Almost as Much as My Last Advance from St. Martin's

Houston novelist Justin Cronin sinks his teeth into deal | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle: "Houston novelist Justin Cronin, best-known for his small-canvas family dramas, has embarked on a big-canvas, big-bucks project. The Rice University English professor has just signed a deal with Ballantine for a post-apocalyptic vampire trilogy. According to New York magazine, the deal for North American rights is worth $3.75 million, a figure Cronin described Tuesday as 'not exactly correct but more or less correct.'

The first book, titled The Passage, is due in the summer of 2009. Ballantine editor Mark Tavani praised its 'intense plotting, exquisite writing, memorable characters and tremendous imagination' and predicted it would appeal to a wide audience, likening the book to Stephen King's The Stand and Michael Crichton's early novels.

Set 100 years in the future, the plot involves a government experiment to lengthen the human life span. The experiment goes awry, unleashing a virus that physically and psychologically transforms people into vampires. But Cronin said the novel is much more than a conventional vampire tale. He prefers the term 'speculative fiction.'"