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The StrainBook One of The Strain Trilogy

Chuck Hogan, Guillermo Del Toro

Rate It! Avg: 4.0 (30 ratings)

Summary

The Strain

By: Chuck Hogan, Guillermo Del Toro

Narrarated by: Ron Perlman

A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.

In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing . . .

So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city—a city that includes his wife and son—before it is too late.

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Audiobook Information
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Total File Size: 373 MB (11 files) Total Length: 13 Hours, 35 Minutes

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Patrick Rapa

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Patrick Rapa writes about books for eMusic, comedy for Cowbell Magazine and music for Philadelphia City Paper. He lives in Philly with this like giant bug he tr...more »

08.04.10
Chuck Hogan, The Strain
2010 | Label: HarperAudio

For those who like their vampires with a little more bite
Two major vampire trilogies launched in the summer of 2010, but only a cynic would say Guillermo del Toro’s The Strain or Justin Cronin’s The Passage are Twilight cash-ins or knock-offs. If anything, these are reclamation projects. Enough of the glittery kidstuff, today’s bloodsuckers are beastly, hungry terrors of the night. And, in the case of The Strain, they’re a bunch of sick, slimy badasses, too. Del Toro (director of Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy series) and co-author/mystery novelist Chuck Hogan build some serious tension in the opening moments: A plane lands at JFK; two minutes later it’s utterly unresponsive. Radio’s dead. Lights are off. Shades are down. It’s just sitting there on the tarmac. The CDC and all kinds of armed authorities gather around, trying to decide who should go in, and how. And you just know something bad’s about to go down.

That’s the nerve-wracking start to what is otherwise a crazy, fast-paced horror-adventure story. Because, you guessed it, an ancient evil was stowing away in the luggage compartment (despite the checked-bag fees!?) and now it’s running loose, turning New Yorkers into soulless, worm-tongued bloodsuckers. The ones who aren’t already. Soon the bodies are piling up. And then the bodies are getting up and biting people. We’re talking a full on zombie-vampire pyramid scheme, and our only hope is a ragtag team of ad hoc monster killers. Needless to say, Del Toro knows how to spin a good supernatural yarn. The Strain is fun. It’s inventive. It’s thoroughly, impossibly disgusting at every single opportunity. (In audiobook form, it’s narrated by Hellboy himself, Ron Pearlman.) No way this won’t be a movie one day.

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Engrossed

8c8c

I've listened to the first two books and found both to be extremely entertaining. I wouldn't say it's the perfect vampire story, and I can't say the narrators are the best I've heard, but both the story and narrators are above average. It's been a fun ride so far. I can't wait for The Night Eternal. What the audiobook release date?

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Definitely not Dracula

Enocharnold

Sometimes books based on an absurd premise succeed because they are so well written that they capture the imagination, and disbelief becomes irrelevant (see "Surface Detail" or "The Ruins" for an example). This is not one of those books! It starts pretty well but the characters never become more than simple caricatures, the gory bits fail to shock, the plot devices deployed to propel the action forward become laughable, and it is apparent well before the end that sequels are in sight. The narrator makes the best he can of the words he is given but struggles to bring the vampires and their hunters to life!

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Dark Twist

BoobyLover

Very good listen, also a great story

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The Strain - a very good listen

mb100

The start took me by surprise, but sounded interesting, and as the book progressed I was drawn in, itening to over 4 hours one evening! It picked up pace and the characters really came alive. The ending was an excellent twist.

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