The Passage / The Twelve / The City of Mirrors

The Passage #1-3

by Justin Cronin

Justin Cronin The Passage Trilogy 3 Books Collection Set (The Passage, The Twelve, The City of Mirrors). Description The Passage Amy Harper Bellafonte is six years old and her mother thinks she's the most important person in the whole world. She is. Anthony Carter doesn't think he could ever be in a worse place than Death Row. He's wrong. FBI agent Brad Wolgast thinks something beyond imagination is coming. It is. The Twelve The eagerly anticipated sequel to the global bestseller The Passage, soon to be an epic drama on Fox from writer Elizabeth Heldens and executive producer Ridley Scott. The City of Mirrors Prompted by a voice that lives in her blood, the fearsome warrior known as Alicia of Blades is drawn towards to one of the great cities of The Time Before. The ruined city of New York. Ruined but not empty. For this is the final refuge of Zero, the first and last of The Twelve. The one who must be destroyed if mankind is to have a future.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Post Apocalyptic

Paperback

About the author

In 2010, Justin Cronin’s The Passage was a phenomenon. The unforgettable tale that critics and readers compared to the novels of Cormac McCarthy, Michael Crichton, Stephen King, and Margaret Atwood became a runaway bestseller and enchanted readers around the globe. It spent 3 months on The New York Times bestseller list. It was featured on more than a dozen “Best of the Year” lists, including Time’s “Top 10 Fiction of 2010,” NPR’s “Year’s Most Transporting Books,” and Esquire’s “Best & Brightest of 2010.” It was a #1 Indie Next Selection. It sold in over 40 countries and became a bestseller in many of them. Stephen King called The Passage “enthralling… read this book and the ordinary world disappears.” Now, PEN/Hemingway Award-winner Justin Cronin bring us the conclusion to his epic trilogy with The City of Mirrors. For the last time, Amy—the Girl from Nowhere, who lived a thousand years—will join her friends and face down the demons that threaten the last of humanity. Justin Cronin is also the author of Mary and O’Neil (which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize), and The Summer Guest. Other honors for his writing include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Whiting Writer’s Award. A Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Rice University, he divides his time between Houston, Texas, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Marguerite Doran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent trilogy! I didnt want it to end.

[Vuk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this trilogy. Highly recommend.

[Shoshana Rosenbaum · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Passage is great, if a little dated in terms of gender politics. I wish the next book had focused on The Colony.
The Twelve is not as good. I don't like the glamorization of serial killer's pov.
The City of Mirrors is even less good.

[Amy Craig]

I thought this trilogy would never end. And then it did. And now I'm sad. Fantastic story telling.

[Luna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completed all three.

Marvellous

Highly recommended.

[Callum Cowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Passage Trilogy: A Masterful Beginning, A Compelling Middle, and a Faltering End

Justin Cronin’s The Passage trilogy is an ambitious, sprawling saga of survival, hope, and the fragility of civilization. From its haunting, slow-burn opening to the grand sweep of its apocalyptic vision, the series initially promises something extraordinary: a meticulously crafted world where humanity teeters on the edge of extinction, and the survivors must carve out meaning in the ruins. At its best, the trilogy is a literary epic, transcending its post-apocalyptic trappings through sheer depth of character and prose. Yet, by its conclusion, the sharp focus that made The Passage so compelling is dulled, leaving behind something more meandering and unfocused.

The opening novel, The Passage, is a masterpiece of atmosphere and world-building. Cronin takes his time, constructing a fully realized pre-collapse America before plunging the reader into the terrifying, isolating vastness of what remains.

As someone who has never felt entirely at peace with my life as it stands, the idea of forging a new one from scratch—free from the expectations and burdens of the present and past—has always held a deep allure for me. The Passage taps into that yearning, crafting a world where survival is stripped down to its purest form: building, struggling to protect what you have built and, most importantly, enduring. It captures the appeal of post-apocalyptic fiction at its most potent—not just the horror of what is lost, but the raw potential of what comes after. The literary prose elevates it far beyond standard genre fare, layering the novel with a sense of melancholic beauty even in its bleakest moments.

If The Passage is the meticulously laid foundation, The Twelve is the expansion, deepening both the mythos and the characters. The novel does what a good middle entry should: broadens the scope without losing sight of what made the original so immersive. We see new factions, new conflicts, and the long tendrils of history creeping and shaping the survivors the reader has come to know in unexpected ways. Just as in the reader's life, the weight of the past is ever-present, and Cronin weaves an intricate tapestry of cause and effect, showing how the actions of the few ripple outwards to shape the fates of the many. While some threads feel less essential than others, the book retains enough momentum to feel like a worthy continuation.

Then comes The City of Mirrors, a finale that, while beautifully written, ultimately struggles under the weight of its own ambition. The sense of wonder that permeated the first two novels is lost amid an overlong exploration of the villain’s backstory and a conclusion that, rather than delivering on the trilogy’s grand themes, feels oddly detached from them. The carefully honed tension that once drove the narrative slackens, and characters who once felt vividly real begin to fade into archetypes. The sheer scale of what Cronin attempted is impressive, but by the end, it feels as if the story has outgrown itself.

That said, like Stephen King's The Stand before it, The Passage trilogy proves post-apocalyptic fiction can escape the standard genre trappings to become transcendent, a sweeping epic that captures both the horror of civilization’s collapse and the fragile hope of what might rise from its ashes. Cronin’s prose is often breathtaking, his world-building meticulous, and his characters—at least in the early books—achingly human. Even where the trilogy stumbles, it remains unforgettable, a testament to the enduring power of storytelling to not only envision the end of the world but to illuminate the flickering resilience that follows.

[Flow In · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not worth the investment in time.

I got these books by mistake I've remembering another vampire series called 12 which was much better.

I thought I'd read them and oh dear God was it bad. the first book was quite interesting. some fun ideas. nothing really made full sense, But you can ignore the cracks for the story.

Book 2 was just full on retconnig the first book, utter nonsense, making the entire thing just a rape fest,
but at least we got a resolution and kind of a end piece that, despite not making any rational, sense concluded.
I mean you're entire enemy collecting themselves together into one spot so you can kill them all in a single go is a bit weird.
And the third book just hops in puts pedal to the metal and jumps clean off that Cliff into utter absurdity.
We've got time traveling retcons we've got barely coherent baby boomer prototalmudic vampire gods, and then the author decides to self insert him into one-fifth of the novel turning it as an absolute dreary drudge fest.
Just unreadable crud.
Do not waste your time.

[Baglady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank goodness for the intros to books 2 and 3 - excellent quick summary of what I didn't understand in the prior books! I got caught up in the detailed descriptions of characters (some minor) in book one and lost the story. In book 2 there was more "action" and I got lost in that detail. Book 3 was easier to follow, but the amazing and unbelievable things the "normal" characters did to rebuild an oil industry and specifically an ocean-going vessel made them seem more "not of this world" than the "monstrous" characters. Otherwise a through provoking "man causes his own demise" that is eerily relevant with today's super-virus affecting the entire world.

[Angelfred (S Whipple) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This trilogy was good but I was beginning to think it would never end.

Also I found the epilogue of the third book to be a little far-fetched in that if this is 1000 or should we say 1100 years in the future how things could have the same names and things would be really not any different than they ever were prior to the last 2000 pages of three books.

Anyway, it was entertaining although long.

[Nancy McMahon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing and imaginative story rich in details, events, and characters. It left me with a greater sense of the vulnerability of our current era of civilization as well as of the resiliency of the human spirit.

[Jade Hardman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this series!

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this series! Will re-read!!

[Jade Tziavaras · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Trio of books but found the middle one a bit slow… picked back up in the third.