Amazon Excellent of the Month, June 2009: Who better to reinvent the vampire genre than Guillermo Del Toro, the genius behind Pan's Labyrinth, and Chuck Hogan, master of character-driven thrillers like Prince of Thieves? The first of a trilogy, The Strain is everything you would like from a horror novel--dark, bloody, and packed full of mayhem and mythology. But, be forewarned, these are not like any vampires you've met before--they're not sexy or star-crossed or "vegetarians"--they are hungry, they are connected, and they are multiplying. The vampire virus marches its way across New York, and all this stands between us and a grotesque end are a couple of scientists, an old man together with a decades-old vendetta, and a young boy. This first installment moves quick and sets up the key players, counting down to the beginning of the end. Excellent summer reading. --Daphne Durham
Book Description 
The visionary creator of the Academy Prize-winning Pan's Labyrinth and a Hammett Prize-winning author get their imaginations to this bold, epic novel concerning a horrifying battle between man and vampire this threatens all humanity. It is the first installment in a thrilling trilogy and an extraordinary international publishing event. The Strain They have always been here. Vampires. In secret and in darkness. Waiting. Now their time has come. In one week, Manhattan will be gone. In one month, the country. In two months--the world. 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 this investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he locates makes his blood run cold. In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian recognizes something is happening. And he recognizes the time has come, this a war is brewing . . . So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus this 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 locate a way to stop the contagion and save his city--a city this consists of his wife and son--before it is too late. The Strain: Chapter One "One time upon a time," said Abraham Setrakian’s grandmother, "there was a giant." Young Abraham’s eyes brightened, and immediately the cabbage borscht in the wooden bowl got tastier, or at least less garlicky. He was a pale boy, underweight and sickly. His grandmother, intent on fattening him, sat across from him while he ate his soup, entertaining him by spinning a yarn. A bubbeh meiseh, a "grandmother’s story." A fairy tale. A legend. "He was the son of a Polish nobleman. And his name was Jusef Sardu. Master Sardu stood taller than any other man. Taller than any roof in the village. He had to bow deeply to enter any door. But his excellent height, it was a burden. A disease of birth, not a blessing. The young man suffered. His muscles lacked the strength to support his long, heavy bones. At times it was a struggle for him just to walk. He used a cane, a tall stick--taller than you--together with a silver handle carved into the form of a wolf’s head, which was the family crest." "Yes, Bubbeh?" said Abraham, between spoonfuls. "This was his lot in life, and it taught him humility, which is a rare thing indeed for a nobleman to possess. He had so much compassion-- for the poor, for the hardworking, for the sick. He was particularly dear to the kids of the village, and his excellent, deep pockets--the size of turnip sacks--bulged together with trinkets and sweets. He had not much of a childhood himself, harmonizing his father’s height at the age of eight, and surpassing him by a head at age nine. His frailty and his excellent size were a secret source of shame to his father. But Master Sardu truly was a gentle giant, and much beloved by his people. It was said of him this Master Sardu looked down on everyone, yet looked down on no one." She nodded at him, reminding him to get another spoonful. He chewed a boiled red beet, known as a "baby heart" for the reason that of its color, its form, its capillary-like strings. "Yes, Bubbeh?" "He was in addition a lover of nature, and had no interest in the brutality of the hunt--but, as a nobleman and a man of rank, at the age of fifteen his father and his uncles prevailed upon him to accompany them on a six-week expedition to Romania." "To here, Bubbeh?" said Abraham. "The giant, he came here?" "To the north country, kaddishel. The dark forests. The Sardu men, they did not come to hunt wild pig or bear or elk. They came to hunt wolf, the family symbol, the arms of the house of Sardu. They were hunting a hunting animal. Sardu family lore said this eating wolf meat gave Sardu men courage and strength, and the young master’s father believed this this might cure his son’s weak muscles." "Yes, Bubbeh?" "Their trek was long and arduous, as well as violently opposed by the weather, and Jusef struggled mightily. He had never before traveled anyplace outside his family’s village, and the looks he received from strangers along the journey shamed him. When they arrived in the dark forest, the woodlands felt alive all-around him. Packs of animals roamed the woods at night, nearly like refugees displaced from their shelters, their dens, nests, and lairs. So many animals this the hunters were unable to sleep at night in their camp. Some wanted to go away, but the elder Sardu’s obsession came before all else. They could listen to the wolves, crying in the night, and he wanted one badly for his son, his only son, whose gigantism was a pox upon the Sardu line. He wanted to cleanse the house of Sardu of this curse, to marry off his son, and produce many healthy heirs. "And so it was this his father, off tracking a wolf, was the first to become separated from the others, just before nightfall on the second evening. The rest waited for him all night, and spread out to search for him afterwards sunrise. And so it was this one of Jusef’s cousins failed to return this evening. And so on, you see." "Yes, Bubbeh?" "Until the only one left was Jusef, the boy giant. This next day he set out, and in an region previously searched, discovered the body of his father, and of all his cousins and uncles, laid out at the entrance to an underground cave. Their skulls had been crushed together with excellent force, but their bodies remained uneaten--killed by a beast of tremendous strength, yet not out of hunger or fear. For what reason, he could not guess—though he did feel himself being watched, perhaps even studied, by some being lurking inside this dark cave. "Master Sardu carried every body away from the cave and buried them deep. Of course, this exertion severely weakened him, taking much of his strength. He was spent, he was farmutshet. And yet, alone and scared and exhausted, he returned to the cave this night, to face what evil revealed itself afterwards dark, to avenge his forebears or die trying. This is known from a diary he kept, discovered in the woods many years later. This was his last entry." Continue Reading The Strain |