I have not seen the show created from this material. I DVR’d it but the thing got full and it was deleted. That may have been for the best . . .

 

The Strain begins when a passenger plane lands with its windows all darkened and none of its 199 passengers getting off the plane. Is it a terrorist attack or something even more insidious?

 

I’ll give you a hint. It’s the second one and this part of the book is so very creepy!

 

There was something on that plane that is now wreaking havoc on the family members of the extremely unlucky passengers aboard the plane – and on society at large.

 

This story is basically pandemic via vampiric strain and focuses a lot of time on the rush for experts to discover exactly what the hell is going on and how to stop it before everyone dies a horrid death or worse.

 

The audiobook is narrated by Ron Perlman who gives the material a lethal edge and he doesn’t even attempt to feign a female voice (thank all that is good and kind in this world). He is deadly serious as well he should be for a story like this! It’s tense and gory and action packed.

 

But you need to know something. Terrible things happen to people, to children, and to dogs (gawd, the dogs!) in this book so guard yourself before you step in. Some may say this is a spoiler but I say you MUST know if you have any feelings at all. I wish I had. I might’ve skipped it had I known about one particular scene. That scene had me in complete dread mode guessing what was going to happen and wishing I could unhear it and pretend it never happened after it did. My heart let me know that it hasn’t completely shriveled up yet.

 

I love pandemic and plague stories even though they give me endless nightmares because I know it’s going to happen to us one of these days and that we’ll probably deserve it (well, most of us anyway). But I only sometimes enjoy thrillers and vampire stories. This one combines the two and I mostly enjoyed it before it got too gross and boring because the vampires are evil, hungry and not at all sexy. Nope, there is no sexy to be had here (more on that in a minute). My biggest complaint about this book was the fact that it was mainly a thriller with heavy handed violence and the characters weren’t given enough space for me to get to know them (especially the women) because they were so busy doing important things to stop this blight on humanity. I really didn’t end up giving any craps about any of them because the whole thing lacked an emotional connection for me. I know not everyone necessarily needs that but I do with very few exceptions. I think reading Salem’s Lot as a kid may have spoiled most vampire novels for me.

 

As I said, this book is deadly serious but there is a moment of dialogue that I must share because I am still laughing about it.

 

“I am a drinker of men.”

 

Heh, I’ve never quite heard it put this way before and I think I like it! I wish there had been more unintentionally funny bits to break up the slaying.

 

Towards the middle it gets rather gross and I rarely say that. There’s a proboscis thing, there’s white goo/blood and, grossest of all, there’s peeing/pooping vampires. And they do it as they feed! I told you there is no sexy here and I wasn’t kidding! There is just entirely too much yuck to behold. Even my cast iron stomach was screaming for it to stop. Maybe it’s because I listened on audio and I find audio such an intimate experience that it became way too much? Or perhaps I’m getting whimpy? I don’t know what my problem was but I do know I probably won’t be reading the next two in the series because the last bits bored me to tears. It’s all chasing down vampires and slicing off their noggins and looking at vampire pee/poo and lots of telling and not any showing. I tuned out during the final acts and I’m too chicken to rewind. I was also totally fatigued by the story at this point. I probably won’t be moving on to the two sequels even though my library has them unless someone decides to be super evil and makes me change my mind! Please don’t.

 

I’m going to give it a three because the first half or so was incredibly chilling. I just wish it had all gone another, perhaps less grosser, way in the latter half.

In New York landet ein Flugzeug aus Europa und plötzlich gehen in der Maschine die Lichter aus. Die Besatzung reagiert nicht auf den Tower oder andere Flughafenmitarbeiter und auch die Passagiere verhalten sich still. Ungewöhnlich still. Kein Laut, kein Licht, keine Regung - erst als das Flugzeug geöffnet wird, zeigt sich der Grund dafür.

„Die Saat“ ist ein typisch amerikanischer Wissenschafts-Thriller, der vom drohenden Weltuntergang, Actionszenen und interessanten Theorien lebt, und meiner Meinung nach sehr gut und faszinierend zu lesen ist.

Zu Beginn findet man sich am Flughafen wieder. Im Tower herrscht geschäftsmäßige Routine. Flugzeuge kommen, Flugzeugen gehen oder setzen zum Landeanflug an. Dazwischen fällt eine Maschine auf, die trotz erfolgreicher Landung mitten auf der Landebahn stehen bleibt.

Genau an dieser Stelle beginnt es fesselnd und interessant zu werden. Die Funkverbindung ist tot und für den Tower besteht keine Möglichkeit mit der Crew Kontakt aufzunehmen. Bei einem genaueren Blick fällt auf, dass das Flugzeug weder Strom noch aufgebrachte Passagiere hat, was schon sehr merkwürdig ist. Nach und nach gehen die Flughafenmitarbeiter alle Möglichkeiten - Terroranschlag oder doch ein technisches Gebrechen - durch, bevor beim Öffnen der Maschine die eigentliche Story beginnt.

Mystisch angehaucht versetzen die Autoren Vampire in eine moderne Szenerie, bauen Sagen und Legenden ein und entwickeln neue Theorien, sodass dieser Vampirismus in unserer Zeit nicht einmal so unlogisch klingt.

Allen Figuren voran wird der Protagonist Ephraim gestellt. Er ist der Wissenschafter mit Familienzwang und wohl der Einzige, der die Welt retten kann. Außer seinem Beruf - er ist auf Epidemien spezialisiert und arbeitet beim Seuchenschutz - liegt ihm besonders an seinem Sohn, den er um jeden Preis schützen will. Obwohl Ephraim gängige Züge hat, ist er doch nicht so mit Klischees beladen, dass es abgedroschen wirkt. Er ist ein interessanter Protagonist, der sich mit seinem Team gegen die Seuche stellt.

Erzählerisch ist der Thriller aus vielen Perspektiven aufgebaut, was ich grad beim Thema Epidemien und Seuchen besonders gerne mag. Immer wieder schwenkt man zu Nebenschauplätzen und erfährt, wie weit die Katastrophe hier schon voran geschritten ist, während der Seuchenschutz noch im Dunkeln tappt.

Außerdem gibt es zwischendrin Rückblicke in die Vergangenheit, die dem modernen Wissenschaftsthriller noch eine gute Portion Mystik verleihen. 

Ich mag die Handlung, die Thematik und die Figuren, nur die Actionszenen ab der Mitte waren mir etwas zu viel. Hier haben sich die Autoren als Wiederholungstäter gezeigt, was ich als etwas zäh empfunden habe.

Diesen Trilogie-Auftakt habe ich sehr gern gelesen. Die Mischung aus ruhigen dafür fesselnden Passagen, Mythen, dem Seuchenschutz und Actionszenen, hat mir großen Spaß und mich auf die weiteren Teile neugierig gemacht.

I was browsing around on the overdrive of my library and saw this book. The title called to me first and then the cover!! I remember being excited to watch the show when it first aired so I was really surprised to see that it was based on a book. I have to say that the show pretty much stayed true to the book. With the strain it is a neat idea on the vampire plague. These are not your normal vampires and the way the authors used descriptions on the way they fed and how they were affected was awesome. I could actually visual it. The stingers that these vamps have are just freaky. This is not your regular vampire story that will make you fall in love with them. These guys are the ones that you hope the good guys kill off. Another neat part of the story I liked was how the characters had to use UV lights to see the worms that were inside of people. For me that does seem unique as I have never read that before anywhere else. We are introduced to Eph who works for the CDC, while working for the CDC he also has to deal with personal issues with his home life and the custody of his son. When he gets a call he isn't prepared for what it is going to lead to, as the story builds up he gets the answers via someone who has been hunting this plague down. We get the back story of Abraham and why he hunts which I thought was good so we just weren't making assumptions. It will be up to a small team of people to stop this virus from leaving but can they stop it in time? As far as characters go they were all well developed and the plot was steady. I will be reading book two to see what will happen next. If you want a new outlook on vampires, not much gore then pick this book up.

This is the second book in The Strain Trilogy. It is a decent enough horror / apocalypse story but it, unfortunately, gives the feeling that you are reading a TV-show script rather than a genuine book.

The book is the usual roller coaster ride of intrigue, traitors to humanity, surprise attacks and our heroes’ attempts to thwart the bad guys from achieving world domination that you would expect from a TV-show. When reading the first book it felt a bit different and somewhat fresh compared to the usual vampire stuff but with this book I felt that it had lost some of its freshness and instead fallen back to some mixture between The Walking Dead, a modern vampire story and some general government conspiracy/stupidity crap.

There are quite a few flashbacks into the earlier life of professor Setrakian and I have to say that I am generally not too appreciative of lengthy flashbacks. The book follows a few different groups of people who’s destinies (of course) intermingle after a while. I did like the Silver Angel and the bunch of misfits he ended up with.

The book, the entire series actually, is also a bit of a strange mixture between attempts to put a scientific spin on things and, at the same time, some mythological unexplainable magic. For example the vampires are supposed to be the result of a virus or rather some parasitic entities that invade the body but at the same time it includes nonsense, from a scientific point of view at last, such as the inability for the vampires to travel over moving water. The author should have stuck to one or the other.

The book is a decent enough read but it fails to elevate itself above the level of a fairly mediocre TV-show. The concept of a bunch of humans that collaborate with beings that want to reduce the human race to food stock is really a typical example of this. This kind of plot was dumb the first time it was invented and it is still dumb.

I will probably read the next book as well in order to finish the trilogy but I fear it will not be one of my most memorable moments. I think Guillermo Del Toro should stick to making movies and leave the book authoring business to people more adept at it.

If you are looking for a traditional, supernatural, vampire story then look elsewhere. If, however, you are looking for an entertaining and somewhat scientifically based horror / apocalypse story then this might just be your cup of tea.

The Strain is a fairly modern “vampire” story and, as seems to be the habit of “big screen” authors today, it is fairly apocalyptic (not sure if that is a proper English word but what the heck, I am Swedish so…) one. I cannot really say that I am a outright fan of Guillermo Del Toro but I have generally liked his work. I would say that this book falls into the same category. I like it but I cannot say that I found it wow great.

I think the best parts of the book are the first ones when the basic premises of the story develops. This is more of a viral outbreak with quite a bit of a mystery woven into it kind of story. I found these parts quite entertaining.

After that the story turns more into a traditional apocalypse / end of the world as we know it kind of story. The story is good but it almost feels like it was written for a TV / Movie adaptation from the start. There are the usual elements, a divorce in progress, people behaving stupidly, dumbass lawyers screwing things up, politically “aware” people not wanting to do the right thing in time etc. etc…

Naturally a set of heroes crystallizes out of all the mess, Eph Goodweather of course being one of those. I think my favourite is the former professor. It is a shame that he is well…old and with a deteriorating health since I would really have liked this guy to kick some behinds. He seemed to have the predisposition to do just that.

The story itself, well I cannot say that it is very plausible. The “strain” part and the biological explanation I could have bought. They are not that bad. However, if these “vampires” are that powerful and can so easily spread their infection, why did they not conquer the world ages ago. Yes, yes, I know the book mentions some kind of “agreement” but it just does not make sense. Why live in the shadows when you, apparently, do not need to. This part of the story felt a bit “Hollywoodish” contrived.

But then, what the heck, it is fiction after all and just meant to be entertaining and that, I have to say, this book was.