By Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
The thrill is gone! There. Review done.
(Ah, I joke. We all know I'm too long-winded.)
This is a "volume two," always a tricky part of a trilogy to work out. Some end up being fantastic (The Empire Strikes Back, The Godfather Part II), while others are a little more lackluster (The Two Towers [film moreso than book]*, Matrix Reloaded). When you know there's going to be a follow-up, as a writer or creator you cheat yourself out of penning a solid stand-alone piece, since you can leave whatever plot threads you want dangling for the concluding volume.
With The Godfather Part II, there was no thought to III filming in a year or two. Unfortunately, with THE FALL, part 3 is very much in mind.
Well, not exactly. The dead from the plane start to rise in truly gory, horror-movie fashion (more modern than classic) and thus begins the pandemic. And these infant vampires running loose aren't a bunch of True Blood human-esque vamps or emo-Twilight punks. They are creatures, with intelligence (hive mind, some individual control) with classic weaknesses to sunlight and silver, but no fangs. Instead, they have a whip-like stinger in place of their tongue that lashes out with a sticker of its own. Also, there IS a "head" vampire of legend, and it's this legend that drives Setrakian - the only truly rounded character.
You can imagine the novel doesn't end on the best of notes, but also not the worst.
The sequel or second part of the story begins right on its heels. The plot is basic: stop the vampires from spreading beyond the immediate NYC-commuter area. If you truly consider that sentence, you'll realize why there's a part 3. There are a series of stop-gap measures taking place, lots of action, a little romantic tension and the ever-present threat of these few vampires spreading out and becoming more than a deadly nuisance.
That's it. The first book had the investigation of the plane, the "mystery" of Setrakian and the vampire overlord, the appearance and physiology of the vampires, how they stalked their prey (Dear Ones, or ones they loved) and a terrific amount of tension. It was a disaster movie with vampires and science, a little cheesy and trite, but not so much to really deny it space on your shelf.
Chuck Hogan's previous work is unknown to me, though I hear as a mystery-action writer, he does a better-than-average job. Guillermo del Toro is the big name selling this, as we expect bizarre, fantastic creations every time he sets pen to paper. Worlds beyond ours come to life at his beck and call, right? I'm not a big fan of del Toro**, but bumps aside, he does present some interesting creations in these vampires and their mythology (as of this volume).
The more I read THE FALL, the more I realized this was one large book that they'd split up for profit. It's a vampire epic called THE STRAIN, and should not be more than one big volume. As has been said in other "official" reviews and by the few peers I know have read it, THE FALL doesn't have the same level of slow-boil tension as the first generation of vampires slowly seep back into society, corrupting as they go, that the first book have. Nor does it benefit from the same end-game (or, more accurately, it has the same end-game, but BIGGER LOUDER EXPLODIER, than before).
I would be far more forgiving of this story if it was the next set of chapters in THE STRAIN: A Vampire Epic. Trilogies are all the rage - multi-part stories, anyway, that are sold pre-plotted to the publisher with the promise of a lower investment for "x" times the backlist sales, volume number dependent. And author, or in this case authors, has an idea that's bigger than a normally marketed novel and cuts it up, pads it and makes a finite series. I believe I mentioned The Matrix previously.
But there comes a point when you (whether the "you" here is a writer, agent, editor or publisher) need to take a step back and think that maybe the public will love your story in one part! Hey, how about a thick $35 hardcover instead of three $28 ones; it's a monetary gift to your fans. You'll also feel better about what your turned out, as the pressure to produce three equal-sized volumes means you need words and story and plot and character to fill the dreaded empty pages.
THE FALL doesn't stand by itself at all. Nor is it a stellar second volume. If you take this trilogy as one book cut in three, it does a serviceable, but by no means admirable, job of moving the plot forward in a (melo)dramatic, action-packed way. But it irks me a little that these two solid writers obviously inflated a shorter outline to fit a certain multi-volume package. A lot rests on the concluding part of this epic***.
2.75/5
-Erik
*One must remember that TTT was originally just the middle chunk of The Lord of the Rings, though I think Peter Jackson tried to draw it out as a more individual story. That, to me, was a poor choice. It's the weakest overall of the films.
**I like Hellboy a lot, but the sequel was weak and barely plotted. Pan's Labyrinth was sharp, inventive and worth the praise, but his design sensibility felt rehashed from the Hellboy work. Blade II was a bust. Aaaaand what else has he really done of late? He ditched The Hobbit - a move I praise him for, as he would have moved the hobbits' eyes to their hands or made Golum a seven-foot tall, spindly creature so Doug Jones could bump Serkis to the curb - and everything else is coming up bust. Pacific Rim has promise, but it's just giant monsters vs. giant robots - with a huge budget. I wouldn't trust him with that, though I would give him some scratch to make At the Mountains of Madness - because there aren't any monsters to screw up. It's just tension and horror and ice.
***I read it recently. Review to follow. Ehhhh....
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