Monday, October 29, 2012

No Choice But To Plod On


Since I've gone and done the dumb thing of beginning the apocalypse with Book One, I've no choice but to strive on with protagonist Amy Harper Bellafonte in Book Two of The Passage by Justin Cronin- 'The Twelve'. But she doesn't always appear in each chapter, which is fine by me.

Both books so far, play out like a television script. One more to go. Oh well. (Read reviews here, here, hereherehere and here.) Thank goodness it's at least midway through. Now I'll just have to grit my teeth for the final delivery in this trilogy in 2014 when I would have forgotten just about everything. DAMMIT.

The meaning of the 12 isn't lost (i.e. 12 Apostles) on the readers. Bit of an irony actually, when the 12 death-row inmates have thrown open the doors of Apocalypse and infected all. As the book in the middle, it begins in Texas five years after the Apocalypse, heads back to Denver Year Zero, spans 100 years and rises to expectations by patching up holes in the plot, doing significantly more character development, bringing back the super soldier Lieutenant Alicia Donadio - Alicia of Blades, as the secret weapon, while expecting readers to also suspend all disbelief in certain practical aspects, since this is after all, an apocalyptic scenario. Gloriously depressing. All these move the story along slowly towards an unknown ending.

I want to talk about this more. But the friends will kill me if I do. They're either in the middle of the book or yet to start. So what I'll say here is, regardless of how many names and characters walk through these two books, I only care about Amy (ermm...yes, she's quite old and eternally youthful), Peter and Alicia 'Lish'. The rest don't matter. Here's the teaser for those of you who haven't read it. There's an epilogue to it titled 'The Golden Hour'. There's a printed quote from Shakespeare's Sonnet 109 which reads, "As easy might I from myself depart / As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie./ That is my home of love."
Her pack was lying in the culvert. She had no gun, but the bandoliers were there, blades tucked into their sheaths. She pulled the leather straps over her chest and cinched them tight to her frame. She climbed on Soldier's naked back and clicked her tongue, turning him east. 
Come to me, Alicia. Come to me come to me come to me... 
You're damn right I will, she thought. Leaning forward, his great mane filling her hands, she heeled Soldier to a trot, then a canter, and finally a gallop, wild through the snow. 
You bastard. Here I come.

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