The Passage - Justin Cronin

Reading The Passage, I found myself frequently comparing it to The Stand. It was not a favorable comparison. It's also probably not fair, since they aren't very similar books. They do both involve a sort of virus, but in The Passage, it kills 90% of the infected, and the remaining 10% turn into vampires. Well, a superhumanly strong and agile monster that doesn't like sunlight, has a weak spot in its bulletproof skin over its heart, rips open throats, and can get inside your head and make you do things. Potato, potahto.

Cronin's book also differs from Stephen King's in that, after spending 250 pages introducing all these different characters, and finally actually letting the vampire plague loose upon the Earth (which itself took 175 pages), he jumps things forward 90+ years and starts over with an almost entirely new cast of characters. Which is an interesting choice.

While I wouldn't say any of the characters are terribly deep, they do all have fairly distinct personalities, so I did find myself caring about them eventually. Of course, I spent the first 300 or so pages of that wondering why he bothered to introduce all those other characters if he was just going to focus on these instead. He could have gotten to the outbreak much quicker and saved me some time. I suppose the reason became evident closer to the end, but the opening quarter of the book still feels unnecessarily lengthy. I do have the sense it'll be a series of books, in which case 200 pages may not end up being very much, but looking at this single book, separate from any sequels that may or may not be coming down the pike, it's a drawback.