Links: Another Review of The Fall / Show Official Info /

This is the second book in Del Toro and Hogan's trilogy retelling of the Dracula mythos. Eph Goodweather leads a ragged band out to destroy the vampires which have infected Manhattan--and the world. The Master, an aged vampire who has gone against centuries of vampire culture to make a play for world domination, has come to New York in order to put his plan in place. He's going to get rid of the rest of the other old vampires and build things new again.

Humans don't stand a chance since it seems that many of the weapons talked about in vampire lore don't work. Even direct sunlight only made the master smolder and did not kill him. Now, Eph and a few others, are faced with a growing vampire population in the city that they have to work through to try to find and kill the master. If they succeed the world may survive, but only if they do it fast enough. If they don't then everyone is doomed.

The Strain Trilogy * The Strain * The Fall * Eternal Night

Del Toro and Hogan have taken Stoker's Dracula and revamped it, as it were, for the modern age. The book suffers a bit from middle book syndrome in that the pacing is a bit off, the story is in a flat period--the introduction is all finished and you know a third book is coming which contains the big finish so what is going to happen in this, the second book? And it's a big book. They've also trapped themselves a bit by stretching this over three books. Certainly it is a big story but not big enough for three big books. Heck, Stoker did it in one medium sized book.

As for the story itself, it has all the implausibility of a movie script. But this should surprise no one since Del Toro is a director. I'm leaning heavily now on not letting movie directors write books. Sure the imagery is great, I mean, that's what they do, but the plot is always full of holes because they are going for the pretty picture and not what makes sense for the characters to do.

I really liked parts of this book but I also yawned through big parts of it too. I thought the first book was very well done and I imagine the ending will be a big Hollywood finish, but getting there is going to be a bit tedious. There is a real lack of energy in this book. I found myself skimming page after page of description. The flashbacks did not move the story forward and the characters became uninteresting at times. This is very hard to do considering we're talking vampires taking over Manhattan. But, if you remember, movie directors have done this in the past with the American Godzilla movie which was made to be tedious and illogical.

If you are a hard core vampire or Del Toro or Hogan fan then I guess you have no choice. Otherwise I think your time is better spent elsewhere.