A co-worker of mine and I like to listen to audiobooks while we work. We check out audiobooks from the library and, on occasion, we switch off with each other if what we have sounds appealing.
She handed me this one audiobook she hadn’t listened to yet. The description on the back sounded good.
I have become, as of late, a science fiction fiend. I loved science fiction in high school but, as often happens, abandoned it once I entered the real world of trying to make a living. Thanks to these audiobooks, I’m catching up.
The description on the back of “The Passage” audiobook read like science fiction.
I am all for just about anything with the word “futuristic” in the description, along with “post-apocolyptic.” By the time I figured out what the story was really all about, I was already enthralled with it.
It wasn’t just the writing of the story which captured me, although it is superb in its own right. The story was equally captivating, beginning with the story of Amy.
In addition, the audiobook is read by none other than actor Edward Hermann. You may not recognize the name but if you’ve seen movies like “Big Business” (and others) you would know him: he’s the tall guy with the deep mellifluous voice. His reading of “The Passage” really brought it to life.
So, once I realized this was a futuristic vampire story, it was too late to quit.
As a teenager, some friends of mine and I were big into the vampire lore long before vampires were chic. I guess we were ahead of our time. By about thirty years.
I outgrew that phase, though I still consider Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” the quintessential vampire novel. I did read the “Twilight” series to see what all the fuss was about but truly was not impressed. Vampires are supposed to be frightening. Cronin’s “The Passage” makes them frightening again.
The story begins with Amy NLN (no last name) although she began with the name Amy Harper Bellafonte. Amy is a six year old girl whose mother leaves her in a convent in the care of Sister Lacey Antoinette Kudoto.
Then we’re taken to the jungles of Bolivia via e-mails from Jonas Lear who is on a mission to find something. It is not entirely clear, at least not in this book, how the mission came about: what prompted anyone to investigate this jungle or what exactly they are looking for. It is a government-funded mission and the Army, of course, eventually shows up. They find what they are looking for, but Cronin adeptly keeps that under wraps at this point.
Enter Wolgast and Doyle working on behalf of the government. They’re collecting volunteers – twelve inmates – upon which to conduct experiments. They are also assigned to collect Amy NLN at this point. Wolgast and Doyle have consciences, especially Wolgast, and they attempt to flee with the girl. But when you’re working for Uncle Sam, that’s not really possible.
Amy and the inmates are all taken to a facility in Colorado where they each are infected with the vampire ‘virus’ (a la X-files the movie) with varying effects. But when the twelve inmates get loose, everything pretty much goes to hell. Wolgast escapes with Amy and they live for awhile at a campsite in Oregon.
Fast forward almost a hundred years.
Humans are far and few between, huddled together in small tight-knit communities.
One such community is where Peter, Alisha, Michael, Mausami and others live. They combat the virals (as the vampires are now called) by keeping tight watch along the wall at night along with bright lights to discourage the virals from attack.
Then one day Amy – close to a hundred years old herself but still looking like a teenager – calmly walks into the commune.
When they (Michael, the computer geek, and others) discover a microchop implanted in Amy’s neck which continues to send a message, Peter, Alisha, Michael, et al, set out to return Amy to the place where it all began: Colorado.
Here is where I will leave the story because it is much too rich in detail and adventure for me to do it justice.
However, there is a downside. Once the reader has traveled with Peter and his group and reaches the end of the book, the reader is left with one burning question: okay, where is the rest of it???
Ah, well, with a little research, this reader discovered that “The Passage” is the first book in an unfinished trilogy. “The Twelve” – the second book in the trilogy – is due to hit bookshelves in 2012 (nice symmetry).
According to a 2007 New York Times article, Mr. Cronin’s “The Passage” started a bidding war in Hollywood for the screen rights before the book was even half-finished. It garnered a whopping $1.75 million.
A writer should be so lucky, huh?
But that kind of good fortune carries with it a heavy responsibility. Mr. Cronin is now committed to writing the two subsequent novels and writing them as well as the first one. And he probably has very strict deadlines for both.
I’d just be happy to make a decent living with my writing.
But whether you read the hard copy (766 pages hardcover) or listen to the audiobook, I’m sure you’ll appreciate the story of “The Passage.” It is well-written and well-paced, the standard chapter-ending “hooks” apply, and the characters are vivid and rich in detail. The depiction of a world gone mad is one of the finest I have read in a long time.
It brings home the fact that the possibility of something like this actually happening is, indeed, very real.
If that idea doesn’t scare you, nothing will.
Sources:
New York Times