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Tuesday, March 19, 2024
March 19, 2024

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Six things to know about “City of Mirrors”

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1. IT’S HUGE

“The City of Mirrors” debuted at the top of our best-seller list this month. The book is the conclusion to Justin Cronin’s best-selling dystopian trilogy, which started with “The Passage” then “The Twelve.”

2. IT’S BINGE-WORTHY

With 2,000 pages, the easiest way to engage with this story of the scrappy survivors of a viral vampire plague may be to binge-read all three books in sequence, so you can keep track of who is who and what is happening.

3. FAMILIAR CHARACTERS RETURN

The main characters, many of whom started out as children in a forgotten waystation in the mountains near Palm Springs when waves of devastation originally depopulated North America, are now middle-aged parents, even grandparents.

4. PATIENT ZERO IS KIND OF BORING

We know that the vampire hordes have psychic leaders, and while many were defeated in “The Twelve,” Zero remains. His backstory reads like a failed one that should have been shelved. There’s nothing special about this Midwesterner feeling like an outcast at his Ivy League college or his unrequited love for his best friend’s girl.

5. IT’S GOT GREAT FIGHT SCENES

Finally, when the book reaches its midpoint, the threat to humans reemerges. As in the first two books, the vicious transformed vampires are terrifying: fast-moving, super-strong, insatiable. The battles with the clearly outmatched humans are frightening and thrilling.

6. DO NOT READ THE EPILOGUE

Set 1,000 years after the vampires nearly wiped human society off the face of the planet, the epilogue features a world just like today. It almost makes the series itself feel like a joke. Do not read the epilogue.

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