The Blog

Koontz News

FINAL HOUR by Dean Koontz On-Sale Now

November 1, 2015

Who is Ashley Bell?

November 1, 2015

"Taking Our Dog Out to Dinner" by Dean Koontz

October 25, 2015

Engstrom-DeanAnna.jpg-825x510We enjoy going out to dinner. We do not enjoy leaving our golden retriever, Anna, at home while we go out to dinner. For one thing, we miss her. There’s also the fact that we worry, should we leave her home alone too often, she’ll one day write a tell-all about us, including such humiliating details as my passion for bunny slippers. Which would be a damnable lie. Besides, we bristle at the injustice of her being denied service. She’s well-behaved, cute, and never barks. I can claim none of those three virtues, and yet I am welcome in every restaurant.

Read the full essay @ DeanKoontz.com.

"Opening Lines" by Dean Koontz

October 25, 2015

imgresA year ago or more, when answering letters from readers (real letters, not e-mails, as there is not enough time to answer even a fraction of reader e-mails), I started asking which opening lines in my books they thought were the most compelling. A little marketing research, if you will. And I learned a few things from their choices, including that no matter how long you have been writing, there is value in feedback from readers. These first lines received the most votes:

Read the full article @ DeanKoontz.com.

"Photo Session" by Dean Koontz

October 25, 2015

ContourPhotos_16867253-PS-2-512x510My publisher recently sent a highly regarded photographer to take a few new book-jacket and publicity photos of me. No one said it was because in order to make me appear appealing, a photographer of extraordinary talent was needed, with special lighting, and sixteen image consultants. But I knew. I knew.

Read the full essay @ DeanKoontz.com.

Register Book Club will host Dean Koontz at its January event

October 25, 2015

ashley bellThe Register Book Club has selected Dean Koontz’s upcoming novel, “Ashley Bell,” as our next community read.
Please join us, and come hear Koontz, one of America’s top-selling authors, discuss the book at our public event in January.
The book is due in stores Dec. 8. We’ll read and discuss it, with regular chats online and on social media. Join the conversation at the Register Book Club’s Facebook Group. Follow along on Twitter with #OCRBookClub.
The novel is set in Orange County, as many Koontz novels are – mostly in Newport Beach, where he lives.

More @ OCRegister.com

Frankenstein: Storm Surge #1 images w/ Dialogue

October 17, 2015

Comic Book Resources has images from the first issue, this time including dialogue.
StormSurge01-3-4419e

Ask Anna trade paperback

October 17, 2015

2015-10-13 20.28.56

Another Dedication to Dean

October 7, 2015

RevelationI received my Cemetery Dance limited edition of Bentley Little’s The Revelation yesterday and what do I find on the dedication page?

Special thanks to:

Dean Koontz, an influence who became a friend and ally, for teaching me the ropes and treating me as though I was somebody—when I wasn’t.

These Immigrants Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Green Cards!

October 7, 2015

For those of you that haven’t yet read this wonderful essay by Dean now have another chance in the 60th Anniversary Edition of Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, published by Touchstone yesterday.
invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-60th

Dean's now on Instagram

October 3, 2015

Dean Koontz on Instagram

Ask Anna paperback cover

October 2, 2015

Ask Anna PBK

Details on Frankenstein: Storm Surge #3

September 27, 2015

From the October 2010 issue of Previews.
2015.10 Previews - Storm Surge 3b
2015.10 Previews - Storm Surge 3a
 

Someone @ Primatech reads Dean Koontz

September 27, 2015

From the first double-episode of Heroes Reborn
Heroes Reborn 1 Heroes Reborn 2

"I Have a New Computer" by Dean Koontz

September 26, 2015

Here’s a excerpt from another new essay on DeanKoontz.com:

Last LightIf you saw CBS Sunday Morning a couple years ago, when Anthony Mason and his crew (all great people; they made it fun), came to Koontzland to do an interview, you will have seen my 20-year-old computer system that so puzzled Anthony, he said, “What is that?!?” I told him I’d just traded in my steam-driven computer. In truth, for a long time, I dreaded changing to a new system and learning a new software, because I thought the learning phase would slow me and inhibit creativity. To a writer, inhibited creativity is more to be feared than great white sharks and mad gunmen, or even mad gunmen who are great white sharks…

"A Crisis of Extraordinary Proportions" by Dean Koontz

September 26, 2015

Hood Chocolate MilkThis essay in the latest issue of Useless News (Summer 2015) has also been posted on DeanKoontz.com.

Maybe it’s a genetic abnormality, maybe it’s a dark knot in my psychology that can never be untied, but whatever the reason, I never much liked chocolate milk. Chocolate, yes. Milk, yes. But the two combined always seemed to me to be a culinary experiment less successful than trout ice cream. Then, a few years ago, Gerda——who doesn’t share my long list of food quirks ——brought home a half-gallon container of Hood’s Calorie Countdown chocolate milk. My life was forever changed.
Hood’s is headquartered 3,000 miles from me, in Massachusetts, where I have never been and where, therefore, I couldn’t even be certain that they had cows or knew about chocolate. Yet here was a sublime concoction, more chocolatey than the bland chocolate milks I had known before, like a liquid version of the chocolatiest of chocolate ice creams, yet only 90 calories a glass. The vicissitudes of life ceased to bother me. I no longer worried about planet-killing asteroids plunging toward Earth or that some demonic TV network would resurrect the old series My Mother the Car…

Pre-signed copies of Ashley Bell

September 26, 2015

Ashley Bell B&N SignedIt looks like Barnes & Noble is offering signed copies of the next book Ashley Bell as they’ve done with other recent titles. Currently they have it listed for $20.72 with an 9781101965818.

Last Light available today

September 8, 2015

Last LightDon’t forget, Last Lightthe first of two eNovella prequels to Ashley Bell was released this morning and is available on all major platforms.

Ashely Bell ARC

September 2, 2015

Weighing in at 560 pages, there goes my weekend.
Ashley Bell ARC (1) Ashley Bell ARC (2) Ashley Bell ARC (3) Ashley Bell ARC (4)

Horrorstruck: The World of Dark Fantasy

August 29, 2015

Last week I found a full nine-issue run of Horrorstruck magazine from back in the late 80s with which Dean had a connection. Through the magic of the Internet I contacted the magazine’s editor and was able to get the details filled in. Here’s the entry as it currently reads in the manuscript followed by the relevant cover images.

Horrorstruck: The World of Dark Fantasy
(magazine)
Paul F. Olson, Editor-in-Chief
Dean R. Koontz, contributing editor

Horrorstruck was a nine-issue magazine published bi-monthly by Paul F. Olson from 1987 through 1988. The first four issues list Dean as one of several “contributing editors” and a “Coming next issue” segment on page 44 of the first issue states that Dean will be publishing a column starting in issue #2. However no contribution ever appeared. I contacted Mr. Olson in August 2015 and here’s what he had to say:

“The story with Dean is quite simple: he committed to being a regular contributor to Horrorstruck and then got incredibly busy and was unable to follow through. He told me a few weeks before deadline that he would have to skip the first issue but would be in issue two for sure. Then the same thing happened again. After three or four issues, he finally fessed up that he would not be able to keep his promise, and I quietly removed him from the list of contributing editors.”

The four issues listing Dean as a contributing editor are dates as follows: May/June 1987, July/August 1987, September/October 1987, and November/December 1987.
Horrorstruck #1 Horrorstruck #2 Horrorstruck #3 Horrorstruck #4