The Passage: A Novel (Book One of The Passage Trilogy)

· Passage Trilogy Book 1 · Sold by Ballantine Books
4.4
788 reviews
Ebook
784
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This thrilling novel kicks off what Stephen King calls “a trilogy that will stand as one of the great achievements in American fantasy fiction.”

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NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST HORROR BOOKS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST NOVELS OF THE YEAR BY TIME AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Esquire • U.S. News & World Report • NPR/On Point • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • BookPage • Library Journal 

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.” 

An epic and gripping tale of catastrophe and survival, The Passage is the story of Amy—abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions. But Special Agent Brad Wolgast, the lawman sent to track her down, is disarmed by the curiously quiet girl and risks everything to save her. As the experiment goes nightmarishly wrong, Wolgast secures her escape—but he can’t stop society’s collapse. And as Amy walks alone, across miles and decades, into a future dark with violence and despair, she is filled with the mysterious and terrifying knowledge that only she has the power to save the ruined world.

Look for the entire Passage trilogy:
THE PASSAGE | THE TWELVE | THE CITY OF MIRRORS

Praise for The Passage

“[A] blockbuster.”The New York Times Book Review

“Mythic storytelling.”San Francisco Chronicle

“Magnificent . . . Cronin has taken his literary gifts, and he has weaponized them. . . . The Passage can stand proudly next to Stephen King’s apocalyptic masterpiece The Stand, but a closer match would be Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: a story about human beings trying to generate new hope in a world from which all hope has long since been burnt.”Time

“The type of big, engrossing read that will have you leaving the lights on late into the night.”The Dallas Morning News

“Addictive.”Men’s Journal

“Cronin’s unguessable plot and appealing characters will seize your heart and mind.”Parade

Ratings and reviews

4.4
788 reviews
A Google user
November 10, 2012
The Passage was the least satisfying book that I have read in the past decade. It is a narrative that is devoid of art and style. It is the poster child for the void that has infected speculative fiction for twenty years. Every minute that I spent reading this book was a waste of valuable time. Dear readers if you are interested in civil breakdown and Armageddon, spend your time reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy or David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Cronin is a great writer who listened to his agent and should have listened to his heart. His agent and his bank account, however are doing very well. I am sure he will self correct and return to the realm of great writing and superior literary works. He is technically a great craftsman.
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A Google user
July 23, 2010
Although this novel wasn't especially original, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sort of like a mix between the post-apocalyptic worlds of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend and Stephen King's The Stand, the book covers over 1000 years of fictional history, beginning with the accidental release of a biological weapon that triggers vampiric symptoms, tracing the spread of the virus throughout the United States (contact with other nations is lost, and the fate of the rest of the world is largely unknown), and following the survivors in their quest to survive against the ravenous onslaught of the vampiric horde. Cronin does an excellent job creating memorable and interesting characters, and provides an interesting thought experiment on what happens to human society when most of the modern comforts we take for granted are lost. I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a journey into the darkest depths of the human spirit, and the eventual redemption of the human soul.
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A Google user
January 16, 2011
I am still torn about this book. The first part of it moved quickly and was engrossing. The second part jumps 97 years and takes a while for the reader to catch up. The writing was very well done, visually descriptive and evocative. The characters and plot lines were all archetypes and felt borrowed from every horror/thriller/zombie/vampire movie I've ever seen. We go through so much with these characters, I felt kind of cheated by the cliff hanger ending. He uses one device way too many times and that makes for an unreliable narrator. I could not recommend this book whole heartedly. Writing--amazing. Plot--very familiar in many ways. It needed editing.
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About the author

Justin Cronin is the New York Times bestselling author of The Passage, The Twelve, The City of Mirrors, Mary and O’Neil (which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize), and The Summer Guest. Other honors for his writing include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Whiting Writers’ Award. A Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Rice University, he divides his time between Houston, Texas, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

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