The Strain Books

[Milan Skidmore]

ABoeing 777 arrives at John F. Kennedy International Airport and is taxiing its way across the tarmac when it suddenly stops. All window shades are closed except one, the lights are out, and communication channels have gone silent. An alert is sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Ephraim "Eph" Goodweather, head of the CDC's Canary Project, a rapid-response team that handles biological threats, is sent to investigate. Goodweather and Dr. Nora Martinez board the plane, finding everyone except four people dead.

In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, former history professor and Holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian knows something terrible has happened and that an unnatural war is brewing. So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected the passengers begins spilling out onto New York City's streets. Dr. Goodweather, who is joined by Setrakian and a small band of fighters, desperately tries to stop the contagion to save the city, and also his wife and son.

Head of the CDC's rapid-response team, the Canary Project, Eph is a newly-divorced father attempting to balance the custody battle over his son Zack with his duties as an epidemiologist. He and his Canary team are the first response team to the Boeing 777 disaster, and are tasked with solving the mystery of the mass casualties. Unable to reconcile the symptoms of the newly-infected airline passengers with standard disease pathology, Eph is convinced of the reality of vampires by Abraham Setrakian. Discredited at the CDC by the vampires' human conspirators, Eph finds himself a fugitive from both the human authorities and the undead. The need to protect his son drives Eph's every action.

A skilled epidemiologist, Nora is second-in-command of the Canary Project. She and Eph have been attempting an office romance with mixed success, complicated by their high-stress medical careers and Goodweather's lingering melancholy over his looming divorce. Nora quickly dedicates herself to uncovering the vampire conspiracy, and is determined not to be relegated to doing the "woman's work."

One of the seven original "Ancients", the propagators of the vampire race, the Master scorns the truce between the six others and intends to eliminate their strains and subjugate the entire human race. By the time of his arrival in New York, having spent nearly a millennium in Europe in various host bodies, the Master currently inhabits the body of Jusef Sardu, a 19th-century Polish nobleman afflicted with gigantism. Through the cooperation of Eldritch Palmer, promising the dying billionaire immortality, the Master has gained unlimited financial and political power to ensure the success of his plan.

The Master's chief facilitator. He was a Nazi SS officer at a concentration camp whom the Master mutated into a Strigoi, a Renfield-type character but immortal. He killed Setrakian's wife in the past.

An exterminator of Ukrainian ancestry working for the New York City Bureau of Pest Control, Fet's occupation soon leads to his discovery of the truth about vampires while working in a derelict building. Reaching Eph through a professional connection at the CDC, the exterminator lends both his skills as a vermin hunter and his powerful physique to Setrakian and Goodweather's cause. Loyal and unwaveringly brave, he becomes a surrogate son to the old professor.

A Mexican gang member fresh out of prison, Gus is attacked by a newly mutated vampire on the streets of Times Square and is subsequently arrested by the police after throwing the creature under a truck. Learning the truth about vampires from a temporarily incarcerated Setrakian, Gus escapes confinement and finds himself to be a natural vampire slayer on the streets of his tenement neighborhood. He is recruited by the three American Ancients as a "day hunter" against the Master's exponentially spreading hordes.

One of the richest men in the world, Eldritch Palmer craves the one thing that all his money cannot buy: immortality. The elderly tycoon's fear of death leads him to make a pact with the Master, trading his vast fortune, political influence, and the fate of the human race in exchange for an undead place at the vampire king's side. (His name is an in-joke reference to the 1965 Nebula Prize nominated novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick)[1]

As the Director of the Centers for Disease Control, Barnes is Eph and Nora's direct superior. Skilled in the politics and media aspects of the medical industry, he is a shrewd bureaucrat who carefully maintains a quaint, "country doctor" image. His insistence upon wearing a Navy-style Public Health Service uniform, combined with his white goatee, make him resemble a "combat-decorated Colonel Sanders." His response to the Boeing 777 crisis makes it clear he is a politician first and a doctor second, more concerned with maintaining public order and the CDC's reputation than acknowledging the growing number of anomalies that point to something more sinister taking place.

Eph and Nora's colleague, and the chief liaison between the Canary Project and the rest of the CDC. Well-meaning, he has nonetheless sold his services to Eldritch Palmer, who has recruited Kent as a spy under the guise of being concerned about any impending health crisis. Kent witnesses the mutation of Captain Redfern in the basement of the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. In order to avoid news of the vampire infestation leaking out prematurely, Palmer has Kent and Gus retrieve the body of Captain Redfern and dispose of it. He is attacked during a gas station battle and begins mutating into a vampire. His life is subsequently ended after he begs Eph and Nora to kill him but they cannot.

Eph's estranged wife and current opponent in a drawn-out custody battle over their only son, Kelly is a public school teacher and fiercely protective mother, pulling no punches in her attempt to paint her husband as the less suitable parent. Eph constantly worries about the growing influence of her milquetoast live-in boyfriend, Matt, on their son Zack. But when the Master begins sending out his followers, Kelly ends up becoming infected and becoming a means for the Master to track down Goodweather and the resistance.

Known as "the Born", Mr. Quinlan is a rare human/vampire hybrid, the son of the Master who is now the Ancients' chief hunter and bodyguard. He is efficient and loyal, recruiting Gus Elizalde to help him and his squad in their mission to kill his father. Mr. Quinlan is disgusted by his father's actions, and is determined to stop him at all costs.

The Times Literary Supplement carried a review by Peter Millar dated 23 May 2009. The review praises the novel's "arresting start" and frequently alludes to Guillermo del Toro's career as a film director by comparing the novel to a Hollywood movie. The implication may be that del Toro intends to direct the film version of the novel. The review closes by calling The Strain a "rattling piece of escapism" with a "predictable" blockbuster ending.[2] Xan Brooks of The Guardian calls the novel "a pulpy, apocalyptic fable" and a "fast-paced, high-concept outing that seems tailor-made for either a big-screen adaptation or - as Hogan has enthused - 'a long-form, cable-type TV series'. And yet at the same time this opening salvo also looks to the past; doffing its cap to an illustrious ancestor."[3] He calls the vampires "mindless, undead leeches."

AvalinahsBooks receives books for free for review: Opinions are my own, but I sometimes get books for review in exchange for my opinion (for free). That does not affect my opinion or the review in any way.

I'm really curious about the books. I've read in so many places that they are really terrible which makes me reconsider my desire to read them. I actually like the show despite some of the issues that are most commonly cited as reasons this is a bad show. It's a show that I look forward to and I'm captivated the entire time. I don't think it's great tv, but it's sufficient for my summer viewing pleasure and is an awesome replacement for True Blood. I love that someone is finally portraying really bad and horrifying vamps again.

So, considering how I feel about the show, should I read the books? I'm not hugely fond of reading poor writing, but I do have a fairly high threshold for how poor they need to be before I finally turn away. What makes these books bad and what makes them good?

That's up to you. I personally loved them. They aren't without their faults but I absolutely enjoyed reading them. Like you said, it's great having a story where vampires get to be monsters and there's zero focus on any emo bullshit (from them the humans deal with plenty of emotions which is natural in the wake of this epidemic). These vampires have ties to their human lives but they have no humanity. It starts leaving them the second they get stung. That's what really appealed to me as I read them. There's no last minute cure discovered by Our Intrepid Heroes, it's just a race to avoid getting stung and becoming one. The smartest move Hogan and del Toro made was making them ugly. Keep them physically attractive and we'd end up with readers and viewers rooting for the Master on the grounds that he's so dreamy (like they do with the male vampires on True Blood, Vampire Diaries and, of course, Twilight). It's a lot harder to ignore the monster when it's right there on his face.

I will say that you should maybe avoid reading them if you're big on things not being changed from one medium to another. To give an example, when they were adapted to comic form, a small subplot surrounding an astronaut was cut. That was fine as the only connection to the story was a feeling of foreboding when looking down at New York when the eclipse occurs, but it was a nice little piece I enjoyed and would have liked to see in the comics. The show may still include that subplot in an episode since the eclipse hasn't occurred yet, but I doubt it. The omission doesn't bother me beyond my own preference but it would to someone who is a major stickler for stuff like that so consider if you decide to read the books.

3a8082e126