The Strain

Guillermo del Toro · Chuck Hogan

Jun 2009 · The Strain Trilogy Book 1 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this ebook

“Part The Andromeda Strain, part Night of the Living Dead.” —Salon.com

The visionary creator of the Academy Award-winning Pan's Labyrinth and a Hammett Award-winning author bring their imaginations to this bold, epic novel about a horrifying battle between man and vampire that threatens all humanity. The first installment in a thrilling trilogy. 

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.

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 most inventive storytellers and a critically acclaimed thriller writer. Guillermo del Toro, the genius director of the Academy Award-winning Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy, and Hammett Award-winning author Chuck Hogan have joined forces to boldly reinvent the vampire novel. Brilliant, blood-chilling, and unputdownable, The Strain is a nightmare of the first order.

Ratings and reviews

Mild spoilers: I wanted to like the book but, as others have said, it's predictable. It also took about 100 pages too long for the first big reveal of the book, "it's vampires!" A second disappointment was the classic scientist tells family to leave now with no explanation, family gets talked out of it by Rationale Person A, family gets kidnapped, scientist says screw caution and enters the belly of the beast. And it all led to a big showdown that ended with the villain escaping sure death. Disappointing..

I'm in the process of reading this book and I am really disappointed in the production of this book. The editor of this book should be fired! It is really hard to read. They failed to use quotes during conversations. None!!! Words run together without proper spacing. It's literally like they put out a first draft for the e-reader audience. I like where the story is going its just too bad that the company that produced the book didn't care about properly editing the electronic version.

Good mix of Guillermo's fantasy world, excellent story telling, generating a near perfect new mythos of vampires set against our modern science and tech culture. Numerous early character developments seemed too much in places where they break the main story telling but by midway through they pan out. Can't wait for book 2!

About the author

Guillermo del Toro is an Academy Award®–winning film director as well as a screenwriter, producer, and New York Times bestselling novelist. He is best known for his foreign fantasy films, especially Pan’s Labyrinth, and American mainstream movies like The Shape of Water. Del Toro has published multiple bestselling adult novels with HarperCollins, including The Strain, which was adapted into a TV series by FX, and he is the creator of Trollhunters, Netflix’s most-watched children’s series.

Chuck Hogan is the author of several acclaimed novels, including Devils in Exile and Prince of Thieves, which won the 2005 Hammett Award, was called one of the ten best novels of the year by Stephen King, and was the basis of the motion picture The Town.Chuck Hogan es autor de varias aclamadas novelas, entre las cuales se encuentra Prince of Thieves que ganó el Hammett Award 2005 y que fue considerada una de las diez mejores novelas del año por Stephen King.