The Night Eternal

The Night Eternal by Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan

With The Night Eternal Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan bring their vampire trilogy to a satisfying close. It began with The Strain which was a decent book in my opinion. A little flawed, but an intriguing beginning to their story. Then with The Fall the two corrected what needed to be fixed and got things really moving along. The Night Eternal was my favorite book of the three.

Two years have passed since the events of The Fall. The world is a much different place now. Nuclear winter has settled in as the master vampire used nuclear weapons to bring about nearly continual darkness across the planet. Now sunlight is only able to break through for two hours a day. The rest of the time, the vampires roam unimpeded.

The human population has gone through a mass extinction. The vampires, having first killed off all of the world leaders along with all the most powerful and brightest people, have now segregated the remaining population. The fortunate ones, the ones who possess the vampires' preferred blood type, have been interred in camps where they're fed well and live in relative comfort as they're either bled or bred to ensure the vampires' food supply. The less fortunate ones have either been forced into a life of servitude and compliance with the vampires, or they were destroyed. Only small pockets of resistance remain.

One of these pockets includes Eph, Nora, Fet, and Gus. Dr. Eph Goodweather's wife was turned by the master vampire and she later returned to kidnap Eph's son Zachary whom the Master has significant plans for. It's Eph's search for his son that nearly destroyed Eph but that now keeps him going. Eph's group is the only group remaining that has the ability to destroy the Master and bring about an end to the nightmare that's taken over the earth, but by doing so, he may have to destroy his son as well? That's a decision Eph might not be strong enough to make.

With the trilogy complete I can now wholeheartedly recommend it. The first book started off really strong but then it got a little frustrating as characters started doing things that drove me crazy. The series rebounded with the second book and then finished strong with this conclusion. My understanding is that Guillermo del Toro originally wrote this story hoping it would be a TV series. Unfortunately is wasn't to be. But based on the content, I don't think it would have aired on any channel that I get anyway.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Fall

The Fall by Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan

 In this, the second book in The Strain Trilogy by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, the authors have added some real substance to their story. For me, the first book fell short of the expectations I had for it. It started off well, but halfway through it, I started to get distracted from the story by the ridiculous actions of some of the characters. Regardless, I liked the book enough that I planned to read the subsequent books as they came out.

I'm glad I did. With The Fall, the authors take their story of a vampiric virus to a new level. None of the flaws that irritated me so much in the first book exist in this one. By the time the book begins, the strain, which first appeared in New York with the landing of a commercial  airplane which appeared to contain nothing but corpses, has become an epidemic, and possibly a pandemic. Eph Goodweather, head of the CDC, is leading his team in battle against the creatures that now run rampant during the night.

The book isn't just about humans versus vampires. It's also an account of the warring between the New- and Old-World vampire clans. The latter is trying to maintain the balance that has always existed between humans and the infected while the former has begun to disregard those restrictions in an attempt to take control of the earth.

Guillermo del Toro has probably one of the most creative imaginations in Hollywood. It was his name on the cover of The Strain that made me pick it up initially. I wanted to see if his creativity would translate as well in writing as it has visually in his movies. With The Fall I think it has. The feel and tone of the book are great. The story is unique even within the vampire genre and the creatures themselves are obviously dirivitives of the same mind that created Pan's Labyrinth.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆