I’m a HUGE Guillermo Del Toro fan. He has, without a doubt, one of the most amazing visual minds of anyone working in media today. It’s no wonder that everyone wants to work with Del Toro, from Disney to video game companies to novelist Chuck Hogan. Del Toro has a lot of ideas when it comes to vampires, and he takes some of his concepts from Blade II, along with plenty of new ideas, and brings them to his collaboration with Chuck Hogan, The Strain Trilogy.
I wasn’t the hugest fan of the original novel in the trilogy, The Strain. (check out my review) I felt like it was bit too much build up without enough resolution. That being said, I was still curious enough to see where the story was going to pick up The Fall, the second novel in the trilogy.
In The Fall, the vampiric strain has debilitated New York City, and the heroes of the original are trying to figure out their next steps, not realizing that the monsters behind the vampiric outbreak are already working on their endgame.
The vampiric virus unleashed in The Strain has taken over New York City. It is spreading across the country and soon, the world. Amid the chaos, Eph Goodweather—head of the Center for Disease Control’s team—leads a small band out to stop these bloodthirsty monsters. But it may be too late. Ignited by the Master’s horrific plan, a war erupts between Old and New World vampires, each vying for total control. Caught between these warring forces, humans—powerless and vulnerable—are no longer the consumers, but the consumed. Though Eph understands the vampiric plague better than anyone, even he cannot protect those he loves from the invading evil. His ex-wife, Kelly, has been turned by the Master, and now she stalks the city, in the darkness, looking for her chance to reclaim Zack, Eph’s young son. With the future of the world in the balance, Eph and his courageous team, guided by the brilliant former professor and Holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian and exterminator Vasiliy Fet, must combat a terror whose ultimate plan is more terrible than anyone first imagined—a fate worse than annihilation.
I’m not a fan of novels that flaunt their influences, particularly when I’m familiar with the influences in question. It’s like paying to see a new band and discovering only after the set begins that you’re watching a cover band. The music may be competent, but if you wanted to hear those songs, you could just listen to the original stuff.
