Books Fortyone and Fortytwo: The Passage and Stumptown

Alas, I woke this morning to remember that today is the Read-a-Thon, and unfortunately, you may have noticed, I am not Read-a-Thonning right now. Sigh. I wish I could but that would be near impossible with a babe in the house. I may try to manage a few pages here and there, but any serious reading will not be in the cards for me. Instead, I will tell you about two books I finished recently but neglected to write about.

The Passage, Justin Cronin



You know what's a huge bummer? Finishing a near-800 page book only to realize that said tome is actually part of a trilogy. Blargh. It's not so much that I don't like a good series, but I really dislike having my expectations shattered. Like, shouldn't this story be resolving right about now? Double blargh. Otherwise, this book was right up my alley… that alley being of the vampire apocalypse variety. And not sexy-sparkly vampires, but nasty-monstrous-killing-machine vampires.

So, the story jumps around, starting with the origins of how the apocalypse came about (government shenanigans, natch) including the origin story of the world's savior, a six-year-old girl (no spoilers, that fact is on the cover of the book). Then we skip ahead about 90 years later to catch up with a surviving colony of humans. You can guess that all these stories converge, which is done quite nicely. My only gripe is that there's too much religious metaphor, and its done too clunkily. Really, why oh why does most vampire fiction have to involve so much God talk? And oh, okay, I've got one more gripe. Too much of the action towards the end felt too rushed. And slightly implausible. Wish is crazy given that this is an almost 800 page book. And also crazy given that we have to suspend so much disbelief already. Like, you're already asking me to believe that there's been a vampire apocalypse, but now you want me to go along with a mega-mind-controlling vampire? Sigh.

But you know I'm going to read the sequels.

Stumptown, Greg Rucka



Might I recommend following up an epic vampire novel with a noir-ish detective comic? I like comics, I like detectives, I like Portland. What's not to like?