AWW 2013: The Passage 7.2

I really disliked the look of this cover so I avoided buying this book

The Passage is the first novel written by Justin Cronin. Its a post apocalyptic novel, split into two parts, the first detailing the before and after of a Bolivian virus that massacred a group of tourists, all of whom had cancer before they were attacked and then mysteriously didn't. The US government decides the cure to cancer is amazing and then genetically manipulates and experiments on criminals to create super soldiers for super healing and stuff. As usual, this is a bad idea. The super soldiers get super powers, start drinking peoples blood, kill everyone and turn one in ten people into vampires, then the US gets bombed by other countries as they try and escape to contain the infection and California becomes its own country. 'Merica.
 

Almost, almost

 The second is the aftermath of the attacks, roughly one hundred years later. The US has segregated into colonies where super powered lights and giant walls protect the last shreds of humanity against the virals/jumpers/flyers/spooks/Draculas/vampires or whatever you'd like to call them, depending on the state of origin.
 Babcock is the big bad and has been mind controlling people for years.
The Californian colony is segregated into a confusing group of capitalized functions, like the Teacher, the Guard, the Nurse and so on. Its a bit unclear why there are so many capital letters everywhere. However, their society begins to crumble for reasons best left to spoilers. You know the drill, highlight the article for the spoiler. It follows the lives of Theo, cool guy who goes missing and is Peter's brother, Mausomi, super cool chick who gets knocked up, Peter, the secondary main character I don't care for, Alicia, super soldier chick who is the only person ever to have killed three virals single handed and Michael, super engineer, as they discover the fuel cells powering the lights are starting to fail. Chaos ensues.
He starts pushing residents of the Californian colony into destroying the city.
Fortunately, one girl is there to save the world, Amy Bellafonte, abandoned at a nunnery, and kidnapped by two FBI goons for the facility. Even before she got infected with a refined version of the virus, you got the feeling she was a bit spooky. She talks to animals, causes a weird zoo outbreak and can tell when people are about. Spooky. Anyway, she now has super healing, has semi-psychic powers, an allergy to sunlight and can potentially live forever. She's pretty cool.

The vampires/virals in this story are quite interesting. Its a mix of old school traditions, allergies to sunlight, turning into dust when dead, allergies to garlic and crosses, Dracula-esque customs, with Renfields aka human servants and mindlessness but they also share similarities with I am Legend, in that they are unsexy and balding. As well as that, they have their own particular strengths and weaknesses, key to the story. They share a hive mind with their original source of infection, one of the Twelve, the original condemned criminals who are experimented on. They get dizzy when viewing spirals. They are mindless attackers of anything that has blood unless focused upon by their maker. They also have very distinctive signs of infection, such as fevers, sweating and weird stripping.

I can name nearly all these vampires sadly.
You thought this picture would be weird stripping, didn't you?

Despite that almost pulp fiction synopsis, its an entrancing read, its more than just vampire pulp its about the human condition and surviving when the world falls apart. I was initially reading the first part of this book whilst on Skype with my Boyfriend and I kept shushing him, while I was getting to the good parts. Some parts of the book are lacking in detail with the start of the Californian colonies being the worse part of the book for me. I feel like a lot of this was cut out since it has the feel of being something you would know if you had read an earlier book, but that could also be the way some of the phrasing is laid out such as to imply a longer history, "Jaxons and Fishers were always together," or "A Chou always took care of the Gardens."

This book is being made into a trilogy movie, as of this post, only two books are published, the Passage written in 2010 and the Twelve written in 2012. I have this feeling the third book will be dealing with Zero, patient Zero, Dr Fanning, one of the doctors from the original Amazonian expedition and his death.

Since the making of the post, I've also read a book on cancer in young patients 18-30 age group from the US called Everything Changes, as well as Chicken Soup for the Women's Soul, Uglies, Pretties and Specials. The first number in the title is the number of books I've read, the second being the number of books I've reviewed.