The Strain: Book One of the Strain Trilogy

by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Toro

Book Overview

"A high-tech vampire epic....Terrifying." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Part The Andromeda Strain , part Night of the Living Dead ." --Salon.com "Chuck Hogan is known for his taut thrillers, Guillermo del Toro for his surreal horror films... The Strain brings out the best of each." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune An epic battle for survival begins between man and vampire in The Strain --the first book in a heart-stopping trilogy from one of Hollywood's...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061558230
• ISBN13: 9780061558238
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Wtf

It's not in English!!!

Amazing!

Loved all the books and the series. I am a big fan of Guillermo Del Toro and will watch anything he does. When I found out he was writing books I made sure I bought all of them. Fantastic! Like everything else he's done!!!!

Book condition

In vgc. Light tanning

Great series

Could not put this down! Great prose, awesome characters, great story. This one is the best out of the three, an absolute read.

Guillermo del Toro tambien es escritor

El libro resulta interesante, especialmente si uno lo revisa con una perspectiva cinematografica en mente. En cuanto al vendedor, puedo decir que se cumplieron las expectativas: lo entrego a tiempo y en buena condicion. Este vendedor es confiable y recomendable.

Esta version no contiene spoilers en contraportada, Mexico si...

Excelente historia. Muy graficas descripciones, será una gran película!!. No puedo esperar a ver la segunda entrega de esta trilogía, me ha encantado esta version en español en especifico, a diferencia de la version salida en Mexico que ha sido un gran desatino la contraportada! arruinan parte de la experiencia!, no leer la contraportada salida en Mexico...

Could Not Put It DOWN!!!!!!!!!!

I am not one for reading books on vampires yet I gave this book a chance and did it deliver. I had to convince myself everynight to put the book down and get some sleep for work the next day. I recommend this to everyone. The story was so compelling ans drew my attention so near that the slightest thing scared me. I cannot wait for the next book. To bad it doesn't come out until next year.

Definitely a horror story.

The Strain, by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, is a fascinating read. The first book in what has been promised will be a trilogy, the Strain is certainly a great down payment. I agree with another reviewer that The Strain isn't like many of the current "glitzy" vampire stories now on the book shelves. del Toro's book delivers a rich story filled with enough scary pages to keep even the most experienced horror story reader interested. The Strain really does harken back to a different period in the vampire genre. Vampirism caused by a virus isn't new territory. This idea has been around for quite a few years. What is refreshing is that The Strain manages to deal with the medical implications of vampirism but not at the expense of delivering a chilling, and gory story. This is a horror tale, and a good one at that, make no mistake about that. The premise is pretty straight forward. A jumbo jet lands at JFK and simply stops on the taxiway. The window shades are down and no further contact with those inside takes place. Fearing a possible viral connection, the CDC is contacted and Dr. Goodweather, head of their Canary project is assigned to investigate. He goes on the plane and isn't ready for what he finds. When the body count is complete, only four passengers are alive on the plane and it isn't long before they disappear. Add Abraham Setrakian, a pawn shop owner and holocaust survivor who has seen something like this before, and you've got the cast to a pretty good story. The Strain is a very atmospheric story and one that competes well with the glut of vampire books already on the market. And there is more to come with yet another trilogy in the offing. Still, the American reading public seems unable to get its fill of vampires, and like the subjects of these stories, must wonder from book store to book store trying to satisfy what can't be satisfied. I'm not sure whether Bram Stoker would be impressed or not but I promise you he's sorry he didn't milk the subject a little more. I suspect that it won't be long before we see The Strain on the silver screen. del Toro, a gifted movie maker will no doubt benefit by cutting out the "middleman" financially and also will not have to deal with a difficult author. Be that as it may, the reading public has a great book to read and a terrific movie to look forward to. I highly recommend.

"My sword sings of silver!" (I swear I'm gonna adopt this as my battle cry)

- Setrakian (about to face off against the Big Bad): "We split up." - Fet: "Are you kidding? Never split up. That's the first rule. I've seen too many movies to ever go out that way." I dig the horror genre so much, but I can't deny that there's a lot of trashy stuff out there. Vampires, in particular, have been featured so often in literature that, in my brain, these books have begun to bleed together. It's hard to meet the standards set by Bram Stoker, Richard Matheson, Stephen King, P.N. Elrod, and Brian Lumley. Nowadays it takes an exceptional vampire novel to knock me out of my state of Yeah, whatever-ness. Then along comes filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, obviously evilly bent on conquering all forms of entertainment media and now branching out into horror literature. He and his collaborator, award-winning author Chuck Hogan, have brought it with THE STRAIN, brought the chills, that sense of "Oh, crippitycrap!" and the big-time storytelling. THE STRAIN is the first of three novels, and it grabs the readers by the nape and drags them to some really dark, creepy corners. It starts with a just landed Boeing 777 taxi-ing on the JFK tarmac but then abruptly coming to a stop. Sensors in JFK's control tower indicate that the airplane, Flight 753, has incurred gross mechanical failure. The window shades on the plane have all been pulled down. And closer inspection reveals that the onboard crew and passengers are dead. Epidemiologist Ephraim (Eph) Goodweather, head of a rapid-response team for the CDC in New York, is called in to determine the presence of a biological threat. What he and his Canary team stumble upon is incomprehensible and very disturbing. Corpses which refuse to decompose, weird biological residue splattered all over the airplane cabin, an enormous black earth-filled cabinet which mysteriously vanishes... and four survivors, diagnosed and then, against Goodweather's wishes, unleashed into Manhattan. That is how it starts, how the plague of the Strigoi - the Old World name for vampire - comes to consume New York. THE STRAIN spins a shivery, old-fashioned, post-apocalyptic horror story, one that should keep you up well into the night. Even as Manhattan goes to hell, as the undead rise and take a bite out of the Big Apple, I can't help but be stoked. I know that this is only the start of an amazing epic trilogy, and by the trilogy's end del Toro has promised to "rephrase vampirism in a completely fresh way." (I'm not entirely sure what that means, but, dammit, I'm on board!) There's a sense of dread and foreshadowing from the very start, and the authors do well with building up the tension. There's an unsettling passage early on centering around a predicted solar eclipse, this event coinciding with the horrific doings in Flight 753. The best of books allows for character growth and the development of personal story arcs, and del Toro and Hogan know this. The book's emotional core revolves around Eph's relationship with his 11-year-ol