Michael Sauers
Rick McCammon, A True Southern Gentleman
July 6, 2013
An essay by Joe R. Lansdale, published in the program book for the Bram Stoker Awards® Weekend/World Horror Convention 2013.
“Anyway. That was our first meeting, and it led to Rick telling us he had this great idea for an organization for horror writers, which he called H.O.W.L., the Horror and Occult Writers League, a name I still prefer. The only problem was Rick had the idea and not the time. He turned it over to my wife Karen, and she ran with it. Began by making crude mimeographed and stapled newsletters, sending them out to an enthusiastic and growing crowd of interested parties. This resulted in what is now known as The Horror Writers Association. It was Rick’s brain child and Karen was the shield carrier. Later Dean Koontz arrived with an army to assist us, but that’s another story.”
Read the full essay @ RobertMcCammon.com.
[FrightFest '13] Anton Yelchin Battles Demons In New 'Odd Thomas' Stills
July 6, 2013
Via Bloody Disgusting.
Odd Thomas' reading list
June 23, 2013
“If Odd were to recommend five books, I think he would be most attracted to those in which one of the lead characters overcomes narcissism, materialism, and arrogance and is given the grace of humility. In no particular order, they would be:”
Read the full article on the Barnes & Noble Review.
Phantoms Trade Paperback
June 23, 2013
According to Amazon.com Berkley will be releasing their trade paperback of Phantoms on 7 January 2013 with a list price of $16.00. (That’s the same day as Innocence is being released BTW.)
"A Special Message From Dean Koontz"
June 16, 2013
The book Metamorphosis: The Case for Intelligent Design in a Nutshell Chrysalis, edited by David Klinghoffer and published by The Discovery Institute, contains a two sentence item titled “A Special Message from Dean Koontz” on page 6. The book is a free PDF available on the Discovery Institute’s Web site, in exchange for your contact information. However, a quick Google search will find other copies online should you not wish to give them your information.
Godzilla vs. Megadeth
June 15, 2013
Now here’s a rare item. Not many current fans have ever even heard of this one and the Web page it was originally hosted on back in 1994 is long gone. But recently I’ve found two Megadeth fan sites that have posted the full text. You can read it at tagtag.com/sankalp and The Realms of Deth.
Comedy bit mentioning Dean Koontz
June 15, 2013
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/14935524″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
(Contains adult language.)
Deeply Odd reviews
June 15, 2013
Why I Love Dean Koontz’s ODD THOMAS Series from The Barnes & Noble Book Blog.
A Satisfyingly Odd Book from First Things.
Deeply Odd: An Odd Thomas Novel from BookReporter.
Deeply Odd: An Odd Thomas Novel from Publishers Weekly.
37 new Dean Koontz introductions just published
June 15, 2013
A while back I mentioned that there are three new editions of John D. MacDonald novels coming out with new introductions by Dean. Well, it turns out that they didn’t stop at just three. This past Tuesday 37 classic MacDonald titles were released each featuring “a new Introduction by Dean Koontz”. The catch, it looks like they only came out as eBooks. Head on over to Amazon.com and take a look. (The first three listed here are the aforementioned trade paperbacks coming out later this year, while the last three are false positives based on my search terms.) And at $11.99 each, a full set is going to run you a whopping $443.63!
No, Dean has not written a graphic novel adaptation of The Warriors
June 15, 2013
Sometimes an author’s name gets attached to something accidentally and that information propagates across the Net like a weed. As far as I can tell this is the situation with the graphic novel The Warriors: Jailbreak. According to listings on ABEbooks, Bookish, textbooksrus, and other sites, this book has Dean listed as an author. I wrote to two sellers who were offering copies on Amazon (which does not attach Dean’s name to this title) to see if there was anything that connected Dean to this title. In both cases the sellers responded that they could not find anything in the book itself mentioning Dean. So, unless someone knows something I don’t (which is possible,) this is going in the Collecting Errors appendix.
Voice of Choice: George Guidall.
June 15, 2013
Here is a wonderful profile of George Guidall, audiobook reader extraordinaire. Although the article doesn’t mention Dean specifically, Mr. Guidall did narrate The Door to December audiobook.
Chip Kidd: Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is.
June 15, 2013
Chip Kidd designs book covers. He’s the guy who designed the cover for Intensity. If you’ve not seen this video of his TED Talk, please take a few minutes to do so as not only is he a design genius, he’s hilarious too.
Check out this review of "The Hitchkiker" by Dean Koontz
June 15, 2013
Turns out that the Odd Thomas books published in The Netherlands have significantly different titles. In fact according to this review of The Hitchhiker the three latest books are titled The Hitchhiker (Deeply Odd), The Hotel (Odd Interlude), and The Billionaire (Odd Apocalypse.) Here’s to wondering what Dean thinks of this.
My scanner is the soundtrack to my dreams
June 9, 2013
I was hoping to claim that I’d broken the 1000 items scanned mark by the end of today but I’m just over 950 and I need to give it a rest. I swear I can hear my scanner even when it’s turned off. Anyway, here’s an example of one of the more obscure items I’ve unboxed.
Fun Fact #1: The Door to December was released in the US under the name Richard Paige while in the UK it was issued as a Leigh Nichols book.
Fun Fact #2: Time Thieves was only released as an Ace Double paperback in the US. In the UK it earned a hard cover release.
Deeply Odd: A Morning with Dean Koontz
June 1, 2013
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/94827481″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
Two more introductions to John D. MacDonald books on the way
May 31, 2013
I’ve previously mentioned that a new edition of Cape Fear by John D. MacDonald will be coming out on 14 January 2014 with a new introduction by Dean.
Well, it turns out that that’s not the only MacDonald title getting the Koontz treatment. Amazon.com is currently listing new editions of A Key to the Suite and Slam the Big Door, both due out on 11 February 2014, and both with new introductions by Dean.
So, at this point, that’s a minimum of three MacDonald titles coming out with Koontz intros. Considering the man published dozens of novels, and Dean’s a big fan, this could get interesting.
Sole Survivor on DVD
May 29, 2013
The TV mini-series of Sole Survivor is finally coming out on DVD. Similar to the DVD version of Intensity this is a DVD-R “on demand” release which means technically somewhat lesser quality but still an official release. (Some very old DVD players may not be able to play the disc.)
According to Amazon.com it is being released on June 4, while other sites list the release data as June 25. Also, Amazon.com does not show a cover image while the one on the right I found on megavideostore.com. I’ve pre-ordered my copy from Amazon and will be sure to post when it arrives.
Needed: A better scan of the Forever Odd ARC
May 27, 2013
The scanning is progressing much faster than I’ve expected. As of this afternoon I’ve scanned more than 500 items. If that seems like a lot, to put it in perspective I’m estimating that I’ve scanned only about 15% off my collection so far…
One thing that I have found is that the cover of my advance copy of Forever Odd was seriously mis-printed as you can see in the image accompanying this post. (Despite what it looks like, that’s not damage, just spots missing the coloring.) If anyone has a copy that’s been printed correctly and can send me a full-color 320dpi .tiff of the cover, you’ll have my eternal thanks and be listed in the book’s acknowledgements.
A Big Little Life / Bliss To You CD
May 24, 2013
I recently found this new edition of the A Big Little Life audiobook on CD which comes with a one-hour abridged version of Bliss To You. Now, to figure out how to list this thing in the book…
The scanning has begun
May 19, 2013
On of the best features of the book will be as many full-color cover images of book, magazine, and everything else I have been able to ever get my hands on. Years ago when this project was started I managed to scan everything I had at what was then an appropriate resolution of 75dpi. Since then we’ve discovered that with changing technology those scans are now basically useless. So, I’ve embarked on the massive task of re-scanning everything as 320dpi TIFF files. I wouldn’t say its a boring project but it is a bit tedious at times.
If you interested in a quality sample, click on the image in this post for a full-sized version. (If your browser doesn’t open TIFF files directly, save the link and open it in your graphics program of choice.)