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.

As much as I didn't fully appreciate the family dynamics in issue one, I do now.   I find this revenge romp - which I'm totally into fictional revenge fueled murder sprees, or even, yeah, romps - less interesting than what was going on with Nebula and Thanos - and it's clear that neither of them will come back. 

Ugh. 

Well, at least I won't be tempted to get the next issue, I guess!

I'm not completely sympathetic with Gamora, who is focused only on revenge, and I'm not crazy about L'wit, the Badoon princess Gamora is trying to kill.  (She's doing her best, I just found her vaguely bland, and I find that bothers me more than me finding Gamora's one-minded revenge-fueled mindset.   And I love revenge fantasies.  I think I find her inability to track down L'wit infuriating, as well as the lack of Nebula and Thanos, since I found the friction between that, and the weird family dynamics there, so much more interesting.)

And yet, there's a lot here.   How Gamora will get off, the fact that L'wit thinks Gamora is here to save her, and the art is simply gorgeous.   So I'm liking it, but not enough to pay four dollars for the one issue that isn't on sale.   I'll have one more issue to go.

And it's all about her finding, and eliminating the last of the Badoon royalty, a princess who should have been murdered at birth.  (The Badoon only want male royalty.)   She was sent to a planet where criminals are sent to be isolated, imprisoned on the planet itself.   And still they make a civilization of sorts.   

No mention of Nebula, which is disappointing - and why I took down a star.   Bizarre that the sibling rivalry was so looming in issue one, and Thanos was like 'I will kill you if something happens to Gamora,' while it's not mentioned at all in this issue. 

I figured I'd love this.   It's written by the woman who co-wrote the screenplay for Guardians of the Galaxy.   And Marvel's been doing a lot of good work with series that are led by women and minorities.   The thing is, this just didn't do it for me, not enough to rate it five stars. 

Still, it's a compelling look at Gamora's origins: the way that Thanos kidnapped her and turned her into a weapon, and the not-so-loving sibling rivalry that he fosters in Gamora and Nebula.   Nebula is constantly being reminded that he values Gamora more, which is honestly as close as he'd get to telling her 'I love you more than Nebula.'   He's simply not capable of that kind of affection, despite his hard on for Death itself.   When he tells Nebula that he'll kill her if Gamora dies by Nebula's hand?   He think he's being the protective father towards Gamora, but doesn't see the danger he's putting her in with Nebula.   He doesn't see her rage festering.   

Nebula might admit that she has never had a family, not even Thanos' admiration, to Gamora herself - but she'd never say so to her father's face.  Instead, she takes it out on her adopted sister, and it's easy to see why in this origin story.   She has no other outlet for her anger, and no matter how she tries, she can't gain Thanos' approval - or at least beat Gamora as top sister, not even for a day.   I suspect if he had pat her on the head, and showered her with praise, or had told her she was more valued that day, she might not be so eager to kill her sister.  But Thanos believes that everyone will take his word as law, especially his created family, and his ego simply won't allow him to believe that Nebula would damn herself by disobeying him, no matter how she might feel.   How she feels?   It's something he doesn't even waste a second contemplating, in fact. 

And this is his downfall.   As it oftentimes is.   Because as one of his birthday gifts, he's allowed Gamora to take her revenge on the Badoon, who exterminated her people.  But when Nebula finds out that a princess of the Badoon survives, on a hellish planet that will most likely kill Gamora if she goes there?   Well, what kind of sister would she be if she kept that information from her sibling?

As she points out to Thanos, Gamora won't die by her hand.   Gamora, in fact, knows that going to said planet is a one-way trip.   Thanos is still livid, and I have a feeling that won't end well for Gamora or Nebula.  I may pick up issue two, and I may not.   It all depends on how much I'm spending next on comics that do come out.   I'm finding I enjoy digital comics enough that I also may wait for the digital version.