If you're sick of vampires that moan and groan about their mortal existence, refuse to drink human blood, and wear far too much body glitter, do I have a book for you! The Strain, by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan, is a return to what vampires used to be. A return to the time when vampires were scary and think of humans purely as a food source.
Because I'm no good at writing book reviews, here's the promo from Amazon:
Quote:
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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In a lot of ways The Strain is closely related to Stoker's Dracula. The opening scene, with the dead plane, closely resembles Dracula's empty ship when he comes to England. Also, the name of the first passenger found alive (Redfield) is similar to the sole survivor found on Dracula's ship (Renfield). However, Del Toro and Hogan have changed the vampire myth a bit too. Instead of fangs, these vampires have stingers under the tongue that can pierce the blood vessels of their victims from several feet away. Also, newly turned vampires seem to resemble zombies more than anything else.
All in all, I found the book very enjoyable and can't wait until the next volume comes out. Considering that one of the authors is Guillermo Del Toro, you can really see how easily and well this book could be turned into a movie as well. (Probably directed by Del Toro which... would actually be pretty awesome. I love his work.)