The Fall

Book Two of the Strain Trilogy

By: Guillermo Del Toro, Chuck Hogan

Narrated by: Daniel Oreskes

Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

From the authors of the instant New York Times best seller The Strain comes the next volume in one of the most imaginative and frightening thriller series in many, many years.

Last week they invaded Manhattan. This week they will destroy the world. The vampiric virus unleashed in The Strain has taken over New York City. It is spreading and soon will envelop the globe. Amid the chaos, Eph Goodweather - head of the Centers for Disease Control's team - leads a band out to stop these bloodthirsty monsters. But it may be too late.

Ignited by the Master's horrific plan, a war erupts between Old and New World vampires, each vying for control. At the center of the conflict lies a book, an ancient text that contains the vampires' entire history... and their darkest secrets. Whoever finds the book can control the outcome of the war and, ultimately, the fate of us all. And it is between these warring forces that humans - powerless and vulnerable - find themselves no longer the consumers but the consumed.

Though Eph understands the vampiric plague better than anyone, even he cannot protect those he loves. His ex-wife, Kelly, has been transformed into a bloodcrazed creature of the night, and now she stalks the city looking for her chance to reclaim her Dear One: Zack, Eph's young son.

With the future of humankind in the balance, Eph and his team, guided by the brilliant former professor and Holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian and exterminator Vasiliy Fet, and joined by a crew of ragtag gangsters, must combat a terror whose ultimate plan is more terrible than anyone has imagined - a fate worse than annihilation.

Listen to the first book, The Strain.

©2010 Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan (P)2010 HarperCollins Publishers

Unexpected vampire story

Such a unique vampire story that totally diverts from the classic tropes. A great binge listen.

Book 2 and a Filler

The last two hours save this book. The last two hours are intellectually stimulating. Toro and Hogan bring vampires into the 21st century with modern day technology and modern day theories. They also set up what may be a very exciting conclusion to the trilogy. The last two hours make the book worth buying.

The first hour has some good old fashioned vampire scariness and throughout the book are scattered some gory action scenes. What keeps the book from going five stars is that a lot of the book is filler. Boring scenes that only serve to set up the third book and to make this book novel length. The first book was about a half a star better. This book has conspiracies, Nazi, The Book and a really scary addition, The Feelers. I found the Feelers to be especially creepy.

I did have some questions about the silver. First I know this is not the same as all vampire stories, even though they stayed true to mirrors, masters, daylight, etc, but isn't silver suppose to kill werewolves? Then after you have accepted silver has a weapon, they sure came up with a lot of it in the forms they needed pretty quick. They shot a lot of silver nails and I don't think that is a top seller in most hardware stores. I also felt it unrealistic that masses of people could be killed in New York City and the rest of the world totally ignorant of it. What happened to journalism?

The narrator had a way of going from a quiet scene to a action scene with no variation in his voice. Your mind may be wondering due to the filler nature of the story and then you hear an attack is going on, but your wondering when did the attack start and did I miss something of interest?

Remember the last two hours are really good.

Book two is great.

To be honest I didn't like the change of narrator from Perlman. After listening to 11 hours of the first book all the characters had personalities that Pearlman broght to life. So a change in narrator is always an adjustment. Pearlman was better but Oreskes didn't fail me and kept me glued to the series.

But with that said book two proved to be almost as good as the first.

Now off to book three.

Not as Good as the First Book

Book Two of the Strain Trilogy, "The Fall", is not as good as the first but better than the last.

Del Toro and Hogan have created an interesting take on the vampire legend.
The backstory deserved more attention. The interludes give us an overview, but the details in Setrakian's and Sardu's experiences would have been much more entertaining.

I became bored with the characters pretty quickly in this installment. There is some introduction of other plot twists with dubious foundations. I found the attempted link with Biblical narrative a great big stretch, and kind of out of the blue. "hey, let's throw this in there." "Yeah, okay".

Well, wait. What's this, an ancient book? The Occido Lumen? This could be interesting. But the "book" just ended up being a big let down. It was built up so much that I expected some great revelation about the "stragori". But, alas, no. Just a treasure map to the Master's origin dirt. How did the Master know where all the Ancients origins were but the Master's is coded into some secret book that ... well let's just say ... is not readily legible by vampire kind.

All in all, book two was a less intriguing book than the first. Just -eh!

The narrator was different than the first but just as good.

Its a battle to get through

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

The story progresses as expected but the reader kills it for me. He's flat, monotone & mispronounces names. I find myself zoning out as I listen and have to rewind. I'm about halfway through and I'm forcing myself to finish it so as not to waste a credit.

Great - as exected

Part 1 (The Strain) was great. Part 1 (The Fall) was good too - perhaps not as good as part 1 but still within my top list of 'well-written' scary books.

Excellent Book

Much better than the first book- which was good. Well written with many plot twists and a great story. I liked the new narrator better than Pearlman. I'm
guessing, without proof, that the majority of the story is written by Hogan and that De; Toro is losing interest. Book three should be fantastic.

needs longer pauses for mid chapter scene switches

mid chapter scene changes needed a longer pause. was confusing when the book switched from one character to another with no pause.

Amazing Story

I wasn’t sure about this series. Maybe because I saw the TV version first. I am glad I decided to risk a credit. Well written story that pulls you in a paragraph at a time! Performance? Wish I could give 10 stars ⭐️ Can’t wait to listen to the final installment.

A great sequel!

I have to say first and foremost I miss the narration of Ron Perlman (Fallout narrator and first Hellboy) but it was a fantastic book, both so far fairly different than the show I started with. I also appreciate unlike the show being dumb sometimes Zach was not an emotional idiot like he was in the show, maybe that'll change with the final book but we'll see! I'm sad and excited, ready for the the night eternal.