The Passage

A Novel (Book One of The Passage Trilogy)

By: Justin Cronin

Narrated by: Scott Brick, Adenrele Ojo, Abby Craden

Length: 36 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best seller.

This thrilling novel kicks off what Stephen King calls “a trilogy that will stand as one of the great achievements in American fantasy fiction".

Now a FOX TV series!

Named one of Paste’s best horror books of the decade.

Named one of the 10 best novels of the year by TIME and one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, Esquire, U.S. News & World Report, NPR/On Point, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, BookPage, and Library Journal.

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born".

An epic and gripping tale of catastrophe and survival, The Passage is the story of Amy - abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued, and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions. But Special Agent Brad Wolgast, the lawman sent to track her down, is disarmed by the curiously quiet girl and risks everything to save her. As the experiment goes nightmarishly wrong, Wolgast secures her escape - but he can’t stop society’s collapse. And as Amy walks alone, across miles and decades, into a future dark with violence and despair, she is filled with the mysterious and terrifying knowledge that only she has the power to save the ruined world. Look for the entire Passage trilogy:

• The Passage
• The Twelve
• The City of Mirrors

©2010 Justin Cronin (P)2010 Random House

Critic reviews

“[A] blockbuster.” (The New York Times)

“Mythic storytelling.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

“Magnificent...Cronin has taken his literary gifts, and he has weaponized them...The Passage can stand proudly next to Stephen King’s apocalyptic masterpiece The Stand, but a closer match would be Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: A story about human beings trying to generate new hope in a world from which all hope has long since been burnt.” (Time)

a Review

Ok, I don't like the vampire genre. This is not that.
I was frustrated after getting this book that it seemed like a vampire novel.
But,.. I could not put it down. The story and the characters are all worth the time invested.
I love the emotions and loyalty that surfaces out of the darkness of the story. I love the odd twists that the story takes. Yes, I am looking forward to the sequel.
I would hate to spend 2 credits on any book, but this is one credit well spent. The hours involved are well worth it.
This book is a journey. and one that should continue.
Even if you don't like Stephen King,.. I do, but then if you do like Robert Jordan, or Brandon Sanderson,.. you will like this. It is good!

Worth the Credit!!

It is a good listen. I usually don't care for Scott Brick a whole lot because sometimes I just can't get into the characters he reads, I think he does a good job at narrating, but that wasn't a problem for me in this book. I think he did excellent. Also, as others have said, it's more end of the world as we know it, contagion more than vampires. Vampires are definitely not glamorized. To me, also, this book could have been four or five books because you go through hours and hours of a story, then it changes, hours and hours of another well-developed plot/story, then it changes onto another long phase. All tied back in at the end, but they could kind of have stood alone. To me I like some Stephen King books, but not all, I definitely feel like it was a good use of a credit, I've listened to all 36 hours in a matter of five days, it kept me entertained and interested. I don't have to "believe" in everything like a friend of mine does in movies she sees or books that she reads. If she can't believe it, she doesn't enjoy it. I just want to be entertained with a good story and a good narrator and this fit the bill for me.

boring

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

no, could not keep my interest. It was repetitive, and boring. I love to read, but I had to force myself with this book.

What was most disappointing about Justin Cronin’s story?

just not my type.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of the narrators?

didn't matter.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

no

Any additional comments?

no

Still in progress // early buyer's remorse

Just into this and already I'm rolling my eyes at how melodramatic it is in spots (the chapter of emails, especially. Jesus Christ, man). And, having gone to SHSU in Huntsville, I laughed out loud when he mentioned a Costco and Best Buy being there. There was a Wal-Mart in town when this book came out and nothing else, lol.

Unremarkable

This starts off with a full set of characters, with whom great pains are taken to establish motivation, personality, etc. About 25% into it, you begin wondering why the author devoted so much time & effort on them.

Similar questions arise throughout..almost seems as though the author was short on plot, so just kept churning out incidental characters.

So much about this book is drawn out & filled with tedious detail. And then, an abrupt, random ending.

That being said, there were some intriguing stretches where I became involved. Not awful, but disjointed & ultimately unsatisfying.

Been There, Done That

If you've read/watched "The Walking Dead ", "Z Nation", and "I Am Legend" you've already read this unnecessarily long book. Move on to better things. Life is too short and full of redundancy as it is.

Fun and addictive

What can I say? I totally enjoyed the story and the reading. Warning: it totally took over my life -- I could not wait to keep listening...and I can't wait for Part II, which unfortunately is not due to come out for two years.

Too long....

This story had potential for me but the elongated timelines did not help in the delivery. If you enjoy extensive character development, you will get all that. I prefer a story that moves along with a better pace. If the timeline had covered 50 versus 90+ years I don't think the story would have lost anything. I picked this book up on sale, and I also enjoy Scott Brick, but I found that his style did not enhance the story- too dramatic for the long timeline- not everything has to be read with the same gravitas. All told, I am not sure I will opt to finish the series, at a minimum I will take a break from both the series and the narrator.

The best in a long time.

Unlike most apocalypse stories that just focus on the disaster and and a few days or weeks after it this book spends a third of its length sitting up the end of the world, making you actually care about the people involved and the world that you know is going to be swept away. When the action comes it is sudden and horrific. Most novels would turn into a drawn out race for survival at this point but the brilliance of this book is the way its skips past the dying time and moves the story nearly a hundred years past the outbreak, letting you see the long term consequences and how society had evolved to cope with the vampire apocalypses. Its here in the last known human colony that the meat of the story takes place, a place where no one has ever seen the stars, a place where the last few families struggle to survive as the batteries begin to fail.

Since this IS a vampire story I should mention that these are not the romantic intelligent type. They are the naked hyper fast rabid kind with a limited hyponotic/telepathic edge.

Scott Brick does his normal excellent narration, which is good because after thirty plus hours a poor reader would get really annoying.

All in all this is the kind of book that makes be keep my audible account month after month. One of the best.

Vampires for Grown-ups!

Fantastic tale that trumps Stephen King ("The Stand"), Frank Herbert ("White Plague") and Brahm Stoker for telling a good contagion-apocalypse-vampire story. Surprise ending and unfinished business left this listener hoping for a "what went on in the rest of the world" sequel.

I can sure do without this narrator - he seems to have one voice throughout most of the narration and manages to find voice suggestive of any female character only toward the end. Otherwise his presentation is sing-song and lulling, not much change of tone or expression even for the bits that should be read be *so very dramatically*. Maybe the director was out to lunch during recording?

Narrator scotches a 5-star review.