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Justin Cronin
(1962- ) Justin Cronin has the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Stephen Crane Prize, and the Whiting Writer’s Award for his fiction. Born and raised in New England, Cronin attended Harvard University. He currently lives with his wife and children in Houston, Texas and is Professor of English at Rice University. Here’s Justin Cronin’s website.
The Passage
The Passage — (2010-2012) Publisher: “It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.” First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear — of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse. As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey — spanning miles and decades — towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun. With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.
The Passage, by Justin Cronin, is one of “those” novels. What kind? Well, it’s one of those literary page-turners: a sleek, fast-paced, shoot-em-up, chase-em-down bestseller, destined for huge film success, that “sophisticated” readers don’t have to turn their nose up at. It’s one of those mainstream bestseller books that make use of a multitude of plot points and genre tropes lovingly claimed by fans of said genre, who will surely sniff “I was reading about army-spawned vampire-like genetic mutations wiping out the human race ages ago,” akin to those guys who only like a band when their fan base can fit into a camper van but who mock the new fans who flock to concert sites in the tens of thousands. It’s one of those easy-to-pitch mash-up books: “It’s Stephen King’s The Stand meets Michael CrichtonRead More
If nobody ever wrote 'the other', which is, essentially, something we cannot know first hand, then fantasy wouldn't exist. According to your report of the panel, they believe that it is impossible to both know the other and write about it as well as politically incorrect to even want to do so. I have to disagree with that opinion. If we didn […]
Hmm... somehow my first sentence came out looking a little different than I meant it to. I have no plans to expose myself to Joe Haldeman, just for the record. […]
[...] vacations in Key West and is tempted by a conman to forge one of Hemingway’s lost works. I’ve reviewed this novella previously. “The Hemingway Hoax,” which takes up about 90 pages, is the longest story in the collection. […]
The Best of Joe Haldeman: Demonstrates his mastery of the short form | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews
[...] at Fantasy Literature, Waking the Moon: One of my Desert Island books, Under Heaven: Award-worthy, The Stones of Green Knowe: Very sad to see its end, and especially Primavera: A fascinating […]
Writer Wednesday Blog Tour #13 - Author W. J. Howard
Cartomancy: Fun middle book ends in a cliffhanger: Cartomancy by Michael A. Stackpole
It's not uncommon for the second book in a fantasy trilogy to suffer the middle-book syndrome — a transition novel that doesn't live up to the quality of the prec...
Street Magic: Pierce's imagination is on full blast: Street Magic by Tamora Pierce
It's ironic that feminist writer Tamora Pierce's only male character, the self-named Briar Moss, is one of her best characters. Amongst the rest of the mainly female c...
Museum of Thieves: Asked too much of me: Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner
She didn’t want to be safe. She wanted to be free.
It’s Separation Day and 12-year old Goldie is finally going to be separated from her parents and guardians. Li...
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