Summary: End Of Days. Virus manipulated by US military creates vampires who create lots and lots of corpses (as well as quite a few more vampires, duh). Some humans survive. One survivor, also deliberately infected with said virus, did not become a homicidal blood-sucking monster. But is this person special because of how they responded to the virus, or were they already special? And what does humanity do to adapt to their new status as prey?

963 pages?! I'm not much of a genre fiction reader these days, although I do try to read broadly. But bloody hell, I'd forgotten how very EPIC some of these books could be. I will read the next instalment, though not for a while. I also gather (from the little teaser included at the end of this house-brick of a book) that Cronin is going to do that thing I HATE which is start Book Two with completely new characters and I predict it will be many dozens of pages at least before I get to read anything about the characters from Book One, in whom I'm now deeply emotionally invested. Damn you, author!

Justin Cronin made me care about his characters as though they were real people. To me, this is always a mark of a good storyteller. The broader brush strokes of the plot aren't especially original. It's the subtler elements of character development, (and a Game-Of-Thrones-esque capacity to kill off characters just when you really start to love them) that won me over. The journeys taken by our various heroes and anti-heroes had sufficiently high stakes for me to nervously bite my lips as I read, wondering if this was the night everyone was going to die horribly or if they'd miraculously survive to greet the dawn. And if they did, what would the next day bring?

I will also say that this story owes a massive debt to Stephen King. This is not a bad thing. The guy is a master storyteller. ( )

Auch wenn das Buch ein paar Schwächen hat, hat es mich doch sehr gepackt und wirklich gut unterhalten. ( )

Glimrende bog. Var godt underholdt undervejs. Faktisk så godt, at denne post-apokalyptiske verden spøgte i mit hoved om natten.

Til gengæld var bogen for lang. En dygtig redaktør kunne nok have barberet 2-300 sider af, uden at det var gået ud over fortællingen. ( )

Väga hea, parem kui Del Toro "Tõbi". Kohati läheb tempo maha ja süžeekäigud on etteaimatavad, kuid üldkokkuvõttes väärt kraam. ( )

The first 250 pages of the book were pretty good.. at least, good enough that I wanted to keep reading to see what happened. After that, pages and pages and PAGES of "meh". ( )