The Apocalypse Strain

This is going to be hard to review without spoilers but here we go. I should mention off the top that this is definitely not a pandemic story. It is more the story of a virus that is more than a virus. A team of scientists and astronauts are training in Siberia for a planned mission to Mars. A scientist who is grieving the loss of his daughter drills into the permafrost and is "led" to a scientist's version of a goldmine in an ancient squirrel's nest. One of the specific finds in the nest is an unknown virus that is nicknamed, "Molli" who has a mind of it's own and wants "out". I didn't release any pertinent spoilers. So far, so good. The pace was set very quickly and the story was very plausible up to a point. When I am reading a fictional story, I appreciate when an author is able to blend reality into fantasy smoothly. Parent obviously did his homework on the scientific portions of the story and the added fictional parts fit in nicely. I wasn't keen on most of the characters but then that was not the purpose of the story being told. I came to understand what made some of them tick but it kept the focus on the storyline. One thing I did appreciate was the fact that there was no love story added. I don't mind romance in a horror novel but it is refreshing when the author keeps to the story itself with no substories. I am a fan of Jason Parent simply for the fact that his ideas are always original and though he writes horror, he varies in the stories he shares with readers. I really like his style of writing. If an author is able to create a world or set a scene that I can imagine in my head then I am hooked.