viral vampirism (the gory ugly kind, not the glittery adolescent kind). Using contemporary versions of stock characters, Del Toro and Hogan have created pure escapist horror fiction. The good guys consist of Eph Goodweather (how’s that for a descriptive name?), a CDC epidemiologist, Nora Martinez (his multicultural colleague), Vasily Fet (an analytical exterminator—aren’t you loving the extended metaphors?), and Professor Setrakian, a Holocaust survivor who fills the Van Helsing role. The big bad guy is Sardu, aka The Master, a rogue vampire who’s determined to defy his vampire peers, create an army of malevolent vampires armed with stingers emanating from their throats (kind of like what would have happened had the alien lodged in John Hurt’s neck rather than bursting through his gut), destroy the timed-honored truce between the races, and take over the human race.This first volume of the trilogy fulfills all the narrative requirements—complex characters are created, the vampire mythology is invented, gruesome episodes occur, and the plot builds to a suspenseful showdown…which is perfectly orchestrated to lead in to the sequel. It’s all pure fun, and if you enjoy vampire novels at all, you’ll be drawn in—as I was—to this fast-paced tale.
    • 4/5
      3.5 stars

      This was a reread for me, well actually a relisten (is that a word?); I read it when it was first released in 2009, and listened to the Audible version this time around. Someday I may even watch the TV show.

      Just about everyone knows who Guillermo del Toro is: the genius filmmaker of the dark and fantastic. It’s no surprise his first fictional jaunt is The Strain, complete with the expected ghastly atmosphere. This is a suspenseful story of a vampiric infection threatening to engulf all of New York City in a tale that is half horror and half police procedural. Yes, you read that right.

      The story itself is huge, following about a dozen characters through the initial stages of the vampire invasion. While there is a truck-load of vampire clichés, for the most part, it works. The vampires are creatures of the night; they aren’t glitzy angst-ridden teenagers, they are horrific monsters on the hunt. Boiled down, it’s the story of an ancient vampire being hunted by a Van Helsing character.

      As I said earlier, I listened to the Audible version. I don’t often reread books, but seeing that Ron Perlman was narrating this one “forced” me to burn an Audible credit. One of my favorite actors, he is an able narrator, handling a New York accent, a Russian/Romanian accent, and an Hispanic accent with ease.

      I knew what I was getting into when I started this one. Overall, this book is an enjoyable, “jumpy” read, as long as you realize you have to suspend reality and not expect too much. It is, after all, a vampire book. How much reality do you expect?
    • 5/5
      As a fan of the recent movies Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy and Hellboy 2, I had high expectations for Guillermo del Toro's new novel co-authored by Chuck Hogan, and The Strain met and exceeded all of them. Opening with a flashback of a fable told to a young boy and then jumping to the present with the chilling landing of a mysterious plane at JFK airport, suspense is expertly layered into the heart of the story. What follows is a dark and sinister reworking of a classic vampire story true to the colorful and multi-layered storytelling style seen in del Toro's movies. With elements of zombie lore and bioterrorism, The Strain can best be described as Bram Stoker meets Resident Evil. The characters in the book are expertly drawn with a good mix of strengths and flaws. The action is intense and creepy - not a book to read before bedtime for both the nightmares it could cause and the inability to put it down! As the first book in a new trilogy, it tells a succinct story but the ending is definitely more of a pause than a stop since readers will be left eager for the next installment.
    • 5/5
      This is a great vampire novel. I got so wrapped up in the story I had nightmares for several weeks about vampires! Its the spookiest book ever!