The Night Eternal

Okay, I shouldn’t have to say this, but: Beyond this point are MAJOR spoilers for the first two books in The Strain Trilogy. If you haven’t read the first two books, you should click on the link in the last sentence.

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On with the show.

The Strain series started off great. In the first book, the authors recreate the classic Dracula scene with the death ship Demeter, but in this century, its a Boeing 777 dead on the tarmac, and naturally we nowadays are less concerned about a plague than about terrorists. The build up in the first two books as Ephraim Goodweather and Nora Jones of the CDC, the Holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian, the exterminator Vasily Fet, and others show more slowly learn the scope of what they are facing, and just how insurmountable their odds are, is great. You grow to love these characters. And, in a change from most vampire books, you have no sympathetic feelings towards the monsters themselves (making the vampires overlarge human ticks who shit while they eat certainly helps forestall any tender feelings).

So bring on the final installment! We come in two years after the events of The Fall. The Master has brought nuclear winter down upon the earth, humans have been herded into blood camps or forced to work to support the continuation of the series. The vampires have won.

And Ephraim is lost. We find Eph, now basically a drug addict hobo, spending a night in his ex-wife’s old house, feeling depressed about not knowing where his son, Zack, is (let’s remember that Kelly, the ex-wife in question and vampire, kidnapped Zack in the last book). Little does he know that Zack is being groomed by the Master to be his new vessel. Meanwhile, Nora, Fet, and a few others are trying to continue to fight. That is, when they’re not being screwed over by Eph’s unreliability.

So basically, the human race has lost. Setrakian is dead, Ephraim Goodweather is falling apart, Nora, Fet, and the others are left to try to pick up the pieces of the revolution as best they can, but things look grim. Only a really, really, REALLY desperate final plan has a chance to destroy The Master and save the human race.

So far I’m enjoying this. I always like a post apocalyptic spin, and Ephraim Goodweather’s fall from grace is a logical progression of his flawed character. I also like how the other characters continue to grow in the third installment. After all, this series is really about family (Seriously, forget about the vampires, everything everyone does in this book ties back to their family in some way). Even the vampires with their “dear ones” fall into the family theme.

At some point, however, the book goes off the rails. The action is gripping, the suspense nail-biting at times, the ick factor is still present, but as the group seeks out the origins of The Master in order to destroy it, the plot up and takes itself way off the reservation. I like to keep my reviews as spoiler free as possible, so I’m trying to decide on the best way to describe this without giving anything away. Suffice it to say this: that apparently having vampirism as a disease or literal wormy parasite is no longer cool or creepy enough. When we learn where The Master comes from, the authors threw in a huge curveball, and I, for one, was unimpressed. I found it way better when the explanation was “nature is a fucked up bitch sometimes.” The thought that there didn’t need to be an origin story, that this horrible thing arose from some primordial soup and was hurled against us by the forces of nature we’d prefer to ignore, THAT was scary. Because something like that could happen. By taking things where they did, the authors lessened the visceral fear that some monster plague (figurative) could come sweeping out of the sky in the form of a Boeing 777 and presage the end of the human race.

Ah well. In all, if you read the first two books of the series, you should still read this one, if only to complete the trilogy. But I’d lay odds that you’re going to come away a bit disappointed. There were a lot of good things in this book, but the origin story they ultimately came up with for The Master is disappointing enough that it more or less overshadows everything else in the book. If you haven’t read the series, and are reading this review anyway (shame on you), don’t let this review stop you from picking up the first two books in the series. They’re some of the best vampire fiction to come out in the past few years (no one sparkles, bonus!). show less

Plot holes, deus ex, unexpected biblical prophecies, static characters, and almost no plot development make for a ridiculous finale. The interesting premise from Book 1 is turned entirely on its head in Book 3, and is near unrecognizable.

One of the major failures of the trilogy is its inability to develop characters across the story arc. All of the protagonists are so flat that its funny, and are generally unlikable to the point that I couldn't help but hope that The Master would beat them all into a pulp. Particularly Zach... his character almost has no redeeming qualities or real reason to be in the work beyond his status as a nuisance and all around spoiled child.

The plot holes and unexplained 'twists' are hideously bad. Near show more magical and unforeseen solutions abound, with the ending almost as unbelievable and pointless as the majority of the beginning and middle sections.

Guillermo del Toro is far too talented for this. I'm sure that the TV Show will clean a lot of this up, but really...an incredible disappointment. show less

The fact that I actually finished this trilogy is merely a testament to my obsession with completion. So many times I just had to sigh, grit my teeth and remind myself that this was the last book and soon my suffering would be over!

This final installment rejoins our old friends two years after "night zero". The human race has been almost totally dominated and herded into camps where they are bred or bled until their usefulness is ended. Dr. Goodweather and his friends have one last desperate hope to kill the Master. There's just one catch, the Master has Ephraim's son.

Ugh... this book is just awful. The characters are just so flat. The plot is just so bad. At first, vampirism was a disease. Then it was a parasite. Now it's ... an show more angel? In the final book - from out of nowhere - comes the fiery hosts of heaven. Ephraim becomes a drugged out mystic with divine visions. It's just... terrible. Do not make my mistakes. Avoid this trilogy and save yourself the pain. show less

I have a deep fondness for this trilogy because of its excellent work in returning vampires to the realm of horror. I've just never been able to buy the sparkly vampires slouching their immortal lives through high school and dating 15 year olds. Really? High school? Show of hands: how many of you would choose to spend your immortality in high school? Didn't think so.

Vampires are predators. Human beings are their prey. They may like some of us, they may even love some of us, but at the end of the day if they're hungry? They're eating your face. It's not even personal - it's just food consumption. Think of us and cows and you get the picture. The vampires in this trilogy are all of this and more.

The Night Eternal is the third book and the show more finale and it was awesome. It continues in its glorious, imaginative, horrific, brutal style. del Toro and Hogan are not afraid to put their characters through the ringer and you won't be sorry they did. Great storytelling that draws on the vampire canon married to the Old Testament and you get a unique roller coaster ride complete with fallen angels and one of the best villains in any book ever. Must read.



P.S. Mr. del Toro - please make this into a movie. show less

Not as engrossing as the first two books; it reads more like a movie script than a novel, but you need it to find out how this exciting trilogy ends. The brilliant epidemiologist but flawed father Ephraim Goodweather is fighting the vampire epidemic with his ragtag rebel team using information from ancient texts now that modern science has failed. The Master has chosen Eph's son to be at his side. Can Eph save his son and the world, or will he have to choose?

Oh, was I excited to get this book! I loved the first book in the series, The Strain – recommended it to everyone who was tired of sparkly vampires. The Fall was a little less successful (often the case with the middle book in a series), but still a very good read. I have been anxiously awaiting the final installment, in part because I figure the movie can’t be far behind.

The Night Eternal begins two years after The Fall ends. The Master has orchestrated the end of the human race and instituted a new vampire world order. There are still humans around; after all, the vampires could not survive without them; but most of them are completely subjugated. The size of the vampire population is closely controlled, so that it does not show more outstrip the available humans, and some of the surviving humans are similarly monitored. (Let’s just say that having B-positive blood is not a good thing.) The Master has used his psychic connection to the vampires he created to control the human population, which lives in nearly perpetual darkness thanks to the nuclear holocaust of the last book.

Ephraim Goodweather, Nora Martinez, Vasily Fet and Gus Elizade are still fighting the good fight. They have ways of undermining the Master and at the same time, they are working to discover the secret of the Occido Lumen, the book that holds the secret of the Master’s origins. In The Fall, the Master destroyed the other Ancients by destroying their birthplace, the site where they first rose as vampires. The book holds clues, but they are subtle and complex, and they will not reveal themselves easily.

Ephraim is not much good to his colleagues these days. He is obsessed with the fate of his son, Zach, who was captured by his mother, a vampire working closely with the Master. He is unstable and unreliable, but still part of the key to the mystery.

Del Toro and Hogan do an interesting job of weaving vampire mythology and Old Testament stories to create a really original vampire canon. Their vampires are unlike any others in recent memory. And they are not afraid to take the story to the extreme — in The Fall, they call down a nuclear holocaust — to see the story through. This third book is full of plot twists, unlikely allies and surprising enemies. In some ways, the book went far further than I expected, and I love a book that can truly surprise me. This is full of action and suspense and heartbreak; it’s a terrific end to the series.

All the same, I have to say that I hope this isn’t exactly the end. I thought from the very first scene in The Strain that this would make a great movie. The Strain has so much atmosphere and is so visual that you can almost see the movie in your ahead. (Exactly the sort of novel I would expect from such a great director.) There’s a lot of great material here that I believe would be great on the big screen. At least, a girl can dream… show less

Kaks aastat on möödunud sellest, kui pääses valla "Tõves" kirjeldatud viirus, ning terve maailm on täieliku huku äärel. On ainult öö, sest tuumatalve tingimustes suudab päike tungida läbi saastunud atmosfääri vaid kaheks tunniks päevas. See on ideaalne keskkond vampiiride paljunemiseks. Inimesi on massiliselt hävitatud, parimad ja helgeimad pead, rikkad ja mõjukad, ja seda hävitustööd on juhtinud Isand – muistne ja ülivõimas vampiir –, kes valib ellujääjaid alandlikkuse järgi. Järelejäänud inimesed on täielikult alistatud, koondatud laagritesse ning jagatud kaheks: ühed, kes sigitavad juurde inimesi ja teised, kellest toitub Isanda üüratu armee. Inimkonna viimane lootus on dr Eph Goodweatheri ümber show more kogunenud vampiirihävitajate salk, kes püüavad päästa Ephi poja Zacki ning maailmakord endiseks muuta. Ent hea ja halva mõiste piirid on juba hägustunud ning Isand on meister kasutama inimeste nõrkusi... show less