This is the last update to this blog. The next time I write about "The Twelve", it will be the actual final review.
There are a ton of spoilers in this review, please only proceed if you've read the first two books in "The Passage" trilogy. This is through page 501 of the the softcover edition of "The Twelve", only 63 pages to go. The title of the book refers to the people who were infected with a virus that was suppose to help create super soldiers, which it did in a certain way. I'm so glad I'm reading this before reading "City of Mirrors". "Mirrors" the third book in this trilogy is due May 24th. I'm looking forward to reading it.
If this blog looks completely haphazard and not even close to completion, that's because that's the case. I like to use my blog to keep notes in for when I write the actual blog. I already have most of the writing done and just need to do a few tweaks. This blog was suppose to remain in draft mode, but I accidentally published it.
"The Twelve" is the second book in "The Passage" trilogy. The third book in the trilogy "City of Mirrors" will be released this year. I'll be reading "Mirrors" for NetGalley.com as well as the publisher. So I wanted to be better prepared so I'm reading "The Twelve" before tackling "City of Mirrors". Some of the following descriptions are my own, some are from Wikipedia- you can tell which is which by font.
The story jumps from decade to decade, but yet the same characters stay mostly the same. I get that some of them are virals and can live for a long time.
Was Ignacio a human underling for Martinez the viral? What did he mean when Ignacio said "he left us" about Martinez? I know now, the remaining 11 virals are heading to the Homeland.
I liked approximately the first 80% of "The Passage", then it got a little much. I generally liked this book as well. Cronin's cast of characters sometimes is hard to keep track of, but he has a very user friendly writing style. I start reading, I get sucked in and find it hard to put the book down. I have hour lunches at work and it's hard to put down the book when it's time to go back to work.
Amy Harper Bellafonte
aka "The Girl From Nowhere". Amy is the daughter of Bill Reynolds and Jeanette Bellafonte. Her mother abandons her at a convent, where she forms a bond with one of the nuns, Sister Lacey Antoinette Kudoto. Amy is quickly targeted as a test subject by the secret government program known as Project Noah, and is subsequently kidnapped by Bradford Wolgast and Philip Doyle, but they eventually decide to turn themselves in to save her. However, Richards manages to kidnap all three of them and Amy is given the final, refined version of the virus.
Amy is guided to meet Wolgast and he promises here they'll be together again soon. Although over 100 years old Amy has what feels like menstrual pains. She's glad to see old friend Peter Jaxon. But she discusses with Greer that there's changes going on, but no one seems to know what's going on. She has control over the virals, because of their shared, because they've all had the virus?
Group 1 on Danny's bus.:
Danny's Momma died after the crap hit the fan, she just couldn't go on.
Mr. Purvis, Danny's nice and encouaging teacher.
Kittridge, The Last stand in Denver, got a porsche to escape, but ruined the car in the escape. He's the group leader. Marine, had a prosthetic on his left leg, right below the knee.
Bernard Kittridge[edit]
Ex-military officer with one missing leg who was famous as Last Stand in Denver based on videos he posted online as he killed virals with a sniper rifle in his fortified high rise. After the power fails he escapes and meets up with two teenagers and a mentally challenged school bus driver. He helps them and some others escape to a refugee center in Iowa. He develops a romantic attachment to one of the teens, April Donadio. When the center is overrun by virals, he and April's brother, Tim are killed. It is implied that he and April are ancestors of Alicia Donadio.
Danny bus driver- not 100% there but a good person, stopped and picked up April, 17 years old, and her little brother Tim. The world had gone to hell. Thankfully those three ran into Kittridge and they ran into another group of people that had been lucky to stay alive.
April- 17 year old, Kittridge considered her an "old soul" April was named after the T.S. Eliot poem "The Wasteland". Kittridge was April's first sexual partner before the virals wiped them out- or at least it seems that way.
Tim, April's little brother.
Jamal, obnoxious big mouth kid,
Pastor Don
Linda Robinson and Boy Jr. Joe Robinson
Wood
Mrs. Bellamy
Fred and Lucy Wilkes, first couple in tent, who disappeared suddenly.
Porchecki leader of the army convoy that escorted Kittridge's group to Iowa.
Group 2:
Lawrence Grey, child molester, traveling with Lila, a doctor. They were picked up by a helicopter. Zero is communicating with him and he can communicate with the virals. He is a viral, but seems to be trying to deny it. He was able to escape from the humans that held him. He was later recaptured and became the source for Guilder and his men. They fed off Grey and were able to stay young for about 100 years.
Lila saw one of the virals in action before the outbreak and somehow escaped. That traumatized her so much that she's not allowing herself to remember it. She's not sure if she's married to Brad Wolgast or
Wolgast, took care of Amy, married to Lila for awhile and then they divorced.
Bradford Wolgast
FBI agent whose job is to procure people, mostly death row inmates, to be used as experimental subjects by the Government and/or Military agents experimenting with the virus (possibly United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), the Homeland Security Agency, or the National Security Agency (NSA). Eventually rescues Amy and flees to an abandoned summer camp in Oregon, where they wait out the end of the world. When a nuclear bomb explodes within range of Wolgast and Amy, Wolgast is believed to have died from the fallout. He is, however, shown to be a viral at the end of the book, as he embraces Amy when she calls for him to come to her. Alicia observes this from the wall, she keeps the meeting a secret to protect Amy. Wolgast is revealed to be a viral under the chain of virals leading from Carter. However, he remains primarily loyal to Amy and is able to act independently even against Carter's wishes. At the climax of the book, he masquerades as Carter to appear at a gathering of the other 10 survivors of the twelve and kill them (and himself) with a bomb.
Group 3:
Guilder has terminal disease, killed his father who basically had been abandoned in an old folks home following the outbreak. Fell in a love with a prostitute, who rejected him.
The main antagonist of The Twelve. Guilder is the Deputy Director of the Department of Special Weapons, the government agency that oversaw Project Noah. A lonely and isolated man, Guilder is dying of Lou Gehrig's Disease and desperately hopes to use Lear's research to save his life. Following the outbreak, he succeeds in using Lawrence Grey's infected blood to prolong his life. He creates the 'Homeland', a dictatorship that uses slave labour and is rife with corruption. He keeps Grey locked up as a living 'source' for his continued survival and manipulates Lila Kyle into being his weapon due to her unique ability to control the Virals.
Virals
Project Noah, the experiment that started the whole mess.
Alicia Donadio
Nicknamed "Lish," Alicia is a tough and sometimes reckless woman who was raised by the Colonel after the events of Dark Night made her an orphan. She has an incredible aptitude for combat with a history of taking out 3 virals at once. When Amy arrives at the colony, Alicia jumps over the wall to retrieve her and bring her to safety amid a group of bloodthirsty virals; she is later persecuted for this seeming act of bravery, as her actions result in the death of Teacher, a revered member of the colony. After this, she travels with the Apostles. Alicia is in love with Peter and his feelings are mutual, although neither recognizes this explicitly until she joins the Second Expeditionary. When she is fatally wounded in the battle with Babcock's Many, Peter infects her with the virus, which makes her abnormally strong and fast, although she is unable to communicate with the virals as Amy can.
Peter and Alicia were always leaving each other. Peter was being cycled back to relative safety in Kerrville (The Oil Road). Although they ran into some trouble on their trip. Caleb Jaxon is his 5 year old nephew.while Alicia had been promoted to captain and was going to an area, Kearney, where there were a lot of virals. When Alicia got to Kearney, it had been wiped out. The only survivor was a horse, who she named Soldier. They quickly bonded as they were glad to see each other.
Michael Fisher is an oil rigger, big dude, in a very intense relationship with Lore. Long time friend of Peter. Nicknamed The Circuit.
Michael's sister, Sara, is the one that killed Babcock. Sara delivered Hollis Wilson's baby under less than ideal circumstances and was told the baby died. She's being held captive in The Homeland in Iowa, a camp ran by Guilder.
Lucius Greer had the Madam President, Peter Jaxon and come and visit him in jail. Greer had been in jail for almost 5 years for abandoning his command to follow Amy up the mountain to face Babcock. Amy helps Greer escape to go on a mission that the reader has no idea about.
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