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The Twelve by Justin Cronin


ian

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It seemed like a good idea at the time.....

 

Infecting 12 death-row prisoners with an ancient virus, in order to create human weapons. Instead, the virus turned them into ravening, unstoppable monsters. And when the twelve broke out of the underground compound facility where they had been born, all hell was truly unleashed.

 

In a world now ravaged by the viral plague, humanity is reduced to stubborn pockets of resistance. But if the human race is to have a future, survival is not enough. Against terrifying odds, they must hunt down the twelve and destroy them in their lairs.

 

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This is the follow up to "The Passage". The first thing to say is that this is a much shorter book than The Passage. This is about 550 pages whereas the Passage was about 900 odd. I also went through quite a range of feelings about this book as I read it. The book starts five years after The Passage ends, with the survivors of the colony spread far and wide, but mostly residing in another colony in Texas. Just as you get into this however, the action slips back 97 years to the original outbreak (from a different viewpoint admittedly) for a good 100 pages. At first , I was irritated by this. It felt like going over old ground, covered in The Passage. Slowly however, the plight of the new characters started to grip me. Justin Cronin knows how to make you care about the lives of the people he's describing.

 

The action then jumps forward again in two stages and finally we are moving ahead with where The Passage left off. I don't want to say too much more about the actual story as I don't want to ruin it for people, so I'll just give my thoughts. I felt the book would have benefitted by being longer. There were times, particularily towards the end when things felt a bit rushed. There are also some things that don't feel very well explained. I can only hope that they are all explained properly in the final instalment. So I'm only going to give it 4 out of 5 - and it probably only just scrapes that 4 as well.

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Good review ian, I've read both as well, and feel I must do a reread, at least before the next one comes out. Whenever that will be.

I found myself confused a little with who was what, when and how but managed anyhow. :)

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I liked the look of the paperback cover so I am going to have to wait until end of April/Beg May before I get to read this.

 

Slightly worried as I picked up the passage quite by accident and had no idea that this huge book was going to be part of a trilogy. Hope he can keep the momentum going!

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Good review ian, I've read both as well, and feel I must do a reread, at least before the next one comes out. Whenever that will be.

I found myself confused a little with who was what, when and how but managed anyhow. :)

 

I agree - I need to re-read The Passage. There are a lot of characters to try and keep track of! I surprised myself when I looked back and realised it was 2011 when I read it - no wonder I was having difficulty remembering certain parts.

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I re-read The Passage just before this came out. And I have to agree that I didn't like the jump back to the past at the beginning. But it was definitely interesting when it turned out that they were actually related to characters in the "present day". I absolutely loved these books. The end of The Twelve actually confused me in terms of Carter and Amy and I have to message Justin Cronin to get the information I needed.

 

I was so glad in terms of Wolgast. I'm sure you know what I mean. :P I actually cried.

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  • 9 months later...

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