Review: The Strain
I’ve been on somewhat of a vamp-story kick lately.
I picked up Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s “The Strain” on Kindle a few weeks ago, and decided to spend 4th of July weekend on an air mattress with our new kitten catching up on my reading.
“The Strain” is a vampire horror-survival novel in the classic sense; Think “Outbreak” meets “28 Days Later”. If you’re looking for aristocratic vampires a la Anne Rice and Stephanie Meyer, better to look elsewhere.
The O-Positive:
“The Strain” feels a bit like a really-out-there episode of CSI, with the lab science nerds getting plenty of airplay, and the scientific (albeit sci-fi) elements of the infection being interesting enough to keep you reading. While the story remains true to some of the more ingrained elements of the vamp mythos (sleeping at night, sun-burning easily, wiggling into your thoughts with slippery telepathic ease) there are some new angles to the creatures. Without spoiling anything, the new “delivery method” and blood-sucking mechanics are enjoyable for what they are.
The narrative is interesting. POV bounces around a lot - to Eph, to shady bad guy, to original infected victims - but it never seems distracting or gimmicky. We get a broad view of what’s going on in the world as the vamps take over and people start getting nibbled.
The O-Brother:
While the story has a lot of interesting scientific elements, it gets into some rich-guy conspiracy and secret-order whisperings that are potentially lip-smacky, but never quite pan out in the end. I get that this is Part I of a trilogy, but if you want my other $20 you’re really going to give me a little bit more. We get some soggy backstory about the major-league vamps (called Ancients. Yawn.) We also get some really promising Bruce Campbell quirky hero vibes from main character Eph, but in the end I don’t find myself holding my fists to my heart and keening for the next installment to come out. I’ll still BUY the next one, just to see if the next one pulls it out of the fire, but based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m not particularly convinced that it will.
