ARE you sick and tired of vampires as romantic heroes? Tired of teen vamps in love and raunchy vampire sex? Do you long for the real thing – vampires that are disgusting, animalistic and vicious?
If your answers to all those questions are a resounding Yes!, then get yourself to a book store and spend your money on The Strain. Written by the Oscar-winning creator of Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo Del Toro and his mate Chuck Hogan, of The Killing Moon and Prince of Thieves fame, The Strain is the antithesis of all that New Moon stuff.
In an interview on the BBC's Newsnight programme, Del Toro said that wanted to give the vampire legend a "very CSI influenced, happening now, pandemic emergency feeling". And considering the recent H1N1 pandemic, Del Toro's idea is very definitely a part of the zeitgeist.
The Strain opens with a plane going dead on the tarmac at JFK International Airport – shades of just about every terrorist scenario that Homeland Security could have imagined.
When bombs are ruled out, the CDC is called in to collect the dead bodies – all seemingly without any obvious cause of death. Dr Ephraim Goodweather is in charge and he's baffled as to what's happened.
A side story, featuring an old Jewish man, ties in the Eastern European oral folklore about vampires that Hogan and Del Toro were also fascinated by.
"I've been studiously reading both vampire fact and fiction since I was a kid," Del Toro said in the BBC interview.
"I love John Polidori's The Vampyre, a penny dreadful called Varney the Vampyre, I love Richard Matheson's I Am Legend and Salem's Lot by Stephen King. I'm even more influenced by studies in Vampirism as fact in the 18th and 19th Centuries."
Abraham Setrakian is an old, old man. He managed to survive the Holocaust – not least because the Nazis weren't the worst thing stalking his world. Setrakian actually knows what's going on. He's seen it all before; but if no one will believe him, the world will end.
There is a very 'filmic' feel about The Strain. The chapters are topped with a scene setter, much like a film storyboard. The descriptions are intrinsically visual – you can practically pop familiar Hollywood faces on to the cast.
But this adds an energy to the prose – you almost start hearing a soundtrack, the gradually racing baseline as the facts start coming thick and fast; the high-toned floating, 'spooky' bits as the vampires begin to manifest; it's going to be a film, I'm just sure of it.
All in all, The Strain is a fantastic read – this is speculative fiction for everyone. Who doesn't love an action film, after all, no matter how unrealistic?
There is drama, action, science, violence, chase scenes, scary 'jump-out-of your-seat' twists and an interesting commentary on today's society in The Strain. As I said – the vampire book for everyone. Buy it; and wait for the film.
The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan is published by Harper Collins and is available from good book stores and online.