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Sarah1984
May 06, 2016Sarah1984 rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
SPOILERS THROUGHOUT!!!!!!!!!! 1/3 - This book is GREAT. It's no longer a dark, stormy night (cold but sunny, for the first day of March that is), but that hasn't stopped me from continuing to devour this all day (thank goodness it's Sunday). There's a creepy little girl (why are little girls creepier than little boys?), some kind of facility where they're 'making' vampires while attempting to perfect a 'fountain of youth' virus, and at least two strangers with what seem to be just the right backgrounds willing to put their lives on the line for this little girl who they've only just met. From a comment on another review I thought this was going to be about vampires, but the 'vampires' really aren't doing anything suspicious yet, they're just 'hanging around' in their cage eating the occasional rabbit. What seems to be the more worrying evil is this shadow, or feeling, that comes over a character that they are being watched and suddenly they are gripped by fear that 'he's coming'. Whoever/whatever he might be. Maybe 'he' is one of the vampire's using some kind of psychic power to terrify the main players in the story? Maybe that's the real reason for Doyle and Wolgast to be picking up Amy, one of the 'vampire's' is controlling Lear's mind and using him to get what he wants...or something. Nothing's really clear yet. Except that I'm enjoying it and should finish it in about a quarter the time of Genocide of One. To be continued... 2/3 - What happened to Wolgast? And Amy?! I accepted it when every character bar two was killed off, but what's he done to those remaining two? I really enjoyed listening to Wolgast's PoV and I was looking forward to seeing how Amy would, evolve I guess is the best word for it over the years. I thought maybe she would be able to go out into the world and calm the 'vampires', or maybe even make them like her. Now we've jumped at least 92 years into the future and everything's different, suddenly I'm reading a dystopian with a language I don't really understand. The people of this awful vampire-filled future have made some really weird changes in their vocabulary for unexplained reasons. Anyone under the age of eight is kept in a 'sanctuary' away from the rest of the population of the small barricaded community that most believe is the only one left. They are kept completely innocent of all knowledge of what's going on outside the wall until they turn eight when they are put into one of seven trades (whichever is needed by the community at the time). These people are called 'littles' rather than children or kids. That seems an incomprehensible word change. It's not like a whole generation of people was lost and therefore all the language from before the vampire apocalypse happened was lost with them. They don't remember the word child, but they do remember 'pickup truck' and 'highway overpass', two pieces of technology that haven't been used since the cars ran out of petrol over 92 years ago. 'Pickup truck' and 'highway overpass' wouldn't be part of the everyday language of a small band of survivors who no longer have a use for cars or roads. It just doesn't make sense to me. 8/3 - I can't believe Cronin has more in him on this subject/these characters. You would think 766 pages would be enough to tell the story in its entirety, but no there's a sequel and then an expected third book after that. Regarding the book (the thought of all those ideas swishing around in his head was on my mind for the final 200 pages or so, so with it grabbing that much of my attention I wanted to add it to my review), pretty good (3.5 stars, although I'll round it up to 4) overall with a few disappointing, overly dragged out sections in the middle. I will definitely be on the lookout for the next book - Peter was talking about going to war and that sounds like it'll be an exciting plotline.