Book Review | The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin

In life I was a scientist called Fanning...

...then, in a jungle in Bolivia, I died...

I died, and then I was brought back to life.

Prompted by a voice that lives in her blood, the fearsome warrior known as Alicia of Blades is drawn towards to one of the great cities of The Time Before. The ruined city of New York. Ruined but not empty. For this is the final refuge of Zero, the first and last of The Twelve. The one who must be destroyed if mankind is to have a future.

What she finds is not what she's expecting: a journey into the past, to find out how it all began, and an opponent at once deadlier and more human than she could ever have imagined.

***

The epic journey that began in The Passage finally comes full circle in The City of Mirrors, a proper doorstopper of a novel that satisfies somewhat in spite of its sheer size and a hell of a hammy bad guy.

I have such fond memories of the beginning of this trilogy, which paired an awesome and expansive apocalypse—one up there, in my estimation, with the end of the world in Swan Song and The Stand—with a truly heartbreaking tale of loss on the small scale. By the denouement of that book, I had no idea where the story as a whole was going to go, but I knew that I wanted to know. And then... well.

The Twelve wasn't terrible. It had a couple of a kick-ass action scenes, and some stirring slower moments that allowed Justin Cronin to explore the emotions of his vast cast of characters. But almost every other inch of that many-inched monolith of a novel felt like filler; texture at best and time-wasting at worst. In that respect, The City of Mirrors splits the difference. It doesn't meander as much as its messy predecessor did, but nor, on the back of such bloat, and with more of its own to add to the tally, can it recapture the magic of The Passage.

"Three years had passed since the liberation of the Homeland" (p.18) that ended The Twelve, and almost a hundred thousand souls now call the walled city of Kerrville, Texas home. Considering how catastrophic the survivors' situation seemed until recently, that's reason enough to be optimistic, never mind the fact that there hasn't been a single viral sighting since:

The age of the viral was over; humankind was finally on the upswing. A continent stood for the taking, and Kerrville was the place where this new age would begin. So why did it seem so meager to [Peter], so frail? Why, standing on the dam of an otherwise encouraging summer morning, did he feel this inward shiver of misgiving? (p.15)

Perhaps because Peter—the leader of the resistance that took down the Twelve viral progenitors, and in turn the millions of vampires they had sired—has lost his sense of purpose. Or perhaps because "people had begun to openly talk about moving outside the wall," (p.15) and he can't believe that the threat is actually at an end.

Book Review | The Twelve by Justin Cronin

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The end of the world was only the beginning.

In his internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed novel The Passage, Justin Cronin constructed an unforgettable world transformed by a government experiment gone horribly wrong. Now the scope widens and the intensity deepens as the epic story surges forward with The Twelve.

In the present day, as the man-made apocalypse unfolds, three strangers navigate the chaos. Lila, a doctor and an expectant mother, is so shattered by the spread of violence and infection that she continues to plan for her child’s arrival even as society dissolves around her. Kittridge, known to the world as “Last Stand in Denver,” has been forced to flee his stronghold and is now on the road, dodging the infected, armed but alone and well aware that a tank of gas will get him only so far. April is a teenager fighting to guide her little brother safely through a landscape of death and ruin. These three will learn that they have not been fully abandoned—and that in connection lies hope, even on the darkest of nights.

One hundred years in the future, Amy and the others fight on for humankind’s salvation . . . unaware that the rules have changed. The enemy has evolved, and a dark new order has arisen with a vision of the future infinitely more horrifying than man’s extinction. If the Twelve are to fall, one of those united to vanquish them will have to pay the ultimate price.

A heart-stopping thriller rendered with masterful literary skill, The Twelve is a grand and gripping tale of sacrifice and survival.

***

Sometimes it feels like the world has been ending forever.

Alas, I haven't been around that long, so let's begin a little less expansively. In recent years, at least - in fiction and in film; in video games, comic books and on TV too - there has been an interest in the apocalypse that borders on the obscene. A fascination has emerged fully fledged, an obsession if you will - and for some folks it is exactly that - with how the world will end, and what, if anything, could come after.

Safe to say, surely, that this premise has been more prevalent than ever this century. Every week, another iteration of the apocalypse: in our mind's eye the world has already ended every which way except in actuality, such that a dead or dying planet no longer requires much imagination on our part, nor is this a theme deserving of attention in itself. In a sense, the end of everything has become the new normal. More often than not, it goes unremarked upon.

Unsurprisingly then, in the summer of 2010, the world ended... again. But this time, folks noticed. A consensus arose that this was an apocalypse with panache. Like Swan Song, or The Stand, The Passage envisioned the loss of life as we live it on a vast canvas, yet found its power in the particulars. In the tale of Amy, otherwise known as "the Girl from Nowhere, in whose person time was not a circle but a thing stopped and held, a century cupped in the hand," (p.532) and Brad Wolghast, a company man whose job it was to bring her in, but abandoned the task to spend his last years as a father to this immortal orphan.

This was but the first of The Passage's many parts, and in retrospect, it was the book's most affecting segment — though there were moments in those that followed, which revolved around the rise of the First Colony established after the virus, its fall some hundred years on, and the pilgrimage made into the wider world by several of its survivors. Come the conclusion, The Passage's core cast had learned - at long last - how they might go about fighting back.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves already, because before the story can end, it must begin again — or so Justin Cronin supposes.

Thus, The Twelve too hearkens back to the dawn of this dark new era in human history, with an opening act reminiscent of its successful predecessor's prolonged prologue. Herein we meet Wolghast's estranged ex, Lila, and spend some quality time with one Lawrence Grey, "a model citizen, at least by the standards of a chemically neutered child molester" (p.141) who awakens in Year Zero a changed man — or else a monster merely remade. As with Amy and her adopted daddy in The Passage, Lawrence and Lila have a part to play in the larger narrative, which is more than can be said for most of the characters we're introduced to during this pivotal period.

In any event, the bulk of hulking tale told in The Twelve occurs long after this origin story of sorts. Come to that, another five years have passed since the climax of The Passage, during which time the aforementioned survivors have gone their separate ways. Our leads Peter and Alicia are working with the Expeditionary, hunting down the eleven master vampires - sorry, virals! - that remain of the titular twelve established in the last novel — though beyond Babcock's demise they have had precious little success in their expensive endeavours, such that the operation has become unsustainable according to the Army.

Meanwhile, Michael has made a new life for himself as the man in charge of a dangerous biodiesel plant; Major Greer has found inner peace in prison, where he was sent for disobeying a direct order during the attack on Babcock; grieving over the loss of the love of his life, Hollis has surrounded himself with sin in a den of vice on the fringes of the city of Kerrville, TX. As to Sara herself, well... she's dead. Isn't she?

As it happens, she's not, no. On the other hand, she's hardly happy to be alive. During the destruction of First Colony, Sara was snatched by the henchmen of Horace Guilder, the despicable Director of a totalitarian territory known as the Homeland. However, all is not lost: insurrection is in the air, and soon - remembering that all things are relative in a book of this breadth - Sara finds herself involved with the rebels.

Nor is Sara's the only surprise revival. I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say another fallen figure from The Passage returns, albeit briefly, in The Twelve. Sadly, this second coming, as appealing as it is initially, only serves in the end to cheapen the impact of that character's passing.

Long story short, Cronin's core cast members have moved on. They're all over the place, both figuratively and literally — and so too, in turn, is The Twelve. A stupendous proportion of it is spent simply getting the gang back together; adding insult to injury, almost nothing of note happens until they are. And then?

"Everything possessed a striking familiarity, as if no time had passed since they'd faced Babcock on the mountaintop in Colorado. Here they all were, together once more, their fates drawn together as if by a powerful gravitational force, as if they were characters in a story that had already been written; all they had to do was act out the plot." (p.622)

Questions of agency aside, this excerpt is typical of The Twelve's heavy-handedness. Excepting sections at the very beginning and end of the text, Cronin's prose is considerably less... considered than it was at the outset of his epic. Characters new and old are developed in broad strokes only; the plot progresses in frustrating fits and starts; the sense of tension prevalent in The Passage is practically absent; meanwhile book two of this trilogy just hasn't the heart of the first part.

Credit to the author, then, that even in light of this laundry list of issues, The Twelve compels — to the point that I had a hard time putting it down. There exists an addictive quality to this increasingly Pez-esque apocalypse that means the majority of its excesses are easily overlooked. Cronin keeps us on our toes by shifting perspectives regularly, and however contrived the cliffhangers that end each chapter are - and they are - they do exactly what they're supposed to, leaving the reader immediately eager for more.

There's no shortage of action, either; set-up for the summer blockbuster this book could easily be, if Ridley Scott would only exercise his option. The Massacre of the Field is memorably horrendous, as is the bombastic attack on the Oil Road, and the explosive final showdown unfolds in exquisite slow motion.

Unlike The Passage, which made so much of so little - and so very well - The Twelve is at its best in the throes of such spectacle, and if in the periods between these superb set-pieces it seems shallow, and somewhat self-indulgent, rest assured that soon enough, there will be blood. And when it comes, you'll understand exactly why this sequel is worth reading.

In the beginning, The Twelve builds brilliantly, and the end - which is both "a beginning and an ending, standing adjacent but apart" (p.666) - is excellent. Regrettably, the intermediary episodes are substantially less successful, and to make matters worse they represent the length of any normal novel. But do push on through. Think of these dreary doldrums as the dead calm before the perfect storm, because in spite of its missteps, this isn't an apocalypse you can afford to miss.

...

The review was originally published, in a slightly altered form, on Tor.com.

***

The Twelve
by Justin Cronin

UK Publication: October 2012, Orion
US Publication: October 2012, Ballantine Books

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Book Review: The Passage by Justin Cronin

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"Amy Harper Bellafonte is six years old and her mother thinks she's the most important person in the whole world. She is. Anthony Carter doesn't think he could ever be in a worse place than Death Row. He's wrong. FBI agent Brad Wolgast thinks something beyond imagination is coming. It is: the Passage.

"Deep in the jungles of eastern Colombia, Professor Jonas Lear has finally found what he's been searching for - and wishes to God he hadn't. In Memphis, Tennessee, a six-year-old girl called Amy is left at the convent of the Sisters of Mercy and wonders why her mother has abandoned her. In a maximum security jail in Nevada, a convicted murderer called Giles Babcock has the same strange nightmare, over and over again, while he waits for a lethal injection. In a remote community in the California mountains, a young man called Peter waits for his beloved brother to return home, so he can kill him. Bound together in ways they cannot comprehend, for each of them a door is about to open into a future they could not have imagined. And a journey is about to begin. An epic journey that will take them through a world transformed by man's darkest dreams, to the very heart of what it means to be human... and beyond."

***

When a book has made $5m before it's even been published, you know it's got to be something special. At the least, you can be sure several somebodies somewhere think it is. Or perhaps "special" isn't the right word: commercial, perhaps, is more on the money. As of this writing, The Passage has hardly hit store shelves, but that it is the literary phenomenon of 2010 - in the mode of Harry Potter, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Twilight - is in no doubt. It's been a sure thing since before the year even began: it was the subject of a high-stakes bidding war between publishers of such ferocity that it made the news; tens of thousands of ARCs went out late last year to reviewers the world over, achieving a fever pitch of publicity well in advance of release; it's been championed on USA Today; and the rights for the inevitable film adaptation have been bought for a whack of cash by Ridley Scott. Whether or not you're in the least bit interested in The Passage, it's been, and it will continue to be, impossible to ignore.

Hype is a funny old thing. At its most potent, its most prevalent, hype creates such a hurricane of sensation that the actual subject of all the calculated hoo-hah often get lost in the mix. By the time people remember that there's a book at the heart of this latest wave, and not just a whirling wall of watercooler wonderment, you'd think the thing itself would be so up against it that it could only fail to meet the sky-high expectations the hype and all that follows has instilled in us. You know how it goes. J. K. Rowling needs an editor, right? Don't you think the Millennium trilogy stretches its credibility a touch too far? And perhaps centuries-old sparkly vampires preying on teenage girls isn't so romantic, when you think about it.

Hype breeds expectation; huge hype, of the calibre that's paved the way for The Passage, breeds expectations of equal standing. But The Passage is that rarest of things: not only does it live up to every one of the promises its exhaustingly enthusiastic publicists, it positively exceeds them. You'd only be doing yourself a disservice by ignoring this book.

A few years from now, The Passage has it, the army discover a peculiar virus that scientists believe might prolong human life. Or rather, it discovers them. The fact-finding trip through the Bolivian rainforest goes horribly awry, but a secret cell of the government separates the expedition's findings from the blood-curdling tragedy of its execution and develop the virus in an isolated laboratory using conveniently disappeared death row inmates as guinea pigs. FBI agent Brad Wolghast has persuaded twelve convicted murderers to sign up - among them Anthony Carter - and it's sat easily enough with him so far. When his superiors order him to abduct a six year old girl, however, Wolghast's conscience catches up with him. The girl in question is Amy Harper Bellafonte, orphaned by her prostitute mother when a trick got horrifically out of hand. And one day, Amy will save the world.

That's how Justin Cronin begins his magnum opus - that's the plot summary of the first few hundred pages - and in any other case I'd hesitate to give so much away, but truly, it is only the beginning. In point of fact, it's pretty much the prologue. The Passage is a behemoth of a book. Clocking it at nearly 800 pages in hardcover, it's an intimidating thing in terms of its physicality, first of all; the sheer presence of this novel will be enough to turn heads. And The Passage is a tale of many parts.

The beginning represents the origin story of the manufactured terror that latterly despoils the world: Cronin calls them flyers, jumps, smokes, and a hundred other things, but cut right to the quick and they're vampires. But they're not your usual vamps - for one thing, they don't sparkle (although they do glow); there's nothing suave and seductive about these bloodthirsty creatures. A hundred years after Amy and Wolghast and the initial infection, the period during which the larger part of The Passage takes place, they hunt the barren landscape for survivors in vicious pods, though true humans are fewer and further between every day. The hundred or so inhabitants of a walled compound protected by harsh fluorescent lights believe they're the only people left alive, and for all intents and purposes they might as well be. When the lights threaten to go out, an unexpected visitor represents the only hope of a cadre of survivors who take to the world in search of a way to take the planet back.

The Passage is an honest-to-God epic the likes of which hasn't been seen since The Stand. This'll be blasphemy to some, but come to that, Cronin's tome is still more impressive than the novel many consider to be Stephen King's greatest. Certainly, it's better written than anything the so-called modern-day Dickens has produced in his career: in terms of characterisation and pacing, Cronin is surely King's equal; in terms of wordsmithing, however, he handily overcomes that author's awkward tendency towards the trite. The Passage can be pedestrian when the occasion calls for it - during action sequences Cronin's prose is snappy and matter-of-fact - but in between times his writing is considered, composed, even poetic. The Passage, you come to understand, is a passionate piece of fiction, honest and heart-felt. It chronicles any number of brutalities, awful things happen in almost every one of its seventy-some chapters - characters you've come to care for are killed indiscriminately; unsettling events are the order of the day, every day; enemies grow more powerful with every step our heroes take: our expectations become like so much dust on a windy day - and yet, against all the odds, it is an undercurrent of hope that drives Cronin's narrative. Hope, if not for a better today, then for a more tolerant tomorrow.

Hands down, The Passage is the best book I've read this year, and believe you me, I've read a lot of books this year. It has its faults, of course: its sprawling nature gives it a somewhat episodic feel that can be jarring at first, and the very middle fifth is perhaps a little baggy. But it begins brilliantly, ends with a deafening smack of surprise that will have you hungry for the next book in the series immediately, and in the interim, you'll find the experience of reading The Passage as compelling as any addiction. By turns pacey and exhilarating, tragic and touching, breathtaking in its scope and near-perfect in its execution, Justin Cronin handily inherits the mantle that Rowling, Larsson and Meyer have shared these past few years. You mightn't think a vampire apocalypse is the most likely candidate for the cultural zeitgeist to hone in on, but make no mistake: The Passage is this year's literary sensation, and for once, it deserves the attention.

***

The Passage

by Justin Cronin

June 2010, Orion Books

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All Tomorrow's Parties

So what to do, what to do?

Sometimes I can kind of autopilot through a week's worth of blog posts, with a couple of news articles here and my thoughts on them there - look, Guillermo del Toro's off The Hobbit, maybe Peter Jackson will ditch Tintin 2 to takes his rightful place - an edition of The BoSS and a few reviews to break up all the current events razzmatazz. And some weeks I have to, just to keep up the pace. These next few weeks, though... not so much. I've been beavering away behind the scenes, reading till my eyes bled and writing about what I've read till I had no choice but to call Specsavers and casually inquire about a plan for bionic optics.

So what's on the drawing board for the next wee while? Well, since you ask, in a few days I'll be posting reviews of The Leaping by Tom Fletcher, and Stories: All-New Tales, the ubiquitous and needless to say rather lovely anthology edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio. You can read the first story from the collection, the excellent "Blood" by Roddy Doyle, over on The Times' website for free - I'd urge you to do so - and my take on one of the highlights of the anthology, Neil Gaiman's "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains," over on NextRead, as part of Gav's late, great short story month.

Next week, meanwhile, is going to be Mark Charan Newton week. Serious face: it is. I'll be reviewing both of The Legends of the Red Sun books as well as giving away a signed proof copy of Nights of Villjamur - not to mention interviewing the gent himself. I'm trading emails with Mark as I write this, in fact, and I think it's safe to say that he's got a lot of interesting - perhaps even provocative - things to say. You wouldn't think it of the internet troublemaker extraordinaire, would you? He even disagrees about that!

Mark will also be stopping by to post a little write-up of his own, on some of the literature, genre and otherwise, that were an inspiration to him during the writing of what critics have called the breakthrough fantasy series of 2009. It promises to be an exciting week, and I hope you'll all join me in welcoming Mark to The Speculative Scotsman. He was an early supporter of the site - calling TSS "a lesson to bloggers," as I recall - and I'm a huge fan of the man and his fiction in return. It's going to be a privilege having him on these here pages, I have no doubt. I might even design a little banner in his honour!

So that's this week, and next week. The week after that, reviews of both Twelve and Thirteen Years Later by Jasper Kent will kick off a bit of a celebration and/or public pillorying of vampires.

Which you might think is more than enough forward planning for the moment, but I can hardly help myself: I'm already thinking ahead. If you've browsed through The BoSS of late, you'll already know what an incredible selection of books and proofs I've received recently, and I'm very much looking forward to the chance to devote myself to them just as soon as possible. Stone Springs by Stephen Baxter, Far North by Marcel Theroux, The Dervish House by Ian McDonald... the list goes on.

Trouble is: The Passage - which I got a copy of months in advance of its publication date - is rather creeping up on me. It promises to be among the most important new releases of 2010, and I'd love to weigh in with my opinion on this speculative heavyweight in a timely fashion. Trouble is, it's a massive book, and however many reviews you see here on TSS, when it comes right down to it, I'm a fairly slow reader. And I have to be honest here. However significant Justin Cronin's tome is, at just shy of 1000 pages, it's either going to be that or three other books; not necessarily the three I've mentioned, of course.

So what should I do? Go dark for a bit, the better to cover one massive, and potentially massively important book, or keep the show on the road as per usual. Help me out here, guys.

For whatever it's worth, here's the very stylish book trailer for The Passage to help you make up your minds:

Help?