There’s also something about devoting all that time to characters that makes you miss them when the book is over. And yet, I was not tempted to put it down in spite of its length. Certainly Cronin’s writing is much better, but otherwise I can’t really say I thought The Passage superior. Consider instead the series by Susan Beth Pfeffer ( Life As We Knew It, The Dead And The Gone, and This World We Live In) which probably comes closer to The Passage in terms of the story line (e.g., massive kill-off of the population, and struggle for survival among the remainder).
But perhaps that’s not a fair comparison. Is The Passage better than post-apocalyptic books such as The Hunger Games or The Knife of Never Letting Go? I think The Passage just does not measure up to those books. Oddly, we never really get to know Amy, who is the lynchpin of the whole book, not to mention, of the book’s universe. There are some mysteries that are never resolved (although apparently a sequel is in the works). The book could have been abridged quite a bit without losing anything of consequence. It’s hope that’s hard.”ĭiscussion: The story is told from multiple points of view, and sometimes it takes a while to figure out who is talking. “Courage is easy, when the alternative is getting killed. One of the characters summarizes succinctly what it’s like in that world:
The book resumes one hundred years later, and the reader gets a tour of the post-apocalyptic world that remains. But their future is uncertain: the “virals” as the once convicts -now vampire-zombies – are now called, escape, break down the bunker, and go out into the world wreaking havoc. They are caught, of course, and returned to the top-secret Colorado bunker. The FBI agent sent to retrieve the thirteen subjects, Special Agent Brad Wolgast, balks at taking away a small child, and tries to escape with her. The choice for Subject Thirteen is Amy, a six-year-old girl who had been abandoned at a convent by a single mother. After the first twelve inmates have undergone rather bizarre transformations, the lead scientist wants to use a child for the next iteration. To test the formula, they experiment on death row prisoners. military develop an experimental drug therapy out of a rare virus believed to “weaponize” human beings. The book takes place some twenty years into the future. Cronin has managed to combine them, refashion the product to be suitable for young adult audiences (but sold in both YA and Adult markets), and spin it out to over 760 pages.
Is it possible in any conceivable universe that Justin Cronin did not read Stephen King’s The Stand before he wrote this? Or see the movie series “28 Days Later” and “28 Weeks Later?” No, I doubt it’s possible even in an alternate universe.
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