“The City of Mirrors” by Justin Cronin – Father of the Apocalypse

To start with a little disclaimer of sorts, this is the third book in a trilogy, and if you haven't read the previous ones, The Passage and The Twelve, then chances are you wont understand much or enjoy this novel nearly as much as you could. In other words, reading the other two books before this one is a bit of a necessity.

Two books ago Justin Cronin started a vast, sprawling and epic trilogy called The Passage, telling the story of a few human survivors in the wake of a viral apocalypse, one that turned countless people into mindless killer vampire-like creatures.

The odds certainly never were in our protagonists' favour, but slowly they manage to reclaim the world that has been taken from them, and things are at the point where they can actually think of something which characters in many other novels would consider a luxury: the possibility of rebuilding society.

In the final book of the trilogy, The City of Mirrors, Justin Cronin continues the story where he left it off in the previous book, with the original twelve infected being destroyed, effectively killing the hordes of monsters connected to them.

There were only two points of concern: what happened to Amy, and what happened to Zero, the first infected. At first, things seem rather calm, with the virals being decimated and new generations of children born into a world where they won't have to live through the same horrors their parents witnessed.

Life is blooming once again, but Amy and her friends know this isn't something that will last... for Zero awaits in the dead metropolis for the right moment to unleash a unfathomable blight upon the world.

He is the last and deadliest obstacle standing in the way of humanity's redemption, and so Amy prepares for the final showdown where fate will take the course it has been plotting for thousands of years.

Being as long as the second book in the series, The City of Mirrors is the huge and epic finale we've all been waiting for, with Cronin doing the seemingly-impossible and wrapping up the innumerable storylines he created in the first two novels.

To begin, however, he briefly reintroduces us to the world and the characters within, though I will admit that it does take a bit of time to start caring about them again and become invested in the story... unless of course you're reading the finale right after the second novel.

Things pick up rather quickly though as Cronin focuses on the characters we've come to know and love, including Alicia, Lucius, Peter, Sara, Kate... in other words, it feels like one big great reunion.

As was the case in the previous books, Cronin is extremely meticulous when it comes to building the world and describing the people in it. He doesn't shy away from going into long and detailed descriptions which heavily contribute to sucking the reader into the apocalyptic future.

Some of them do feel a bit tedious, but on the most part they remain pretty fascinating, if only for the out-of-ordinary scenes and landscapes portrayed.

While the book is certainly about a battle of light against dark and the plot revolves around seeing our heroes overcome a quasi-insurmountable evil, it's much more than a straightforward tale of defiance.

It's also a story about love, friendship, about the inner conflicts we all experience, the urges that strip us of our humanity, the compassion that keeps us clinging to one another, the human face hiding behind every monster.

Cronin certainly doesn't shy away from thinking about darker and heavier themes, and you can be certain to deal with a sadness and death on his philosophical journey... thankfully though, he always lets at least a bit of hope shine through.

For being the final book in the trilogy, The City of Mirrors definitely accomplishes its goal of neatly wrapping up all the loose ends and bring everything to a satisfying conclusion. There are no questions left unanswered, and the build-up towards the final climax certainly benefits from everything that's been done in the previous books. It becomes the perfect culmination of everything the characters have done and gone through, and will certainly stay with you for a little while, if only for how flawlessly it's executed.

To conclude, The City of Mirrors is most certainly a worthy finale to The Passage trilogy, with Cronin even improving it above the two previous novels.

It ends a truly epic and engaging story in the most satisfying way possible, and anyone who considers themselves a fan of the first two books will definitely have an unforgettable blast with this one.

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Justin Cronin Personal site Justin Cronin is an American writer who has authored a few novels, his most prolific work being The Passage Trilogy, a story about vampires. Cronin has received the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, the Whitling Award, as well as the Stephen Crane Prize.