Viral vampires roam post-apocalyptic world in Justin Cronin's 'The Passage' Austin American-Statesman

12.06.10

Justin Cronin is that rare material the author of obscure literary novels who morphs into a blockbuster commercial writer without losing his embodiment.

The Houston author's 766-page, post-apocalyptic vampire thriller, "The Passage," is the first in a trilogy that sold for $3.75 million, addition $1.75 million for movie rights, according to Publishers Weekly. It's being launched with a 250,000-transcribe first printing and a jacket blurb from Stephen King saying "Read this book and the ordinary world disappears."

For once, the hype is justified. Cronin has imagined a frighteningly believable following in which the human race has been nearly wiped out by "virals," super-strong mutants who come out only at darkness and live on the flesh of humans and other large mammals.

There's no romance here. "The Passage" has more in common with King's classic out-of-mastery-virus story, "The Stand," than with Stephenie Meyer's or Anne Rice's sexy bloodsuckers.

The volume begins in a plausible near-future in which Jenna Bush is governor of Texas and the United States is (still) fighting an continual war. When a Harvard University biologist discovers a virus in the Bolivian jungle that seems to confer immortality and tremendous mightiness on those who catch it, the military takes over his project in hopes of developing a human weapon of mass down.

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