Random thoughts/notes: You’d be one of the few, but if you’re not watching Masterpiece Theatre’s Downton Abbey, do. Julian Fellowes is crafting some truly special dialogue (and when did Thomas become such a likeable character? I’m going to miss booing him from the sidelines).

On fiction and why it’s good for you: Friend and bestselling thriller writer Boyd Morrison tweeted some interesting stuff on the benefits of reading fiction yesterday, from the Harvard Business Review: The Business Case for Reading Novels by Anne Kreamer.

And a plug: For my mentor from my USC days, SL Stebel (Rad Bradbury calls him “the best writing teacher that ever was“). His thriller The Collaborator is available on Amazon’s new audiobook website audible.com, narrated by Michael Bell. Get a copy here.

And lastly, some true Friday the 13th material: A new poster for the 20th Century Fox/Tim Burton produced film, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. How long before someone spins off Downton Abbey full of zombies instead of wounded soldiers?

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.