The Passage

AADL has no copies of this item

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Library Journal Review
Booklist Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Fiction Profile
Excerpt
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Epic apocalypse story marred by a muddled ending submitted by eknapp on November 9, 2011, 2:21pm A reasonably solid vampire apocalypse novel. The story occurs in parts: first the government experiment that precipitates the end of the world, then the breakdown of the Colony, and finally the save-the-world quest across the ruined landscape.

There is some interesting sociological theory here: the author explores how different groups of people might cope with such a cataclysm, based on group size, access to technology, location, etc. The complete lack of religion was an interesting take. I would have expected at least one "prophet" with a following, but none of Cronin's survivors wonder if they're being punished by God. A very self-sufficient lot.

Toward the end of the book the story starts to fall down. [Spoilers ahead.] The little girl is presented as the Key to Everything, the one who can end the vampires, but she doesn't really do anything. She basically provides comfort to vampires who are about to die anyway. And why, after almost a century, are people suddenly turning into "smokes" for no reason? They're succumbing to a kind of vampire psychic assault, but that assault has been around for decades, and besides, it's supposed to be a virus that causes the transformation, not a series of nightmares. It didn't make sense.

The Passage has a wonderfully epic feel and a lot of interesting, fresh premises, but a seriously weak ending.

Went on and on far too long submitted by mandevil on August 25, 2016, 1:50pm Well written characters, but I think even the author got bored by the end of this very long book.

really bad submitted by Zaneeba on June 25, 2019, 7:33pm it was way to long and bad

Love it submitted by selene0114 on August 31, 2019, 7:19pm The book is very well written and describes the landscapes of the US very well during an cross continent adventure.