I’ve been looking for this article for a while. It’s from December 2017 so things could have (ok very probably) changed since then but here’s what Dean had to say about more Moonlight Bay and Jane Hawk books back then…
Q: There is much confusion over your “Moonlight Bay” trilogy. Is it finished or not? Where does Ride the Storm fit in? Please clarify.
A: My publisher at that time so disliked the second “Moonlight Bay” novel, Seize the Night (1998) that I stopped part way through Ride the Storm. I had been with Bantam for only two books and did not want to get into an argument that would require moving to another publishing house. I thought that if I wrote two or three other novels before finishing the “Moonlight Bay” trilogy, the publisher would receive the third book with more enthusiasm.
Numerous books—plus ups and downs in business relationships—ensued, new publishers came and went, and I never got back to Ride the Storm. It is my intention to finish the book for Bantam after I complete the 7th book in the Jane Hawk series.
Dean reprinted an interview under the title “Jane Hawk Interview” in the Spring 2019 issue of Useless News. The intro mentions that it was originally printed in a magazine titled “Krimi.” Turns out, as far as I can tell, the source is the online publication “Krimi Couch” [Crime Couch] and the interview in the original Greman can be foudn @ https://www.krimi-couch.de/magazin/interview/04-2019-dean-koontz/.
The latest by Dean Koontz, The Crooked Staircase, picks up with his diehard FBI agent Jane Hawk, who knows she may be living on borrowed time. But as long as she’s breathing, she’ll never cease her one-woman war against the terrifying conspiracy that threatens the freedom—and free will—of millions. Propelled by her righteous fury and insistence on justice, Jane makes her way from Southern California to the snowy slopes of Lake Tahoe to confront the lethal forces arrayed against her. But nothing can prepare her for the chilling truth that awaits when she descends the crooked staircase to the dark, dreadful place where her long nightmare was born.
Recently, Dean checked in with Read It Forward about his ideal book club, a favorite word that has mystery at its core, and how he’s a little bit Mr. Toad at heart.
***
What word do you love and why? What word do you hate and why?
My favorite word is love, because of the infinite mystery at the core of its nature. As Dickinson wrote, “That Love is all there is / Is all we know of love.” My least favorite word is hate, because it’s an emotion that solves nothing, destroys everything, and comes disguised in countless self-righteous masks, so that the haters too often see themselves as noble.
50 years! Wow! And to get Dean speaking on the record about his early SF work, that’s a rarity these days. But SyFy Wire has done it.
How did Star Quest come about and what was the inspiration for the story?
Dean Koontz: As a kid, all I read was science fiction. I started out with probably the Heinlein juvenile, young adult novels and then just read, read, read constantly in the field. So by the time I was graduating college it was very natural for me that that would be the genre I wanted to write it. And I had sold a number of short stories first, but I can’t remember where that idea came from for that novel. All I know is that I wrote it over a summer between teaching jobs. I had no agent, you just sent things over the transom in those days. I sent it to Ace Books and they made me an offer for it.
One thing I vividly remember is that at that time, Ace paid $1,500 for one half of an Ace Double. They came back to me and said, “We can’t pay you $1,500 because your novel is short, so we’re gonna have to pay the guy on the other side of the double, $1,750, so we can only pay you $1,250.” It was the first time I had ever sold anything in book length so I jumped at that and said, alright, I’ll take the $1,250! Some years went by and I was still writing only in the science fiction genre and was somewhere where I ran into the author who was on the other side of that double. I said to him jokingly, that because of you I had to take $1,250 instead of $1,500. And he said, “What do you mean? They told me mine was shorter. I’d have to take $1,250!” I discovered we’d each been chiseled out of $250. Which explained to me why, when I looked at the book, it didn’t seem to me that his was a lot longer than mine. And it was a little warning that there were certain publishers in the world that would save the $500 at the risk of annoying the hell out of the writer down the road. That’s my biggest memory of that. I do sometimes say if I’d just thought of calling it Star Trek instead of Star Quest, maybe I would have been famous long before. (Laughs)
Master of suspense Dean Koontz has done it again. Written a new series, that is, a techno-thriller from the darker corners of his imagination.
Meet his latest character, Jane Hawk, introduced in “The Silent Corner” in June and continuing now in “The Whispering Room” and in next year’s “The Crooked Staircase” (May).
Jane, 27, is a resourceful, street-savvy FBI agent who takes a leave of absence to investigate the apparent suicide of her husband. What she discovers is a conspiracy at the highest levels of government and the tech industry—an insidious scheme involving nano brain implants that rob people of their will, turning them into virtual slaves or maneuvering them to kill themselves in the most horrific ways.
The action is fast, emotions and tension run high, and there are casualties. Soon the resolute Jane is declared a rogue FBI agent, then becomes the nation’s most wanted fugitive. Readers are right there with her as she ingeniously survives a series of close encounters in her quest to unveil the truth one piece at a time.
At this stage in his 50-year career, Koontz, 72, is writing at his most expressive and compelling as he follows Jane on her calculated yet obsessive journey. As Koontz once told me, “I give my characters free will and see where things will go.” Clearly, there is no stopping Jane Hawk.
Koontz, a former high school English teacher, is the New York Times best-selling author of more than 100 novels (16 made into movies) with 450 million copies in print in 38 languages.
That’s superstar status, yet he chooses to live under the radar (he no longer tours, for instance) in Newport Beach with his wife of 50 years, high-school sweetheart Gerda Ann Cerra, their golden retriever, Anna, and “the enduring spirit” of their late golden, Trixie.
I asked Koontz about the new series via email. Visit him at www.deankoontz.com and follow him on Twitter: @deankoontz.
Missed this one when it first came out. It’s the June 12, 2006 issue of The New Yorker which contains an interview with Dean. What makes is more interesting is that the interview is actually a six-page “Special Advertising Section” that’s basically a giant ad for The Husband.
Can you tell I’m trying to get caught up? Here’s an interview with Dean published by the Orange County Register back on December 4th.
Q. What was it like leaving Odd Thomas and his series behind to create Bibi and her brand-new story? A. This was an extremely tricky thing to pull off and so it tests all your abilities and craftsmanship. So in a sense that’s daunting. But as always, if the character who is central to the story starts to work for you, if Bibi comes alive for you, within a day or two you’re into it and you’re not daunted anymore.
My publisher said, “I sort of fell in love with Bibi. She’s sort of a very fair, tough-minded, kick-butt kind of lady.” She’s a woman that reminds me a little of my mother and my wife, both strong women. She sort of has some of their qualities.
I’ve always resisted the cliché, ‘Today’s guest needs no introduction.’ And there are two reasons for that: for one thing, it’s one of those remarks that needs qualifying, and in so doing I think I’d end up at odds with the aforementioned claim. For another, those who need no – or little – introduction often provide the meatiest substance for an opening paragraph, and my guest today is no exception. Frankly, we’re in the presence of greatness – honestly, it’s true. He’ll shake his head at me for using such lofty rhetoric, I know, because despite his vast achievements he seems to have remained somehow unpretentious – at the very least down-to-earth. And in case you’re wondering at the magnitude of said achievements, permit me a small instruction. Go to Wikipedia and search: ‘Best-selling fiction authors.’ You’ll see a list populated by such revered denizens as William Shakespeare, Leo Tolstoy, Agatha Christie and a host of other authors endlessly cited by literature professors the world over. Well I’ll tell you something: today’s guest currently occupies the number seventeen spot on that roster, and by the figures quoted therein has sold around 400 million books. Take into account that some of the literary heavyweights above him on that list have been in print for several centuries, and that’s quite an achievement. But – every achievement starts somewhere, so to tell us how it all began allow me to hand over to the one and only: Dean Koontz.
“I was writing stories when I was 8 and selling them to relatives and neighbors,” Dean says. “I was writer, agent, and publisher all in one – and, I am quite sure, also a pest. I wrote in high school, and one of my English teachers, Winona Garbrick, encouraged me. In college, I won a top prize in a national college-student writing contest sponsored by the Atlantic Monthly, and I sold that same story to another magazine for $50, which was more money then than it is now and which allowed me to buy about a hundred paperbacks.
“We were quite poor, and therefore through high school I had held part-time jobs of one kind or another, during which I realized that I would never be happy working under a boss. After college, during the two years I taught school, that realization was reinforced on a daily basis. The education bureaucracy frustrated me. My wife, Gerda, said, “I know you want to write. I’ll support you for five years, and if you can’t make it in that time, you’ll never make it.” To this day, I am humbled by her generosity and her faith in me. I accepted her offer – and was immediately labeled a lazy, shiftless bum by many in our families!
“So you might say that in the early years, I was inspired by the need to be my own boss and to work at a task I loved instead of at some job that had no purpose for me except to pay the bills. During a lonely childhood, in a dysfunctional family, books had been my escape and salvation; therefore, to make a life of books was as close to bliss as I expected to get in this world.”
Dean Koontz is one of the world’s most popular novelists, with 450 million books sold worldwide. In recent years, his series featuring Odd Thomas — a young fry cook with paranormal powers, including the ability to see the spirits of the “lingering dead” — has been particularly popular, with 20 million copies sold to date. Now the series is ending with its seventh installment,Saint Odd (currently No. 4 on USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list), in which the character returns to his hometown of Pico Mundo, Calif., to fulfill the destiny foretold in the series opener in 2003.
Koontz will be the featured guest on a special online video chat with fans from 1-2 p.m. today, sponsored by USA TODAY and Intercast. In the meantime, we caught up with Koontz, 69, for a phone interview from his home in Newport Coast, Calif.
Q: Is the ending of the Odd Thomas series a sad occasion for you?
A: When I finished the first one, Odd Thomas, I thought, “This is liable to be more than one book,” but at most I thought it would be a trilogy. But the character just had dimension after dimension that I found fascinating. In book two, I thought, “He’s on a journey to absolute humility,” which I didn’t know how I was going to write about since I don’t have an experience of absolute humility myself. (Laughs.) In the first book, he lost the love of his life, and got a little card from a fortune-telling machine that said, “You are destined to be together forever.” And I knew that was a promise that had to be fulfilled. I thought, “I can’t keep him going forever, no matter how interesting he is.”
I call him the poor man’s Stephen King, which is ironic, because Koontz is probably one of the wealthiest authors alive.
So I picked up The City, convinced I was in for more of Koontz’s crafty if slightly formulaic storytelling.
I was very wrong.
In The City Koontz paints the unusual coming-of-age story of young Jonah Kirk, son of a talented lounge singer and grandson of a true piano man. Young Jonah learns about the mysteries and the beauty of his city through a very diverse crowd of friends… and enemies.
Best-selling author Dean Koontz talks about his success, latest hit character by Allen Pierleoni
Q: Underlying the surface action, what is the Odd Thomas series about?
A: Perseverance in the face of the setbacks in life. Also, Odd represents the best that people are capable of being, but in this fallen world we rarely ever get there. That doesn’t mean he isn’t driven to do terrible things, but he does them to protect the innocent or save his own life.
Q: Where did Odd come from?
A: I was working on another book and suddenly into my mind came the line, “My name is Odd Thomas, and I lead an unusual life.” I spent the rest of the day writing what became the first chapter of the first book. The only thing I knew about him then was he was a character on a journey to absolute humility. Where all that came from is a mysterious process I did nothing to earn. The only thing I could do was bring my best craftsmanship to it.
Q: What’s so saintly about Odd?
A: I always knew the last book would be called “Saint Odd” because in his humility he would have come to a certain completeness. He lives for other people, and his philosophy is to live in a simple, old-fashioned, chivalrous way, but to never back down.
Some of you may know that Dean appeared on several episode of Real Time with Bill Maher. But today I discovered that there was a short-lived online show titled Amazon Fishbowl with Bill Maher and that the first episode from 1 June 2006 included Dean. You can still find the full original online @ http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/39:31/104-3877406-928 and I’ve embedded the interview with Dean here. (Please keep in mind that this is streaming video from 2006 so the quality pretty much sucks.)
Dean Koontz is one of the world’s most popular novelists, with 450 million books sold worldwide. In recent years, his series featuring Odd Thomas — a young fry cook with paranormal powers, including the ability to see the spirits of the “lingering dead” — has been particularly popular, with 20 million copies sold to date. Now the series is ending with its seventh installment, Saint Odd (currently No. 4 on USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list), in which the character returns to his hometown of Pico Mundo, Calif., to fulfill the destiny foretold in the series opener in 2003.
Koontz will be the featured guest on a special online video chat with fans from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET on Jan. 29, sponsored by USA TODAY and Intercast. In the meantime, we caught up with Koontz, 69, for a phone interview from his home in Newport Coast, Calif. Q: Is the ending of the Odd Thomas series a sad occasion for you? A: When I finished the first one, Odd Thomas, I thought, “This is liable to be more than one book,” but at most I thought it would be a trilogy. But the character just had dimension after dimension that I found fascinating. In book two, I thought, “He’s on a journey to absolute humility,” which I didn’t know how I was going to write about since I don’t have an experience of absolute humility myself. (Laughs.) In the first book, he lost the love of his life, and got a little card from a fortune-telling machine that said, “You are destined to be together forever.” And I knew that was a promise that had to be fulfilled. I thought, “I can’t keep him going forever, no matter how interesting he is.”
Author Dean Koontz has sold more than 450 million books. He says of his best-selling success: “I’ve always been driven, probably for a lot of reasons, and one of those is, unquestionably: I’ve always loved the English language.”
Seven books later, the tale of Odd Thomas is now complete.
It was a sad day to finish the series because I loved the character so much. On the other hand, with the first book, I made a promise to the character, and it needed to be fulfilled, and it could only be fulfilled if the series came to an end.
Now that the series has concluded, some readers might determine that you’ve just finished your masterpiece. What do you think?
(Laughs) I think there have been so many books that it gets very difficult to make those kinds of assessments, at least for me. People ask me, “What is your favorite character or book, whatever?” To a degree, you have to almost say all of them because, even though I write pretty quickly, I’m still choosing to spend a lot of time with these characters, in these stories. I will say, though, that Odd Thomas was special to me. He wasn’t always well received, though. When I turned the first book in to my (previous) publisher, there were people there who so dislike the character and the conflict that they wouldn’t even talk to me about it. In me, that triggers a certain response.
Season 2, Episode 04 – First Broadcast at 9:00pm, Monday 6 October 2014, ITV (UK)
Bradley is joined by some of the stars of the biggest crime drama shows, as they offer a privileged look behind the scenes of upcoming new crime dramas. Bradley finds out more about Dean Koontz.
I’m guessing that this will also be appearing in the print version of the Sunday Book Review given the 7/27 date in the URL of the online version.
The author, most recently, of “The City” is a fan of Marilynne Robinson and Cormac McCarthy: “Both offer voluptuous yet highly controlled language and profound moral purpose.”
What books are currently on your night stand?
After a long day, I’m especially charmed by the lyrical expressions and well-wrought cadences of poetry — currently, “The Wild Iris” and “Ararat,” by Louise Glück, and “New & Selected Poems,” by Donald Justice, all of which I’ve read many times. I’m also reading the complete poems of Elizabeth Bishop, whose life’s work shouldn’t be new to me but is.
Here’s an interview from 1998 mostly about the film version of Phantoms.
“If you look at those movies (he cites Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the original Cat People), it was the psychological suspense of the moment that really gripped you. It’s harder to sell that to a studio these days because they don’t believe that people will sit still for that. I think they’re wrong. If there was anything I would have done more with Phantoms, it would have been to crank up that kind of psychological suspense higher than we have.”
Part of what separates Phantoms from the pack is the “less is more” attitude Koontz and his collaborators took toward the special effects. He explains, “If I were to totally translate my book to the screen, we’d need a budget three times the size of Titanic because of the gargantuan effects. Plus, I’m a little tired of movies that are nothing but effects; so are audiences. I don’t like mindless special effects movies. For people who like mindless special effects, we have a little of that. Basically, what interests me are stories that grip you and keep you. Your mind always does worse things than people can show in a movie.”
The latest by Dean Koontz, The Crooked Staircase, picks up with his diehard FBI agent Jane Hawk, who knows she may be living on borrowed time. But as long as she’s breathing, she’ll never cease her one-woman war against the terrifying conspiracy that threatens the freedom—and free will—of millions. Propelled by her righteous fury and insistence on justice, Jane makes her way from Southern California to the snowy slopes of Lake Tahoe to confront the lethal forces arrayed against her. But nothing can prepare her for the chilling truth that awaits when she descends the crooked staircase to the dark, dreadful place where her long nightmare was born.
50 years! Wow! And to get Dean speaking on the record about his early SF work, that’s a rarity these days. But SyFy Wire has done it.
Missed this one when it first came out. It’s the June 12, 2006 issue of The New Yorker which contains an interview with Dean. What makes is more interesting is that the interview is actually a six-page “Special Advertising Section” that’s basically a giant ad for The Husband.
I’ve always resisted the cliché, ‘Today’s guest needs no introduction.’ And there are two reasons for that: for one thing, it’s one of those remarks that needs qualifying, and in so doing I think I’d end up at odds with the aforementioned claim. For another, those who need no – or little – introduction often provide the meatiest substance for an opening paragraph, and my guest today is no exception. Frankly, we’re in the presence of greatness – honestly, it’s true. He’ll shake his head at me for using such lofty rhetoric, I know, because despite his vast achievements he seems to have remained somehow unpretentious – at the very least down-to-earth. And in case you’re wondering at the magnitude of said achievements, permit me a small instruction. Go to Wikipedia and search: ‘Best-selling fiction authors.’ You’ll see a list populated by such revered denizens as William Shakespeare, Leo Tolstoy, Agatha Christie and a host of other authors endlessly cited by literature professors the world over. Well I’ll tell you something: today’s guest currently occupies the number seventeen spot on that roster, and by the figures quoted therein has sold around 400 million books. Take into account that some of the literary heavyweights above him on that list have been in print for several centuries, and that’s quite an achievement. But – every achievement starts somewhere, so to tell us how it all began allow me to hand over to the one and only: Dean Koontz.
Dean Koontz is one of the world’s most popular novelists, with 450 million books sold worldwide. In recent years, his series featuring Odd Thomas — a young fry cook with paranormal powers, including the ability to see the spirits of the “lingering dead” — has been particularly popular, with 20 million copies sold to date. Now the series is ending with its seventh installment,Saint Odd (currently No. 4 on USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list), in which the character returns to his hometown of Pico Mundo, Calif., to fulfill the destiny foretold in the series opener in 2003.
I call him the poor man’s Stephen King, which is ironic, because Koontz is probably one of the wealthiest authors alive.
Best-selling author Dean Koontz talks about his success, latest hit character
The author, most recently, of “The City” is a fan of Marilynne Robinson and Cormac McCarthy: “Both offer voluptuous yet highly controlled language and profound moral purpose.”
Here’s an interview from 1998 mostly about the film version of Phantoms.