CBR IV: Read Free or Cannonball Hard, Entry 1: “The Night Eternal” by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

(Many thanks to the fine people at Harper Collins, specifically Shawn Nicholls, for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy of the book I’m about to review. It’s because of people like this that I am a literary addict of the highest regard.)

A warning before we proceed, there are obvious spoilers to "The Strain" and "The Fall" in this review, so read those two beforehand or proceed with caution.  That said, it’s time to resurrect the phrase, “It’s gonna be Biblical”. It used to mean something so epic and awesome that only the Good Book itself could have dreamed it, but over time its basically become the new "Epic".  That is, until Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan wrote the concluding chapter to their Strain Trilogy, "The Night Eternal".  After reading this book, the term retains its full relevance, and dares modern horror writers to follow in their footsteps.

When we last left Dr. Ephraim "Eph" Goodweather and his band of vampire slayers, the world was nuked to shit.  Sunlight is precious and scarce, and thanks to The Stoneheart Group's sleeper infrastructure taking power, humans are now a harvested quantity.  Blood farms, required donations, enforced curfews, re-runs, and B-Positive breeding programs are the way of the world.  And all that stand in the way of the complete domination of humanity is Goodweather and his team.  It's not going to be easy though as Eph's leadership is called into question (thanks to a newly formed dependency on drugs and alcohol) and the rise of one Vasilly Fet.  Yes, Setrakian's favored exterminator is now not only the wiser looking man in the room, he's shacking up with Nora (whom Eph was still rather sweet on, but began to become distant towards).  Meanwhile, The Master is grooming Eph's beloved son, Zachery (who, as we know, was abducted by Eph's vamped out ex-wife at the end of The Fall), into his new vessel.  This grooming process is carried out through blood bonding to treat the young boy's asthma; as well as a new life of spoiled privilege that changes Zach's outlook on humanity and life itself.   As father and son move towards a possibly fateful reconciliation, Fet uses his new found academic drive to make the moves necessary to bring the game between Vampires and humans to a most explosive endgame.

The key piece in the game, the one thing that everyone is making a move towards is The Occido Lumen, the book that details the Biblical origins of vampirism, and the story of Mr. Quinlan...the second vampire to be created after The Master himself.  Within the book lie secrets to the fabled "black site" that created The Master, and will end him if taken out with a nuclear pulse.

The Night Eternal brings the trilogy started with The Strain to a satisfying conclusion.  As with the previous two entries in the series, the back and forth between the Occido Lumen's story of vampirism's origins and the main story of Goodweather and Company trying to defeat the vampire menace works like a charm.  If anything, I would be thrilled if Mr. Quinlan's story could be further explored, and more tales of the Occido Lumen could be told.  This series has a high potential for spin offs that wouldn't feel cheap.  The ending overall is especially impressive, by pulling off what I knew they'd have to do in order to end the series and pulling no punches.  It ends the way it should, it doesn't cop out, and it gives a hopeful yet bittersweet close to what I've been obsessing and begging William Morrow for advanced copies for over the past two years.

I want Del Toro and Hogan to write more books together, hell I wouldn't mind Del Toro going solo from this point on either.  The storytelling that has gone into this series has been an exact match for the scale that the cover blurb from Nelson DeMille promises: "Bram Stoker meets Stephen King meets Michael Crichton".  I know I've drawn attention to this fact before, but honestly it's the best way to describe the blend of styles in the plot.  So really, you're getting five authors for the price of two.  (This is a bargain already.)

So William Morrow/Harper Collins, I just want to say THANK YOU for letting me cover this journey with you.  And thank you Shawn Nicholls for dealing with my constant nagging/inquiring about when the next book would be out, and when Review Copies would be issued.  It's been worth the time, the effort, and all the time plugging my nose into the books.

Next Up: "The Fault In Our Stars" by John Green

The Cannonball Read III - Osaka Slide: #10 - Men, Women, and Children by Chad Kultgen

Rarely does an audience get to witness the evolution of a writer, and rarely is such an evolution carried out so artfully.  With most authors settling into a niche or a particular way of telling a story, it's so easy to just do what you've been doing.  While the subject matter of Men, Women & Children: A Novel isn't new to Chad Kultgen, the scope of the story is.  With The Average American Male: A Novel, Kultgen started with first person, singular focus.  With The Lie: A Novel, he stayed with first person storytelling, but told the stories of three different characters.  With Men, Women & Children: A Novel, he makes the jump to the third person and utilizes even more characters.  Even more of a change of pace is the fact that instead of using characters that are college aged, he decides to explore his recurring themes of sexuality (and its influence on social interaction) with the two demographics he's steered clear of...Middle Schoolers and Middle Agers.  The result might be a little uneven (and a little underwhelming when compared to The Lie: A Novel) and a little redundant (when compared to the themes of Tom Perrotta's Little Children: A Novel) but nevertheless this new work shows that it's an exciting time to be a Kultgen fan.

Through the course of a school Football season we are told the stories of five families: the Mooneys, the Trubys, the Beltmeyers, the Clints, and the Vances.  Each family has their own story and their own issues to deal with.  The Mooneys are a Father and Son who are (in their own ways) dealing with the divorce/departure of the Mother in the family.  The Trubys have grown sexually stale and ultimately start to think about infidelity.  Mrs. Beltmeyer has a tight grip on her daughter Brandy, though not as tightly as she'd like; while Mrs. Clint seems to be the polar opposite of Mrs. Beltmeyer in terms of her daughter's interactions.  Finally, the Vances are having that age old debate: to vasectomy or not to vasectomy.  Through all of these stories, there is one connecting thread...the theme of sexuality and the Internet.  Each family in their own way touches on how computing in the modern age has made us more accessible, while making us drift more apart.  People have affairs through websites, children (and sometimes their parents) post provocative pictures of themselves on the Net for all to see, and Sexting is a second language.  All modern times for modern problems, and Kultgen doesn't shy away from being able to transition from one story to another, even intermingling some of his threads into each other.

Which brings up the ultimate criticism when evaluating this book:  it's about high time for Kultgen to either turn this novel into a franchise, or start with a new canvas and tell an epic story, particularly because this book seems to just end out of nowhere.  This is still a good book, but again it ultimately pales in comparison with The Lie: A Novel, particularly because Men, Women & Children: A Novel feels it could go on for another fifty pages and finish out the school year.  It most likely does so because the author has built a reputation for not letting any of his characters get out clean.  This reputation pretty much leads the reader to automatically assume that by the end of the course of events, there will be blood on everyone's hands.  Indeed, the final scene of the book is something akin to a P.T. Anderson film.  It ends abruptly, and with a shock; which ultimately makes for a finished product that feels like it's leading to another installment.

Another difference between this book and the author's previous work is that there's actually a pair of characters you want to see make it out with a measure of happiness.  The fact that he let them get away with the happiness they did is the only real aspect of this book that kicks the reader in the shin, otherwise everyone pretty much does what his previous protagonists have done.  Hearts and minds are broken, sadness prevails over sentimentality, and in the end everyone continues to cope with themselves.  Overall, it's par for the course; while at the same time it shows off just how versatile of an author Kultgen really is.

Up Next: Carte Blanche by Jeffrey Deaver