Pretty much everything Guillermo Del Toro does gives us massive boners here in the Sewer, so when it turns out he's concocted (with award-winning author Chuck Hogan) a work of horror fiction, it's pretty damn big news.

That it's the first in an epic trilogy from one of the best and most reliable publishers out there only adds to it.

The Strain.

Readers of this site know good and well how tired of vampires I am. I haven't seen a good one on the page in a long time (Let the Right One In and... well Blade 2 are recent examples of vampires done right). This just might reverse the trend. In fact I have supreme confidence it will.

Here's the premise, and after that a video introduction from Guillermo himself as well as some early reviews of the book:

The visionary creator of the Academy Award-winning Pan's Labyrinth and a Hammett Award-winning author bring their imaginations to this bold, epic novel about a horrifying battle between man and vampire that threatens all humanity. It is the first installment in a thrilling trilogy and an extraordinary international publishing event.

The Strain

They have always been here. Vampires. In secret and in darkness. Waiting. Now their time has come.

In one week, Manhattan will be gone. In one month, the country.

In two months—the world.

A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.

In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing . . .

So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city—a city that includes his wife and son—before it is too late.






EARLY REVIEWS

 

“Film director Del Toro (PAN’S LABYRINTH) and thriller writer Hogan (THE KILLING MOON) treat a vampire outbreak as a massive public-health crisis, with chilling results. When a plane arriving from Berlin goes completely black on the runway at JFK, losing all electrical power and contact with the outside world, authorities expect to find a tense hostage situation on board. Instead, they discover that almost everyone on the plane has mysteriously died, presumably during the very brief interval between the time it landed and the moment a SWAT team stormed the cabin. Suspecting a disease of some kind and fearing its spread, authorities call in Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, head of a CDC team set up to deal with just this sort of fast-moving, potentially catastrophic epidemic. What Dr. Goodweather and his team gradually discover, however, is something much stranger and potentially even more dangerous: a species of parasitic worm that gradually turns its host into a bloodthirsty something that very closely resembles a vampire. Soon they are operating well outside the realm of established science, especially after they team up with Abraham Setrakian, a Holocaust survivor and former academic who now operates a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem and has dealt with this sort of thing before. Armed with Setrakian’s knowledge and an extensive arsenal of anti-vampire weaponry, the CDC team sets out to control the outbreak by attacking its source. The book boasts a plethora of arresting images and many terrific macabre touches. Del Toro and Hogan also succeed in constructing a driving plot and delivering a gripping conclusion. Great characters, a semi-plausible premise and a flair for striking scenes get this trilogy off to a first-rate start.”

— Kirkus Reviews

 

“Director Del Toro (who won an Oscar for PAN’S LABYRINTH) makes a dramatic splash in his fiction debut, the first volume in a vampires vs. humanity trilogy, coauthored with Hogan (PRINCE OF THIEVES). Just as a jumbo jet on a flight from Germany to New York is touching down at JFK, something goes terribly wrong. When Ephraim Goodweather, of the Centers for Disease Control, investigates the darkened plane, he finds all but four passengers and crew dead, drained of blood. Despite Goodweather's efforts to keep the survivors segregated, they get discharged into the general population. Soon after, the corpses of the tragedy's victims disappear. The epidemiologist begins to credit the wild stories of Abraham Setrakian, an elderly pawnbroker who's the book's Van Helsing figure, and concludes that a master vampire has arrived in the U.S. The authors maintain the suspense and tension throughout in a tour de force reminiscent of Whitley Strieber's early work.”

   — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

 

“This one’s sure to get a lot of interest.... The story offers a solid mix of horror and thriller elements.... The first installment of a projected trilogy.... You should expect to wait in breathless anticipation of volume 2. With a movie likely in the offing, this could become the next big horror franchise.”

   — Booklist

 

“Have your heart medicine close: THE STRAIN may sneak up on you—and it’s scary enough to kill. I loved it.”

   — Gregory Maguire, bestselling author of A LION AMONG MEN and WICKED

 

“Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan have crafted a deliciously creepy story that will literally make the hairs on your neck stand up. THE STRAIN is Bram Stoker meets Stephen King meets Michael Crichton. It just doesn’t get much better than this.”

   — Nelson DeMille

 

“The first in a trilogy that soars with spellbinding intrigue. Truly, an unforgettable tale you can’t put down once you read the first page. I can’t wait until the next one.”

   — Clive Cussler

 

“Blood and apocalypse mix in a terrifying story that feels like it was ripped from today’s headlines. Vividly wrought and relentlessly paced, THE STRAIN haunts as much as it terrifies. I cannot wait to see where Del Toro and Hogan take us next.”

   — James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of THE DOOMSDAY KEY

 

“Every few decades the vampire genre grows a tad anemic, as it were, and the lore of the Undead threatens to die on us. But then along comes a Richard Matheson or Stephen King and...license renewed. This time around the reanimators are Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan with their terrifying new novel, THE STRAIN, an unholy spawn of I AM LEGEND out of SALEM’S LOT.”

   — Dan Simmons, author of DROOD and THE TERROR