The Strain

I like to think of this book as existing with two halves, the first part and the second part. The first part was phenomenal, and the reason why I rated so highly. The recording at the beginning, the image of a darkened, “dead” plane against the backdrop of an otherwise busy airport... fantastic. The first part yanked me in with a solid constructed mystery - ‘Why did this plane land and promptly go silent?' followed by ‘Why did everyone on board simply drop dead?'...where it then led me to the second part, where I found out this was a vampire novel. I have no issues with vampire novels. [a:Guillermo del Toro 167605 Guillermo del Toro https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1244751075p2/167605.jpg] does a fantastic job of illustrating a creature we have otherwise, in recent years, ‘domesticated'. What I did take issue with was the excellent setup and somewhat lame conclusion. As [b:The Strain 6065215 The Strain (The Strain Trilogy, #1) Guillermo del Toro https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1326225354s/6065215.jpg 6241525] progressed, the plotholes and fantasy got larger and more grandiose, leaving all of the beloved science behind that had originally made this story so riveting. Many characters that began as individual people slowly degraded and bled into one voice with no color. The story plunked its way to a off-tune conclusion, no doubt leaving wiggle room for [b:The Fall 11991 The Fall Albert Camus https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388187123s/11991.jpg 3324245]. Based on the reviews written for the sequel [b:The Fall 11991 The Fall Albert Camus https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388187123s/11991.jpg 3324245] and the conclusion [b:The Night Eternal 6945530 The Night Eternal (The Strain Trilogy, #3) Guillermo del Toro https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327932900s/6945530.jpg 6965593], I will pass on these two and leave them be. Not a horrible book by any stretch, but one I also won't revisit.