Dammit, It's Only Book One!

I regretted picking up Justin Cronin's 'The Passage' without checking out its background. I gave a howl of consternation at the last page. It's the first book in a planned trilogy with the second 'The Twelve' coming out this year and the final 'The City of Mirrors' in 2014. WTF. I hate reading trilogies and any series when they haven't been completed. I don't like the waiting. ARRRRRGGGH. Now I've no choice but to wait. It's supposed to be made into a movie by Ridley Scott. We'll see when it does.

Apocalypse, vampiric creatures, war, chaos and destruction. Virus, outbreak, post apocalyptic world, colony of survivors forms the spine of Book One. Of course there's American involvement, FBI, quarantine, inmates, murder. Nothing namby pamby and cheerful about the plot. Woot. We follow protagonist Amy Harper Bellafonte through the stories. She's a child infected with the virus but doesn't acquire the bloodlust. Awesome. (Read reviews from The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Los Angeles Times.)

Dawn would soon come. The attack of the night before had evidently not repeated; Sara would have heard the shouts. It was as if the night were holding the last of its breath, waiting for what would come next. Because what Sara hadn't told Peter, or anyone at all, was what had occurred in the Infirmary in the moments just before the lights had gone out. The girl had suddenly sat bolt upright on her cot. Sara, exhausted, had just lain down to sleep; she was roused by a sound she realized was coming from the girl. A low moaning, a single continuous note, rising at the back of her throat. What is it? Sara said, rising quickly to go to her. What's wrong? Are you hurt, has something hurt you? But the girl gave no reply. Her eyes were very wide, and yet she seemed not to see Sara at all. Sara had sensed that something was happening outside - the room was strangely dark, there were shouts coming from the Wall, the sounds of a commotion, voices calling and feet racing past - but whil this seemed important, a fact worthy of her attention, Sara could not look away; whatever was going on outside was being waged here also, in this room, in the vacancy of the girl's eyes and the tautness of her face and throat and in the mournful melody that she was playing from somewhere deep within her.

I like the development of the plot so far. Many characters and all. Don't mind the writing either. I suspect it in the hands of the right producer, it might play out well into a tv series or the planned movie. It pans across scenes, years and situations as though we view it through the lens of a camera. Don't know. But I'm intrigued enough to want to read Book Two 'The Twelve' that will be out in August. Then to wait wait and wait two years for the finale, of which by then I'd need to re-read the earlier two books to re-cap and re-interpret. ROARRRRRR.