The Twelve [Hardcover]

First of all I'd like to get this out of the way. The Passage is one of my favourite ever books, it deserved its comparisons to the Stand, and in my opinion was the better novel. I liked the change in pace, the variation of style, I adored it and appreciated being introduced to the word 'subsumed'. I felt I travelled that journey with them, didn't want it to end. And I really looked forward to continuing the saga with The Twelve.

It starts well, you get involved with the characters, from Last Stand in Denver to the school bus, you're quickly drawn into the story, the survivors and look forward to at least finding out their eventual fate...except you don't. Not really. A whole bus load of passengers disappears into obscurity. (or does it? I found myself beyond caring)

The switch to post virus starts with a picnic that turns to disaster, then we have half to three quarters of a book with not a lot happening. I can barely remember the details of what did and frankly want to forget. It does get going somewhat later on, some details had me puzzled, but I put that down to trying to get through the boring parts as fast as possible and not picking up everything. The last few chapters were quite gripping - some bits made me feel quite emotional but they were no means enough payback for the dull rubbish that had preceded.

In short; overlong, could use a touch of editing and apparently owes some inspiration to Harry Potter. And the few good bits are what elevated it to a two star.

So we come to the second blood soaked, post-apocalyptic zombie-fest in Cronin's trilogy. Part Two has attracted it's fair share of disappointed reviewers but I, for one found The Twelve to be a rip-roaring page turner; beautifully written, exciting, gripping and largely satisfying - a worthy follow-up to The Passage.

The story continues, briefly, more or less where it left off, with our heroes holed up in a Texas community of plague survivors. It then jumps back some 100 years to Day Zero when the vampire plague first struck and adds a whole new layer of back-story and fresh characters. We then jump forward in time to about 80AV and then again to 100AV to pick the main thread of the story back up again. I can sympathise with some of the objections - there is a whole host of new characters and some of the old ones have disappeared without trace, so quite a lot of water has gone under ther bridge (or should that be blood under the bridge?) since Part 1 ended. Along with the jittery timeline, this makes The Twelve is a pretty confusing read to begin with and even towards the end I was having to skip to the Dramatis Personae to remind myself about who was who, who was where and who was when.

Nevertheless, as I've mentioned, I couldn't put this book down and enjoyed it from first to last. Cronin writes beautifully - this is no amateur "You know what? I think I'll write a vampire novel!" affair. His descriptive passages are elegant and dreamy and his characters (when you can keep up with their identities) are nicely fleshed out. He doesn't stint on the tension or action and the story is enjoyable, gripping and compelling. I guess if I was to criticise, I would point to the deus ex machina that drop by to help our heroes out of trouble (a get-out that Mr C used somewhat liberally in The Passage). It's also fair to say that the apocalyptic demnouement in the football stadium is, how can I say this? a bit of a Hollywood action flick sequence, overblown and rather breathlessly written.

I was rather taken, however, by the way Cronin avoided the James Bond evil genius cliché by making the baddie (Horace Guilder) less of an evil genius and more of a bureaucratic despot and Guilder's Babylon less of a city of the d@mned and more of a city of god-d@mned civil servants. My guess is that when society does disintegrate, the survivors won't be ruled over by the traditional post-apocalyptic little H!tlers - it will be the public servants who flourish (along with the telephone sanitation engineers and advertising executives, perhaps?).

I for one and happy to award this five stars. It's a great story and I can't wait for Part Three.

I have been waiting to read this book for over a year and constantly scoured the internet for news of its release. As soon as I could I downloaded it to my beloved Kindle and prepared to block out the world for a few days and take myself back to Cronin's apocalyptic world which I had so loved in the first book of this trilogy, The Passage. The first half didn't disappoint and without giving the plot away the whole section about Kittridge 'last stand in Denver' was probably better than anything I have read in the 2 books so far. When Danny was driving that bus just after the virus had been let loose I cheered and cried both at the same time. However, the second half of the book goes off at a complete tangent and now the war is against other human survivors and factions. I found the comparisons with the Nazi death camps and The Homeland quite startling, unnecessary and distasteful. Cronin has lost his way with this book and as has been mentioned in other reviews the endless edition of new characters makes it ever more confusing. In the latter half my heart would sink as a new character was added and I had to work out who they were related to or how they fitted in. To sum up I could have read about Kittridge and co. forever but the rest of the book is just average and the plotline doesn't really follow on from the first book. It is as though Cronin has written another story and just added it in for good measure because he couldn't think of anything else which I find bizarre to say the least. I am giving 3 stars mainly because of the sheer accomplishment of this work and I will go on to read the final part of this trilogy on its release but please Mr Cronin get back to the original theme of The Passage which was oh so much better.