With this volume, the Strain trilogy comes to an end, as the remaining human resistance fighters launch an offensive against the Master and his vampire hordes. Vampires have overrun the planet and toppled governments, the Master setting himself up as the ruler of this centuries-long coup. While a serviceable conclusion (that smartly downplays many genre clichés), this lacked the emotional depth needed to sustain itself, much less elevate the trilogy. Profanity and gore proliferate as expected.

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Del Toro and Hogan continue their vampire trilogy with the middle segment and like most second acts, things go from bad to worse quickly. The villain’s end game is slowly revealed, and the heroes begin to realize they may be too late to prevent it. A few characters escape danger too frequently, but this is otherwise an adequate continuation. Readers should take note that profanity is prevalent, as are the gory scenes typical of vampiric fiction.  

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An ancient truce has been broken and a new plague has been unleashed upon unsuspecting humanity: vampires. Borrowing from the traditional vampiric folklore but also adding in several new elements, Del Toro and Hogan set the stage for all-out war. As the first part of a trilogy, it does a fair job of introducing characters, establishing ground rules, and raising the…ahem…stakes. Warning: Foul language abounds, as does the nastiness you would expect with vampires and such. 

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