This kept a really good dark tone for most of the book. Except for the blog entries by Fet. Really? Blogging? During the vampocalypse?
Dear readers, I promise you one thing: if things start going down where my family and I will potentially be attacked by vampires, I will not be blogging about it. I will be hiding my ass away from the world. Someone else can be the internet hero. I think blogging is important; I think it is an excellent way to provide information to people who want it and an even better outlet for people to share their thoughts (even if it's only with 30-something readers). I do not think it will matter so much during a time of crisis in which everything is going to hell.
I also found the concept a bit ridiculous. The population of New York was decimated or turned vampire, brown outs were occurring constantly, cell phone towers were down, and yet somehow Fet had regular enough internet access to update his blog. Even updating sporadically, this seems a bit far to ask us to suspend our disbelief. And really, who thinks it would be a good idea to blog their way through the end times?
It probably won't be an issue. Not because they won't come eventually, but because I doubt anyone will have time or the stability to do it. But if you had the chance...would you? Would you blog the apocalypse?
My review can be found on Goodreads.
I read (and quite liked) The Strain but I haven't gotten to The Fall yet. That's funny about blogging during the "vampocalypse", though. Too often there are things like that in books and when you stop to question them, they really do seem utterly ridiculous. Guess it falls under suspension of disbelief, but I kind of wonder why writers and editors don't strive for a little more plausibility.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually afraid that there _would_ be people to blog through the vampocalypse. We are just that stupid as a species. I actually didn't read The Strain, I only picked up The Fall because it was offered as a free ARC at ALA this year. I'm all about the freebies.
ReplyDeleteI just finished The Strain before I started my ARC of The Fall. To be honest, there were moments of incredulity in The Strain too. Once I got beyond my fear (because I was scared reading it) and started focusing on the silly, I found a lot of silly. It sounds like the trend continues.
ReplyDeleteIt must be difficult to know exactly how much humor to throw into horror novels. I mean, you have to do something to break the tension occasionally, if only so you can build it up even higher later on. It's hard for anyone to maintain a high level of emotion for a long period of time, so there do need to be breaks, I just don't think the throwing in blog posts was a good way to accomplish it, at least not from one of the main characters. It might have been more effective if the characters were reading blog posts from other people, particularly ones with better writing abilities than Fet.
ReplyDeleteBlogging the apocalypse must be a trend in the End Times, because I just read FEED by Mira Grant (I think that's a penname for a paranormal romance author) that is about the zombie apocalypse and blogging takes on a major role. It is set some thirty years after the initial uprising, but now there are like sects of bloggers and it's kind of a Actual Journalists versus Bloggers atmosphere, where most people end up trusting bloggers more because the turth got all slogged down during the uprising and people blame the News media. It's weird and implausible but, you know, so are zombies. A deft writer can make it work.
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