So what’s the hubbub? A truly wonderful narrative thread. Superb characterization. Unique, while staying true to vampire lore. Don’t believe me? From Ron Charles at the Washington Post:

In the same way that “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell” gave us a mature alternative to “Harry Potter,” “The Passage” is for adults who’ve been bitten but can’t swallow the teenybopper misogyny of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series.

And Mike Peed at the NY Times:

“The Passage,” is a 766-page doorstop, a dystopian epic that’s the first installment in a projected vampire trilogy. Ballantine Books bought the lot for over $3 million, and the film rights to the novel sold before the book was completed.

A vampire fiction epic sold before the manuscript was even done. Movie rights? Well, Ridley Scott gobbled those up way back on 2007. Think: The Next Harry Potter movie franchise. The author’s website is here. Pick up the hardcover at Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com. Sony eReader, Kindle, whatever.

Just read the darn book.

Anywho, thought I’d jump back in and toss out a random quote out there from a writer. It’s from a horror novel, published in 1885. French.

What do the sentient beings in those distant universes know, more than we do? What more are they capable of doing than we? What do they see that we have not the least knowledge of? Some day or other, won’t one of them, crossing space, appear on our earth to conquer it, just as long ago the Normans crossed the seas to subjugate people who were weaker?

We are so infirm, so helpless, so ignorant, so small, we others, on this spinning grain of mud mixed with a drop of water.

Winner gets a copy of the book. Not signed. Writer is dead, dead, dead.