91. Read and Review 100 Books (25/100) The Fall: Book Two of The Strain - Guillermo Del Toro

'The vampiric virus unleashed in The Strain has taken over New York City. It is spreading across the country and soon, the world. Amid the chaos, Eph Goodweather—head of the Center for Disease Control’s team—leads a small band out to stop these bloodthirsty monsters. But it may be too late.


Ignited by the Master’s horrific plan, a war erupts between Old and New World vampires, each vying for total control. Caught between these warring forces, humans—powerless and vulnerable—are no longer the consumers, but the consumed.


Though Eph understands the vampiric plague better than anyone, even he cannot protect those he loves from the invading evil. His ex-wife, Kelly, has been turned by the Master, and now she stalks the city, in the darkness, looking for her chance to reclaim Zack, Eph’s young son.


With the future of the world in the balance, Eph and his courageous team, guided by the brilliant former professor and Holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian and exterminator Vasiliy Fet, must combat a terror whose ultimate plan is more terrible than anyone first imagined—a fate worse than annihilation.'


Ok, so I agree, I've been on a bit of a serial vampire, apocalyptic / post-apocalyptic, end of the world, evil disease, everyone and everything ends up dead, cant sleep at night cos my reading material is giving me nightmares kick, recently. And tho I must admit that this book, is not up to par with 'The Passage', the second novel in the Strain Trilogy still kept me entertained enough to realise that I will be purchasing the third and final instalment (although I will once again be doing it via Amazon, via my Kindle, and I will be waiting a couple of months until the price reduces down to something reasonable) 

91. Read and Review 100 Books (24/100) The Passage - Justin Cronin

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

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun. '

There are these special kind of books, you know the ones... they're the ones that you absolutely devour.. that you cannot wait to find out what happens next, and so you turn the pages with reckless abandon.. you become so engaged in the world of the story and the characters and then suddenly you realise.. at some point this book has to end.. the plot pulling you forward yet your yearning for more holding you back... its a delicious feeling!! This book is without a doubt one of those books!!

The first book in what is planned to be a trilogy... another novel all about vampires (although these vampires are the result of a military experiment gone wrong and not because of some bat bite or seductive and pleasurable sharing of blood) however you'll hardly be 'Team such and such' at the end of this thrilling ride.. far from soft and cuddly.. these vampires are scary, evil, and set on consuming everything in the world that has a pulse... This is a story spanning over 800 pages and 100 years... and in the end.. it left me desperately wanting more... and just a tiny bit scared of the dark...

Get your hands on this book... devour it.... make sure your imagination has the chance to conjure up its own version of this terrifying future... before Hollywood undoubtedly gets their hands on it...

91. Read and review 100 books (10/100) The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

'Sixteen-year-old Katniss is smart, athletic, and fast. She can take down a rabbit with a bow and arrow, hitting it straight through the eye. Will these skills be enough to survive the Hunger Games?

Suzanne Collins, the author of the middle-grade fantasy series The Underland Chronicles begins anew, exploring a future landscape that will be familiar to devotees of science fiction's dystopic strain. In a nation called Panem, which occupies the landmass that is the present United States, a parasitical fascist Capitol dominates 12 conquered districts. There was a thirteenth district but it was obliterated during a rebellion. The totalitarian government keeps the subjected populations in line by threatened devastation, starvation, and brutality.'


Terrible name (the young protagonists name is Katniss Everdeen), Brilliant novel! Reminded me a little a Margaret Atwood Dystopian future - one where civilisation as we know it has crumbled into ruins and the rich and powerful minority use the poor as 'entertainment' while controlling them by denying even the most basic of human needs - food, water, shelter, love... a land where those in power remain in power by sending a very clear message  - Mess with us and we'll do something worse than kill you... we'll kill your children.


Brilliant plot, perfectly paced and well written and just fantastical enough, I didn't want to put this book down and found myself stealing whatever spare time I could find in my day to keep reading... cant wait to read the next in the series.


On a side note yes I agree, I seem to have a bit of a children's book thing going on here at the moment but I'm guessing it might have something to do with being wiped out in the evenings when I get home from work and just wanting to escape into an easy reading fantasy...

91. Read and review 100 books (1/100) The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood

'The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners--a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life--has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible. Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers... Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away...'

I have been in love with Margaret Atwood since my year 11 English Literature teacher introduced her to me by setting her novel The Handmaids Tale as part of our tertiary entrance curriculum! Since then she has released two pseudo-sequels to this novel, Orxy and Crake (2003) and The Year of the Flood (2009) which provide a back story to The Handmaids Tale but quite successfully also act as stand alone stories for those who may not have been exposed to Atwood's work before.

Reading this book while on my honeymoon in Belize, sitting on a lounge chair under an umbrella with a cocktail in one hand and my beloved kindle in the other I once again became engrossed in the dystopian future envisaged by Ms Atwood, one where appalling man made genetic mutations roam the earth and the last remaining humans, those who survived the waterless flood, hide in fear from the monsters, the weather and other humans!!

The novel follows the degeneration and breakdown of society and eventually humanity as a whole as corporations take on the role of government and people are forced to conform or perish - allowing crazy experiments to be conducted without consideration of morals, ethics or consequence. Atwood explores religion, science, environmentalism, genetic engineering, corporatism and pop culture in this book making you question your current values and, whether or not this is indeed fiction or if eerily something similar could, potentially, come to pass.