The vampire apocalypse rolls on; my review of Justin Cronin's The Twelve.

THE TWELVE is the second book in Justin Cronin’s vampire apocalypse trilogy that started with THE PASSAGE. I am a sucker for a good end of civilization epic; one of my favorite books of all time is Stephen King’s THE STAND, which Cronin’s books are compared to in nearly every review. I would also add Robert Kirkman’s zombie apocalypse comic, THE WALKING DEAD, for another work similar to what Cronin has achieved, though in the latter work, the zombies serve no higher authority, unlike Cronin’s malevolent Virals – infected people transformed into undying blood drinking killing machines. If you like big sprawling narratives, and I do, then both THE PASSAGE and THE TWELVE are most definitely your cup of tea, if like your vampires to wear capes and seduce unwary maidens, or sparkle in the sun (God forbid), then you should give these books a pass.

The first novel told the story of a government experiment in Colorado gone wrong, where a dozen death row inmates were injected with a newly discovered tropical virus, which had the potential to be “the cure for everything.” What it created were a crew of super vampires; all of whom escaped into the outside world and began infecting the general population. Within the span of a summer, all of North America is overrun with only a few scattered pockets of human survivors left. There is a time jump of about ninety years, and we meet a new generation of survivors who have grown up in a secluded colony in California, who now venture out into the wider world, into a country ruled by The Twelve, and their mindless Viral minions. They find and confront one these monsters, killing him, and proving that humanity still has a chance. The character of Amy, a young girl infected with the virus by Project Noah, appears in both narratives. Amy did not become a Viral (perhaps because of her youth), nor does she age or die.

Cronin’s second book does not have a straight linear story, there is another time jump, this one back to the midst of the vampire apocalypse, and tells the story of some secondary characters from the first book, then jumps forward again about seventy years, and introduces us to a community of survivors in Texas, before jumping ahead again to five years after the events at the end of THE PASSAGE. All of these story lines come together, in a fashion, by the final act, but it can feel like something of a meander getting there. Cronin’s prose is thick and deep, filled with much description, although he is not particularly detailed when it come to the appearance of his Virals, wisely dropping a few hints and adjectives, and leaving the rest to the reader’s imagination. For me and for most readers, if the reviews are any guide, the section set in Year Zero is our favorite. There is a palpable sense of menace, and there are characters, such as Kittridge (“Last Stand in Denver”), teenage April, and school bus driver, Danny Chayes, whom we like and become invested in their fates. We also meet Lila Kyle, the ex-wife of Brad Wolgast, who is pregnant and suffering from PTSD; Horace Guilder, the head of the Special Weapons unit that oversaw Project Noah, and pick up with Lawrence Grey, a janitor at Project Noah from the first book, who played a pivotal role in what went down there. This part of the book is a true page turner, as these characters and others, must grapple with a civilization that has vanished, and a world filled with night monsters that have taken its place. Seeds of plot are planted that will flower later in the book. The mid section, set in a farming community in Texas, feels like a real shift in gears, some new characters come into the story, and tensions are revealed before the Virals make their appearance. In the last half of the book, the action is split between Texas, where we met up with some more characters from the first book: Peter, Michael, Alicia, Hollis, and Amy; and the Homeland in Iowa, a dystopia ruled over by “red eyes,” humans who regularly drink blood from the deliberately infected Lawrence Grey, and have prolonged their lives for nearly a century. All of these characters come together in the climatic chapters, when THE TWELVE, now fearsome creatures of the night, arrive in Iowa, and where the human survivors attempt to kill them all.

I will be the first to say that this book, along with the earlier one, is overwritten, that the story so far could easily be pared down to a single volume, but I am one of those, and there are many of us, who enjoy big, overstuffed epic fantasy/scifi/horror narratives. What others see as flaws, we see as virtues. I don’t even mind some of the tropes Cronin resorts to, the biggest of which is Amy – the “child savior,” though to be fair, he does something with this character in THE TWELVE. Lila, in many ways, comes to resemble Drusilla from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, though I admire the way Cronin ultimately makes us feel compassion for her and Grey. Sometimes Alicia too much resembles the typical bad ass female warrior that is a requirement for any apocalypse story, while a loathsome character like Guilder is given a moment of poignancy. The parts of the story concerning the Homeland in Iowa seem to have something to say about the lengths to which humans will go to survive, although some will see it as a political allegory about a literal blood drinking ruling class living off workers reduced to slavery. All of this stuff we have seen before, but it is done well here. My main complaint is that we see so little of THE TWELVE themselves; we never get a true picture of who they are, and what their ultimate goal might be. The same goes for the Big Bad himself, Zero, the first infected, who stands behind them all, and only makes his appearances through telepathy.

There was a TV adaptation of THE PASSAGE on FOX, but it only covered the first book (with some changes to the story and characters), but it did not garner enough ratings to get a second season. Too bad, the show had promise; I would like to have seen what they would have done with the events of THE TWELVE. Anyway, I will definitely continue on to final book in Justin Cronin’s trilogy, CITY OF MIRRORS. It has a couple of tough acts to follow.

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