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The Passage by Justin Cronin
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The Passage (edition 2010)

by Justin Cronin

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
9,364633831 (3.88)1 / 594
A security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment that only six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte can stop.
Member:jnavia
Title:The Passage
Authors:Justin Cronin
Info:Ballantine Books (2010), Hardcover, 784 pages
Collections:Audiobooks, Early Reviewers, Your library
Rating:***
Tags:None

Work Information

The Passage by Justin Cronin

  1. 805
    The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition by Stephen King (Jacey25, drweb, smiteme)
  2. 245
    The Strain by Guillermo del Toro (kraaivrouw, smiteme, questionablepotato)
    kraaivrouw: Similar intentions and a lot more fun.
  3. 192
    Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon (Scottneumann)
  4. 132
    The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Anonymous user)
  5. 143
    World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks (divinenanny)
  6. 123
    Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (divinenanny)
    divinenanny: Post apocalyptic dystopia
  7. 92
    Under the Dome by Stephen King (jlparent)
    jlparent: The Passage reminded me greatly of "Under the Dome", with its intense look at how people cope in a 'new' world. Obviously it's also is hugely reminiscent of "The Stand" as already recommended.
  8. 50
    Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (RidgewayGirl)
    RidgewayGirl: Both books are inventive dystopian novels of a future after a pandemic collapses civilization.
  9. 52
    The Green Mile by Stephen King (Thomas.Taylor)
  10. 30
    The Twelve by Justin Cronin (sturlington)
    sturlington: Well, you have to read the sequel!
  11. 30
    The Reapers Are the Angels: A Novel by Alden Bell (BeckyJG)
  12. 30
    The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey (debbiereads, wifilibrarian)
  13. 63
    The Walking Dead: Compendium One by Robert Kirkman (Jacey25)
  14. 20
    The Dead Lands by Benjamin Percy (4leschats)
    4leschats: Both this books and the 2 in The Passage Trilogy (The Passage and The Twelve)address alterations in the natural universe brought on by post-apocalyptic changes.
  15. 31
    Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons (Scottneumann)
  16. 20
    Earth Abides by George R. Stewart (RidgewayGirl)
    RidgewayGirl: This classic dystopian novel explores the world after an unspecified apocalypse. Like The Passage, Earth Abides involves both the scavenging of the remains of civilization rather than production and a journey to see how others have coped. No vampires, though.… (more)
  17. 10
    Wake by Elizabeth Knox (debbiereads)
  18. 10
    The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda (aliklein)
  19. 21
    Pure by Julianna Baggott (Suhani)
  20. 10
    The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (kw50197)

(see all 31 recommendations)

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» See also 594 mentions

English (620)  Dutch (7)  Swedish (3)  German (3)  Italian (2)  Spanish (1)  French (1)  Danish (1)  All languages (638)
Showing 1-5 of 620 (next | show all)
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. ( )
  bech | Feb 6, 2024 |
Väga hea, parem kui Del Toro "Tõbi". Kohati läheb tempo maha ja süžeekäigud on etteaimatavad, kuid üldkokkuvõttes väärt kraam. ( )
  sashery | Jan 29, 2024 |
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". ( )
  jilldugaw | Jan 27, 2024 |
(2010) (766 pages) Very very good tale of a post apocolyptic world that is created because a government project to create the perfect soldier goes very wrong when it creates ?virals? who are more like vampires than humans. The North American continent is devastated and no one knows if the rest of the world has been infected. What is left of humanity struggles to survive when a possible savior emerges in the form of Amy, a young girl who mysteriously knows how to communicate with the virals and eventually she leads a small group of survivors and tries to bring the nightmare to an end.Danielle Trussoni is the author of Falling Through the Earth: A Memoir, which was the recipient of the 2006 Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award, a BookSense pick, and one of The New York Times Ten Best Books of 2006. Her first novel Angelology will be published in 30 countries. Read her review of The Passage:Justin Cronin's The Passage is a dark morality tale of just how frightening things can become when humanity transgresses the laws of nature.The author of two previous novels, Cronin, in his third book, imagines the catastrophic possibilities of a vampiric bat virus unleashed upon the world. Discovered by the U.S. Military in South America, the virus is transported to a laboratory in the Colorado mountains where it is engineered to create a more invincible soldier. The virus' potential benefits are profound: it has the power to make human beings immortal and indestructible. Yet, like Prometheus' theft of fire from the Gods, knowledge and technological advancement are gained at great price: After the introduction of the virus into the human blood pool, it becomes clear that there will be hell to pay. The guinea pigs of the NOAH experiment, twelve men condemned to die on death row, become a superhuman race of vampire-like creatures called Virals. Soon, the population of the earth is either dead or infected, their minds controlled telepathically by the Virals. As most of human civilization has been wiped out by the Virals, the few surviving humans create settlements and live off the land with a fortitude the pilgrims would have admired. Only Amy, an abandoned little girl who becomes a mystical antidote to the creatures' powers, will be able to save the world.The Passage is no quick read, but a sweeping dystopian epic that will utterly transport one to another world, a place both haunting and horrifying to contemplate. Cronin weaves together multiple story lines that build into a journey spanning one hundred years and nearly 800 pages. While vampire lore lurks in the background--the Virals nick necks in order to infect humans, are immortal and virtually indestructible, and do most of their hunting at night--Cronin is more interested in creating an apocalyptic vision along the lines of Cormac McCarthy's The Road.Taking place in a futuristic America where New Orleans is a military zone, Jenna Bush is the Governor of Texas and citizens are under surveillance, The Passage offers a gruesome and twisted version of reality, a terrifying dream world in which our very worst nightmares come true. Ultimately, like the best fiction, The Passage explores what it means to be human in the face of overwhelming adversity. The thrill comes with the knowledge that Amy and the Virals must face off in a grand battle for the fate of humanity.Dan Chaon is the acclaimed author of the national bestseller Await Your Reply and You Remind Me of Me, which was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications. Chaon lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and teaches at Oberlin College. Read his review of The Passage:There is a particular kind of reading experience--the feeling you get when you can't wait to find out what happens next, you can't turn the pages fast enough, and yet at the same time you are so engaged in the world of the story and the characters, you don't want it to end. It's a rare and complex feeling--that plot urgency pulling you forward, that yearning for more holding you back. We say that we are swept up, that we are taken away. Perhaps this effect is one of the true magic tricks that literature can offer to us, and yet it doesn't happen very often. Mostly, I think, we remember this experience from a few of the beloved books of our childhood.About three-quarters of the way through The Passage, I found myself in the grip of that peculiar and intense readerly emotion. One part of my brain couldn't wait to get to the next big revelation, and I found myself wanting to leapfrog from paragraph to paragraph, hurtling toward each looming climax. Meanwhile, another part of my brain was watching the dwindling final pages with dread, knowing that things would be over soon, and wishing to linger with each sentence and character a little while longer.Finishing The Passage for the first time, I didn't bother to put it on a shelf, because I knew I would be flipping back through its pages again the next day. Rereading. Considering.Certain kinds of books draw us into the lives of their characters, into their inner thoughts, to the extent that we seem to know them, as well as we know real people. Readers of Justin Cronin's earlier books, Mary and O'Neil and The Summer Guest, will recognize him as an extraordinarily insightful chronicler of the ways in which people maneuver through the past, and through loss, grief and love. Though The Passage is a different sort of book, Cronin hasn't lost his skill for creating deeply moving character portraits. Throughout, in moments both large and small, readers will find the kind of complicated and heartfelt relationships that Cronin has made his specialty. Though the cast of characters is large, they are never mere pawns. The individual lives are brought to us with a vivid tenderness, and at the center of the story is not only vampires and gun battles but also quite simply a quiet meditation on the love of a man for his adopted daughter. As a fan of Cronin's earlier work, I found it exciting to see him developing these thoughtful character studies in an entirely different context.There are also certain kinds of books expand outwards beyond the borders of their covers. They make us wish for encyclopedias and maps, genealogies and indexes, appendixes that detail the adventures of the minor characters we loved but only briefly glimpsed. The Passage is that kind of book, too. There is a dense web of mythology and mystery that roots itself into your brain--even as you are turning the pages as quickly as you can. Complex secrets and untold stories peer out from the edges of the plot in a way that fires the imagination, so that the world of the novel seems to extend outwards, a whole universe--parts of which we glimpse in great detail--and yet we long to know even more. I hope it won't be saying too much to say that there are actually two universes in this novel, one overlapping the other: there is the world before the virus, and the world after, and one of the pleasures of the book is the way that those two worlds play off one another, each one twisting off into a garden of forking and intertwined paths. I think, for example, of the scientist Jonas Lear, and his journey to a fabled site in the jungles of Bolivia where clouds of bats descend upon his team of researchers; or the little girl, Amy, whose trip to the zoo sets the animals into a frenzy--"They know what I am," she says; or one of the men in Dr. Lear's experiment, Subject Zero, monitored in his cell as he hangs "like some kind of giant insect in the shadows." These characters and images weave their way through the story in different forms, recurring like icons, and there are threads to be connected, and threads we cannot quite connect--yet. And I hope that there will be some questions that will not be solved at all, that will just exist, as the universe of The Passage takes on a strange, uncanny life of its own.It takes two different kinds of books to work a reader up into that hypnotic, swept away feeling. The author needs to create both a deep intimacy with the characters, and an expansive, strange-but-familiar universe that we can be immersed in. The Passage is one of those rare books that has both these elements. I envy those readers who are about to experience it for the first time.
  derailer | Jan 25, 2024 |
I loved the Passage. I'm not sure I understand exactly where it's all going but I enjoyed it from start to finish and I'm looking forward to the next installment.

I think I enjoyed the first section of the book -- the part that takes place in "the Time Before" -- more than the next phase, however, I'm pleased with how much I care about the characters who were introduced in the next section of the book.

Seems like it will make a good movie someday.

( )
  hmonkeyreads | Jan 25, 2024 |
Showing 1-5 of 620 (next | show all)
I turned The Passage's pages feverishly to find out what happened next.
added by simon_carr | editThe Observer, Alice Fisher (Jul 18, 2010)
 
Cronin leaps back and forth in time, sprinkling his narrative with diaries, ­e-mail messages, maps, newspaper articles and legal documents. Sustaining such a long book is a tough endeavor, and every so often his prose slackens into inert phrases (“his mind would be tumbling like a dryer”). For the most part, though, he artfully unspools his plot’s complexities, and seemingly superfluous details come to connect in remarkable ways.

added by mks27 | editThe New York Times, Mike Peed (Jun 25, 2010)
 
When all's said and done, The Passage is a wonderful idea for a book that – like too many American TV series – knows how good it is and therefore outstays its welcome. There are enough human themes (hope, love, survival, friendship, the power of dreams) to raise it well above the average horror, but its internal battle between the literary and the schlock will, I
 
T MAY already have the Stephen King stamp of approval and the Ridley Scott movie-script treatment but American author Justin Cronin's 800-page blockbuster The Passage comes from humble beginnings.

"Every book starts somewhere and this came from a dare of a nine-year-old child," he says of his daughter Iris, who wanted a story where a young girl saves the world.
 

» Add other authors (14 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Justin Croninprimary authorall editionscalculated
Brick, ScottNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Craden, AbbyNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lanceniece, LigitaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Ojo, AdenreleNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Schroderus, ArtoTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd
the rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometimes lofty towers I see down-raz'd,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.

-William Shakespeare, Sonnet 64
Dedication
For my children, No bad dreams.
First words
Before she became the Girl from Nowhere- the One Who Walked In, the First and Last and Only, who lived a thousand years- she was just a little girl in Iowa, named Amy.
Quotations
He stepped into the stars.
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Wikipedia in English (2)

A security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment that only six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte can stop.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
It's called Project NOAH: a secret government experiment designed to weaponize the human body. But this experiment goes horribly awry when twelve test subjects escape, spreading a virus that turns human beings into something else-something hungrier, deadlier, and seemingly undestructible. The thirteenth test subject, a six-year-old girl named Amy, is rescued by an FBI agent. Together they flee to the mountains of Oregon, cut off from civilization as the disastrous repercussions of Project NOAH are unleashed upon the world. The Passage creates an all-too-believable world dominated by fear and the need to survive, and introduces the strange and silent girl who may hold in her hands the fate of the human race.
Haiku summary
Experiments run
On hardened criminals; what
could ever go wrong?
(cerebrumhabeo)

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