So the book shop has a 3 for 2 deal. I get a thriller, a historical novel and one book completely at random. Why not, serendipity and all that plus it's free. I'm travelling a lot on trains at the moment - I forget how good that is if you like reading.

 

Anyhow, the book I get is called The Strain. I barely read the rubric at the back - I'm guessing it's something to do with bio-terrorism and there's a sort of non-commital picture of a bridge in New York on the front.

 

Anyhoo, I finally examine it properly and this book has two things I'm not wild about. 1. it's written by two people. Books that are written by two people generally suck. 2. It's horror. I don't dig horror. Well, movies perhaps, but not really novels. They don't scare me or intrigue me they send me to sleep.

 

But it was a long train journey and, hey, the book was pretty good. One of the authors is Guillermo del Toro, who directed Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy(s). There are some spoilers ahead.

 

The book is a take on the vampire genre. I know, I know, vampires are done to death I'm sick of them too. But this one is different. Why Because the vampires are also cancerous zombies. Vampirism is effectively a sort of viral cancer, and the hero is a Bio-Squishing doctor who is almost 2.5 dimensional. There are some other cooler characters (a Mexican gangsta, an ancient Romanian vampire-hunter who makes all his own weapons, a pest eliminator who is destined to become the best character). Vampires are emo and pathetic, but zombies are generally acknowledged to be awesome. And happily, the mash-up avoids emo zombies (arg!).

 

I think it's a series, if you like the idea of zombie-vampires and want to read it before the inevitable movie comes out then I give it a solid 7/10.

 

Cheers

MC

It really doesn't sound that promising. Sounds like I am Legend. Read the original book.

I'll stick to Anita Blake.

I'll stick to Anita Blake.

 

I forgot about her. Hubba hubba.

Aren't they planning on making this a game? I could of sworn I'd heard of some sort of Del Toro zombie/vampire game in the works...