Book #3 The Twelve by Justin Cronin

The Twelve

I've had The Twelve on my Kindle for about 3 years without reading it. It's the follow up to dystopia The Passage, a trilogy which is due to conclude this year with City Of Mirrors. I've had several abortive attempts at reading The Twelve, in part because I wasn't grabbed by the opening, and because I was struggling to remember where The Passage left off.

I don't quite know how I missed the section at the start of the book, written in biblical style, summarising events up to this point, but I did. Finding it this time made the book easier to get going with, using Wikipedia really helped too. I guess that's what happens when you leave a three year gap between installments.  

Following the end of The Passage our main group of heroes have gone their separate ways, some are missing presumed dead, some are actually dead, and Alicia, for one, has become a creature unto herself neither human nor viral.

After what they learned pursuing Babcock in The Passage, Amy, Peter and co now know that to solve the viral crisis, they must kill The Twelve originators of the plague thereby killing all the virals they individually sired.

Whilst The Passage was an unnerving and bleak novel with a lot of prologue involved, The Twelve is more dramatic set piece after dramatic set piece, action sequences with a clear view to the film adaptation which has been optioned by Ridley Scott.  The cage fighting sequence, the convoy ambush, the stadium, the school bus etc. As such it loses much of its reflection upon the changes in the world.

The flashback to just after the virus broke as we meet Bernard Kittridge 'The Last Stand In Denver' is all really great stuff which ends somewhat prematurely. Other things entirely miss the mark. Lila is a terrible character and the hunt for the Twelve becomes ridiculously over simplified were previously it had much potential for a variety of target take down scenarios.

Given that the entire nation has become literally overrun with these things, at one point they are said to number in their millions; it seems odd then, both that human colonies seem to survive in such large numbers or indeed that 100 years later any are left at all.

There were two things I really actually detested about The Twelve. A lengthy segment ensues in which one of the main characters is trapped in The Homeland - an established colony run by a panto villain named Guilder. Instead of inventing conditions in this oppressive colony Cronin merely borrows from the Holocaust. Inmates have barracks and are starving, they have numbers burned into their arms, they have their heads shaved. Instead of feeling like a subtle allegory, the comparison is like a sledgehammer. To do this felt grotesque to the point of offensive to me.

It also has multiple allusions to rape and rape sequences, which I think many readers would find disturbing.

However, I did manage to read this book, in the end, in two large gulps, it does sort of gallop along with haste in a way that makes it occupy your attention, and ultimately these books are quite long over 500 pages each, so having devoted over 1,000 pages of my attention to this saga, it just wouldn't make sense not to read its conclusion.

I have recently said though, that I wish the publishing world would take note of the fact that pandemic dystopias have somewhat reached saturation point now, and act accordingly. I have certainly reached a 'not another one' malais when seeking out new reading materials, and finishing this trilogy will certainly mark my taking a well earned break from them.

7/10

2015 Challenge : A book with a number in the title.

Book #49 Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

Station Eleven

Station Eleven begins with the death, onstage, of the actor Arthur Leander during a performance of King Lear. He died of a heart attack, but pretty soon almost everyone who attended that performance is dead too. There has been an outbreak of "Georgia Flu" which has caused a catastrophic loss of life on a global scale.

The novel flashes forward to Year Twenty (post flu) and Kirsten, who was on stage in King Lear that night, and is now part of The Traveling Symphony, a band of actors and musicians who travel from one settlement to another entertaining survivors.

Station Eleven has seen a lot of high praise, of the 80+ reviews on Amazon UK, 50+ have given it 5 stars, and really, you can consider me baffled about this, really you can.

Potentially my apathy towards this book has something to do with the sheer number of books of this sort out there, I've read quite a lot of this type in the last few years, which if they don't have a flu virus at the centre, have zombies instead. There wasn't really a yawning gap in this market, at all.

It is reminiscent of both The Stand with its sinister religious aspect and Warm Bodies seeing as one large settlement lives in an airport. One of the most cringeworthy moments comes when a character directly references Justin Cronin's novel The Passage, which did the apocalypse so well, I thought. So, my point is it's derivative, and unoriginal. Yet a lot of the reviews say the opposite and rave about this "bleak new world" she paints.

But most of what I disliked about this book came down to the choices she made regarding her characters, and their generally implausibility both as people and in their story journeys.

A very large section of the novel focuses in on Arthur Leander, an egotistical, obnoxious smugster and the tale of how famed changed him so much he alienated his friends as he ran through various wives and so on.

But Arthur dies at the start of the book and so has no connection to what came after. This is to show the total shift from the old world to the new, I think, but it doesn't work and is forced  and so we get these swathes of information about his affair and his dinner party and his ugly divorces.
Yes, there could be a comparison between Arthur and King Lear, but it's a different story - the two don't gel, it's a separate novel melded into another.   

An extremely forced connection between the past narrative of Arthur and Year Twenty narrative of Kirsten is forged through her possession of the comic Station Eleven which was the brainchild of his first wife. Then several other characters from all areas of the globe, with some connection to Arthur who happen to all be alive for a start,  have all ended up in North America meeting each other along the way.  This feels like a failed attempt to give the book some level of emotional depth, but there's zero subtlety, all it provoked in me was a feeling of both annoyance and disbelief. You couldn't forget it was a story.

Arthur is the main problem here, I found that I thought that had the entire narrative belonged to Kirsten with a shaky recollection of some man who once gave her the treasured comic, it would have worked,  but such an emphasis upon the dead mans narrative made no sense. It also might have worked better if Arthur had lived - for a famous actor to have been forced to survive in a world where fame has lost all meaning.

The cherry on top of the ice cream that's already melted here is a character called Jayveen, who is the first character we meet. I say "character" but his entire existence is an exposition device and nothing else.

At one point he's a paramedic, another a paparazzi, then he's graduated to an entertainment journalist all at extremely convenient times for the current stage of the plot.        

His ONLY FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WORLD is an ER doctor who luckily promised to call him if ever one of these virus scares TURNED OUT TO BE THE REAL THING.  And then....then he vanishes into a mist, reappearing to reveal he ended up setting out alone after  wasting a whole load of his time answering the question What Will Happen To Wheelchair Users In The Event Of An Apocalypse? Answer : They'll realise that they are a burden to the rest of society and politely do everyone a favour by committing suicide. We'll eventually meet him again briefly when he's completely settled somewhere with barely any connective journey in between.  

This book simply is not very good, where has all the praise come from? What on earth am I missing here? If you've read this and disagree, feel free to argue. But seriously, read The Stand, read Warm Bodies, read World War Z, read The Passage, watch Series 1 of Survivors. Don't read this.

4/10 

          

Book #13 All Fall Down by Louise Voss and Mark Edwards

All Fall Down

Length Of Time In Possession : Roughly 1 month

All Fall Down from the Voss/Edwards writing duo is the follow up to Catch Your Death and returns to the lives of the protagonists of that novel Kate Maddox and Paul Wilson. Kate, virologist and Watoto virus expert is called upon by the FBI when a strain of the virus breaks out on a Native American reservation. Partner Paul follows her to America and does some freelance investigating of his own still seeking explanations and retribution for the death of his twin Stephen.

The third novel from the Voss/Edwards team All Fall Down shows a positive strengthening of their partnership, faster, tauter, and an improvement in terms of their prose from Catch Your Death, the two writers have obviously become more comfortable with each other and the unusual demands of writing as a double act as a continuing professional development.

I was worried that Paul would feel somehow out of place or redundant but his storyline manages to maintain plausibility within an implausible circumstance.

I say this, because in summary of All Fall Down, it is a story in which a religious cult of lesbians attempt to provoke an apocalypse by means of biological terrorism. A snuff threesome occurs before page 150.

If this sounds silly, it's because it is, but it by no means harms the fun thriller purpose of the novel, in many ways this is the product for sale, a giddy race against time with a level of James Bond esque silliness expected from an action film. The moment when the girls break into the secret lab is particularly worthy of any Hollywood blockbuster in terms of the imagery you conjur up in your mind.

I have but one criticism : Jack. Imperiled Jack in this second novel is suffering from a case of Kim Bauer Syndrome, a reference which only 24 fans will truly understand, but reminded me of the second season in which Kim is needlessly hiding behind bins, being chased by coyotes and accidentally caught up in a shop robbery. The way in which Jack collides with characters first met by Paul is overly coincidental. Let Jack be happy at home with his LEGO next time.

I would recommend making sure you've read Catch Your Death first, and hey if you don't think a mad lesbian trying to wipe out civilization is the most original premise you've heard in some time, feel free to let me know of others you have heard of! 

I really liked their novel Killing Cupid and the forthcoming novel Forward Slash looks like it is  similarly formatted so I'm really looking forward to that.

Destination : Passed on to a friend

Book #19 Catch Your Death by Louise Voss and Mark Edwards

Catch Your Death

Catch Your Death is a crime thriller by writing duo Louise Voss and Mark Edwards who met after Voss, already a published novelist empathised with his struggle as a writer following a TV documentary. Unlike other duos like PJ Tracy or Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees, Voss and Edwards are neither related nor a couple, which makes them a tad unusual in collaborative fiction.

In Catch Your Death, Kate returns to the UK from a life in America after over a decade abroad . She has no plans to return and has essentially abducted her young son. You would think then that this would be the story, but it isn't, or at least it's only part of it. When Kate left all those years ago, she left behind a tragedy, and memories of an accident that make no sense. A fire at a research unit where she volunteered, a fire which killed her beloved boyfriend Stephen.

What Kate doesn't realise is that her knowledge of her days there make her a threat and subsequently a target. Whilst being hunted she pairs up with Stephen's twin Paul and the duo set out to discover what really happened to Stephen all those years ago.

Catch Your Death taps in to what I feel is this really current underlying fear within society, that the next big threat to humanity will come from bioterrorism. Across media from film to television to novels, an apocalypse created by mass but not entire human extinction really is in the zeitgeist of the moment. I'm thinking of Contagion, Survivors, and all the different variations of zombie disasters. It is a known fact that scientists across the world grow and manipulate viruses in labs, and now awareness of this is really becoming part of the collective psyche, after 30 years which have brought us AIDS, CJD, H1N1 and SARS, that a truly pandemic truly decimating illness could spread very easily throughout the global village. The subject of this novel is a viable and therefore extra scary threat.

Sampson one of the two main villains of this piece is one of the most chilling individuals I've come across in fiction. So evil that I would class him as being truly inhuman he is a man to have some serious nightmares about. His superior Gaunt is like one of these mad James Bond evil genius types, a tad over the top but fun nonetheless. 

Sometimes when you read a book the characters and events sprout your own creative imagination, and personally I would have gone down a completely different road with the character Paul. It's not a criticism more a choose your own adventure type thing. I'm not saying my storyline would have been better, just I enjoyed imagining how it would have changed it.

One of the impressive aspects of this book is the seamless authorial voice and style, without the front cover telling you so, you would not guess it was the work of two people.

I think that Catch Your Death is a great read if you are going off on holiday and want to freak yourself out on the journey, it's what this sort of thriller is perfect for. Also, it's only 99p on Kindle, and for under a pound it's really well worth it.

Book #97 Dark, As Light Fails by P. A Britton

Dark As Light Fails

As I went to provide the link for Dark As Light Fails I realised why this book was perhaps more flawed than it should have been, not published by a publisher it is part of the growing army of free or low priced self published novels for Kindle, therefore it has not gone through many of the normal editing processes novels go through. I normally entirely avoid these books believing if a publisher or several have refused it, theres a reason for that. Simply put, I had no idea when I paid for it, the cover art looks professional so congratulations to whoever created that. This is not to say it is entirely without merit, I will however start at the very beginning and highlight the better aspects later.

Elliot is married with two children, he reminisces about lost love Immy and is quietly unhappy with his life. When he wakes up, his wife is dead and so are their two girls, somehow Elliot instantly knows that a killer virus has wiped people out, he makes this conclusion rather quickly and upon visiting a surviving friend has a weird emotionless casual conversation about the death of his kids as if he's discussing his fantasy football picks or something.

The very beginning of this book (published 2010) mirrors to almost a tee the very first episode of the recent Survivors (2008) series. Person wakes up next to dead spouse, can't find help, empty streets, steals car, guy alone on the road meets other survivors, helps out others, frantic visit to hospital only to discover a single frantic doctor left......later aspects also remind you of Walking Dead or Shaun Of The Dead because there are the dead, the survivors, and the half way in between who are crazed and attack the living......if there was a way of conveying an eyeroll in this blog entry I would do so.

Where the book differs (or perhaps doesn't if you think about it) from the TV series is that in the series main character Abby Grant's mission is to search for her son and hopefully discover him living. In Dark, As Light Fails Frank's mission is to find long lost love Immy (who has also miraculously survived) in what is probably the most laughably implausible story in the whole novel, with a denouement  purchased straight from Cloverfield.

I want to be kind to P A Britton though, and say whilst his novel is entirely derivative, borderline plagerism and his dialogue is as wooden as a pine table and chairs he shows genuine promise  in his descriptive prose and action sequences, and I would tell him to keep trying to make it as a writer. It wasn't dire and it was certainly highly readable despite its many faults.

4/10