"The Passage" Discussion Thread

For those that don't know, Cronin got a $3,750,000 for this book and the two sequels--based off an incomplete manuscript.

I had no idea. I'm just happy to get a 800 page book. And it's about vampires!

I'm loving it so far. Got it for 50% off after picking it up on a whim. All I had to see was that civilization was going to crumble before I made my decision.

wait wait wait... there are vampire books that DON'T sparkle?

hahah, yes! "Let the Right One In' by John Lindqvist was my last good fix. There aren't a ton of good vampire books that I can find. I think Anne Rice's 'Interview with a Vampire' is brilliant. Her later books were painful to read, though.

On my way home to start this. I got an email from Amazon during the week and so I called my favourite bookstore in teh city. These guys are great I can pick up about 6 books and when I get to pay they will tell me Oh No thats crap you dont want to read that. With this one they told me I heard great things and hey put aside a copy for me.

i'd never heard of this book but, judging from dan chaon's review on amazon, i'm glad i did.

Just finished THE PASSAGE. Wow...what an ending. Any way to discuss without spoiling for others? Many questions about characters and meanings and what takes place at the end.

so, in an interview with cronin, he references "the whole trilogy." is the passage the first of three, then?

Write "Spoiler Alert" at the beginning of your post.

Correct.

SPOILER ALERT Yes I feel your pain!There are layers to this book.Many things are obvious and yetnot in context; you read and go wtf? but then later in the book you read ,remember and hear a click... and then the WTF? is exuberant, joyful, amazed because you get it.

Amy is of course a character to watch and pick apart, but what of Wolgast,Peter and Alicia? What of the areas that the original virals called home... and how have they developed? Are they like the Haven? Are there more Havens? Or something monstrously different.Have they been influenced by the perversions and habits of the original virals? And will it come to pass that there will be a flood to wash it all away and a Noah to save some of the world?

The title is an example of the author's talent- it's depth and layers of meaning.It refers to the journey begun by some of the characters, it refers to the developement of certain traits and strengths of some of the characters; it refers to time... and it pertains to the world - to the society that ends and the one that begins.

Never have I thought a title more apt than this one.If anyone wants to have a book discussion on this please feel free to pm me.
I cannot wait til book 2 of 3.

The first chapter will break your heart. Been reading the book all day. Cronin is an outstanding writer. Outstanding.

I was really hoping this was about the indie videogame of the same name.
http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/

I highly suggest you all play it. It only takes 5 minutes to complete, and you can't lose. Very powerful stuff, if you pay attention, it should make you think in ways a game never has.

Plus, it's the best price, free!

SPOILER ALERTYes it does.Cronin paints a picture of desperation that you see in your mind as you read; you truly care for the characters and cringe at the awful hand life keeps dealing them.

I have found after finishing the book that I reread the beginning,paying careful attention to Amy's origins, the jungle, the facility and Lacey.There are offhand phrases and what you first think are run on and throwaway passages that are actually the building blocks of the book's mythology.

Enjoy your reading

Spoiler Alert

Okay, I'm really loving the book, but there were some parts, especially the escape, that had so many problems solved deus ex machina--literally the hand of God--that I said out lout to the book, Oh come on! Are you fucking kidding me?, but that's minor. I can't stop reading it.

just started this last night, late last night.
60 or so pages in, did not want to put it down but insomnia had kept me from sleeping for days, and i felt like i might be able to get a few hours, so i did.

i probably wont be back in this thread until i'm finished, i hate spoilers. this book has potential though.

200 pages in. I'm enjoying the hell out of it. I read the first 30 pages last night and then went and got provisions to tide me over until I'm done.

I did that too...until I finished the book. No matter what I am going to read this trilogy.
SPOILER ALERTThis is Cronin's first foray into the genre so I will excuse some of the Hand of God instances... and be prepared for them to hit you after the fact, well into another part of the book as a small detail or offhand remark is introduced. I say again the title is not just of a physical or literal journey; it is of time,change,loss,redemption and a new thing - those deux ex machina, the obvious ones may not be what you think.Who saved Theo and Mouse at the cabin? Are there walkers out there that are immune to the virus? Has the virus mutated or have the survivors adapted and bred a mutation, such as Lish who reacted differently than Lacey to treatment?
Oh I am gonna enjoy this trilogy

SPOILERSSSSSS

How did Lish react differently to the virus than Lacey? She survived as "human" with less appetite and not fully viral. It's too soon to say if she'll live as long as Lacey. Lish and Lacey both got the virus from the batch made from Amy's blood which accounts for (but doesn't explain) why they are different from The Twelve. It's probably something to do with her being a child, not an adult.

The end was an intriguing cliff hanger, but all in all this book was like a mishmash of several Stephen King Novels to me: The Stand, Firestarter and the Gunslinger books. I can't say I think it's that brilliant. I would have like more about the Walkers and the virals. The humans and Amy were all kind of typical and boring to me. I'd like to know what/who saved Theo and Maus too. I guess I'll find out in 2012 when the next book is released.

Here's my take. Cronin is a better writer than King technically, but King by far is the more talented storyteller. And since this is genre not a work of "literary" fiction, it's all about the story.

(This is not me saying King isn't skilled or Cronin isn't talented. This is me comparing like to like attributes of the two writers mentioned.)

I didn't mean to compare them exactly, just making the observation that it all read as very familiar as if I'd read most of it before. Amy and Wolgast= Firestarter, Lacey and Babcock=The Stand, the rest of the book is similar to the Gunslinger books. The book didn't reach me because I've read too much King I suppose.

Your comparison makes perfect sense though, and frankly, Cronin's publisher invited the compassion to King by having half the back flap of the jacked a praise from King.

I'd never heard of it. If I can get it for 50% off, for 800 pages, I'll probably get it.

Finished it the other day. I'd give it C+. The ending was okay. Nothing special, but this can be attributed to the fact that it's setting up a sequel.

Cronin is a fine writer--I eventually got over the killing off of the characters I got attached to in the first act because I see what Cronin did with one of them at the very end of the book (I won't spoil it), but the atrocious pacing in the second act hurt what could have been something truly great. There's no excuse for that--I blame the editors at the publishing house.

For something that should have been escapist genre fiction, it felt like way too much work to get through, and not because it was challenging, it was just poorly paced. Do we really need three page asides about tertiary characters? I had to force myself to finish it. I will not be reading the sequel.

I've had time to reflect on this book with some distance from the glitter of the hype machine. Giving it a C+ was too kind. I was in love with the first act, which I'd give an "A". The first 250 pages were outstanding.

But we're not talking about a 250 page novel. If you, the reader, choose to invest time in this book, you still have three times as much work to slog through. Averaging out the book's first, second, and third acts does not work because the remaining 80% of the novel had so many problems that it counteracts every great thing Cronin did in the first act (which the author renders pretty much irrelevant), and for f-i-v-e h-u-n-d-r-e-d p-a-g-e-s. Cronin is ridiculously talented, which makes it so frustrating because of what this novel could have been.

This is a "D" book.

I'm actually kind of looking forward to reading this. it's been sitting on my dresser for a while now. along with a couple of other behmoths like House of Leaves and 2666 and Under the Dome. thing is, i don't like reading books over the course of weeks, or months, so i need to wait for a time when i've got a couple of days straight for reading time. annual leave is up soon, so it should be a very productive couple of weeks for my reading and writing.

Please let us know if you have a different opinion of the book.

oh yeah, i definitely will, Tyler. when that will be is hard to know. but be sure that when i do read it i'll come in here spraying all my opinions. it will be interesting too because i haven't read The Stand or any of the other comparisons this is getting.

I'm generally not a huge fan of door-stopper style books. but if it's a worthy 5, 6, 7 or 800 pages then i'm all for it. it's just most of the time when someone is going on for that long it's generally because an editor somehow overlooked the fact that they dribbled on for 600 pages and did a whole mess of telling and bad telling at that.

Spoiler Alert
Some observations:
-The Passage is the first intelligent fictional work of the "vampire/zombie" genre I have encountered. It offers a plausible answer to the obvious question that arises every time a horde of bloodthirsy infected come after the one piece of non-infected meat left- Why aren't they eating each other?
-Current evidence suggests that the simian immunodeficiency virus that was the origin of the AIDS virus has been transmitted to monkey-hunting humans several times over the last 20,000 years. It only went global in modern times with global transportation. Cronin's archealogic evidence of isolated viral outbreaks shows he did his homework. Smart.
-Theo, Maus and Caleb were pretty obviously saved by Theo's dad, Demo.
-The "future historical document" references are big clues to the story arc. The rest of the world appears to be pretty much wiped out, without a permanant viral population. The lack of viral "queens" in Europe, South America and Asia apparently means the virals go on a killing spree and then die. North America has a resident "hive" population, hence the "North American Quarantine". Did Australia and Indonesia avoid the plague altogether?
-Does the "Conference on Human Cultures and Conflicts" imply that 1000 years AV society is no longer human? Perhaps the bad old self destructive world has been replaced by a post-viral telepathic/immortal one? After all, the title is "The Passage"
-Are old people like Auntie and the Colonel already half way there?
-What voice spoke to Lacey?
-It is not clear: does Amy know about Zero?
-The finale clearly must be set in New York, Fanning/Zero's home. Considering that Fanning and Gray were sexual predators before they went viral, they should be one sick pair of puppies.