Cavalcade of Awesome

This is the final week of AWESOME-tober-fest 2012. And it’s a half week, as Halloween is on Wednesday. I’m sad to see it all end. So, since we are on a short week this week, I’m going to stray from the movie maniac theme today and tomorrow and do a couple of updates to previous AWESOME-tober-fest entries.

Last year for AWESOME-tober-fest 2011, I reviewed the first two books in The Strain trilogy by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan.  I said they were very good vampire novels which made the concept of the vampire scary again.  As of that writing, the third book wasn’t released yet.  I was going to wait until paperback, but earlier this year I was able to find the third book in hardback at a used library sale for less than $2, so I picked it up.  And as of now, I have read the final book in the Strain trilogy, The Night Eternal.

So, the story picks up a few months after the second book. The Master has destroyed the other Ancients and the world has been overtaken by his vampire horde.  It’s pretty dark stuff.  Society is in shambles.  Abraham is dead.  The world is covered in a thick cloud cover that only allows about an hour or two of sunlight each day.  There’s constant acid rain.  Blood farms are setup to harvest blood for the ruling vampires.  As long as you are obedient, you aren’t sent to these farms.  Vampires are also breeding people on these farms in order to create more people.  It’s pretty horrific post-apocalyptic stuff.

So our group of heroes must regroup after The Master’s destruction of the Ancients and the vampire usurping of society, with the help of a vampire that was created by the Master many centuries ago, and take down the ruling vampires and restore humans as the dominant life form.

I thought the second book was dark, but this book is darker.  We learn more of the Master’s plans, and it’s very interesting to see how society has adapted to the new vampire rule.  It’s also interesting to see our heroes coming back together after a few dismal months of vampire rule and, essentially, a losing battle.  The action is good and Chuck Hogan’s writing style is dark and brutal.  The finishing arc for our heroes is great and really feels like they aren’t going to make it at times.  Plus, we learn some very interesting information about the formation of the Ancients as well as The Master himself.  Honestly, I didn’t see it coming, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Overall, I really enjoyed this trilogy.  It’s was dark and hard to read in spots mainly due to the situations presented.  But the journey was worth it and I really felt like the authors earned their ending.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

This entry was posted on October 29, 2012 at 10:00 am and is filed under Halloween, holiday with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2012, Book Report, books, Halloween, holiday, monsters, reviews, vampires. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.