****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Justin Cronin is an amazing writer, but while reading The Passage, the opening volume in a post-apocalyptic trilogy, I wondered if the genre tropes he used were cynically employed as they read as research into the form rather than the homage of a writer who has enjoed the genre as a reader. The middle volume of the trilogy, The Twelve, removes all such doubts.In The Twelve, Cronin has transcended the genre tropes he uses and has created something original. Cronin's compassion and spiritual wonder at the beauty and awe of the world and the poignant mix of good and evil in the human character that informs so much of post-apocalyptic fiction is here taken to new heights. Please, he begs in the subtext of the novel, please don't let us destroy ourselves with our rapacity and our short-sightedness and our narcissistic desire to live and rule forever. Please look around at the beauty of the world and our capacity to experience it and our love for each other and be satisfied with the priceless gift each and every one of us is given with our life. Be satisfied in the experience. Even wrapped in vampire/zombies created by the military it is a strong message. The story is strong with well-developed realistic characters and a horrifying world whose moments of beauty make the contrasts all the more stark.Middle volumes of trilogies are often dark and sometimes slow. The Twelve is dark, but never slow and Cronin's previous life as a literary writer shows in the beautiful prose. One phrase that sticks in my mind is "...something felt but not seen like stars in the daytime sky." Cronin introduces new characters, new timelines and new villains, showing us exactly how the world came to grief. It is gripping reading. The new villains raise questions about our humanity, such as: Do we all secretly wish for immortality and what would we be willing to do to get it? (Guilder) How many people are we willing to hurt to keep our own denial intact? (Lila, Wolgast's wife) and In fighting evil do we become evil, at least in part? (Amy, Alicia, Peter, Sara and all of the heroes, pretty much without exception. Even better, Cronin isn't particularly heavy-handed when asking these questions, which makes for a nice pace.The Twelve goes places that the reader doesn't expect in terms of developing the world, the characters and the plot. As a reader, this made me stand up and cheer. A lesser writer would have made this volume an action-adventure novel about hunting down and killing the remaining twelve uber-vampires, and while this is the loose framework that the book hangs on, it is by no means central and isn't as cut and dried as readers were expecting. If Cronin can deliver a stunning third volume, which I suspect will tell us more about the world of the academic conference so tantalizingly referenced in the first two books, he will have earned his place amidst the classics of the genre. I personally will be awaiting release day with baited breath as in this second volume Justin Cronin delivered well above my expectations. Highly recommended to readers of the PA genre and to readers of straight fiction who love beautiful writing and an interesting story well told. Cronin is working on a masterpiece and I hope the final volume delivers on the promise of the first two.
