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Odd Thomas in Large Print

April 11, 2012

Looks like Random House is re-issuing some Odd Thomas novels in large print. Oddly, enough (pun anyone?) I see books one and three, but no book two. (Click either cover for Amazon pages.)

If you’re in or near Bountiful, Utah this week, you might want to take a moment and stop in to the South Davis branch of the Davis County library this Thursday to hear a talk by audiobook narrator George Guidall Narrator of The Door to December and several other Dean Koontz titles.

George Guidall jokes that he talks out loud for a living — and people listen as he transports them into another world.

“They hear a voice doing something for them and it takes their cares away,” Guidall said in his richly timbred everyman voice. “They don’t care about traffic jams. They don’t care about the frozen food melting in the back seat or coming late into work.”

Audiobook aficionados will likely recognize Guidall’s voice from one of the more than 900 unabridged books he has narrated. Top of Utah residents will have a chance to see the man behind that voice as Guidall speaks Thursday at the Davis County Library’s South branch in Bountiful.

Read the full article and get more event details on the Standard-Examiner Web site.

Laguna Playhouse event review

April 5, 2012

I found a review of Dean’s recent Laguna Playhouse event on the Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot Web site:

“Koontz had the sold-out audience in stitches as he described his childhood, which looked at another way could have been called dreary at best. He lost his mother at an early age and described his father as a drunkard, womanizer and ne’er-do-well, who had 44 jobs in 25 years.

“Ah, but his dad had a sense of the absurdity of life, which he passed onto Koontz, who explores the darker realms in his books, leavened with some laugh-out-loud passages tucked in among the shivers.”

Read the full article here.

An Interview with Queenie Chan

March 28, 2012

Suvudu.com has a short interview with Queenie Chan, the artist for the Odd Thomas graphic novels.

What did you most enjoy about this project?
Drawing Odd Thomas the character. I have a lot of affection for Odd (and also his girlfriend Stormy), and it makes me smile to draw him, because he’s such a great guy. His situation is unfortunate, but despite being hounded constantly by the silent dead to solve their problems, he takes it in very good stride. He could have turned out a very different person due to his circumstances, but he actively chooses to be a good person, and to use his powers for the benefit of other people. He’s also a very expressive character, and that makes him fun to draw (him and all of his Pico Mundo friends too).

Read the whole interview on Suvudu.com.

Want to win $200 in free books from Cemetery Dance?

March 26, 2012

Cemetery Dance, publisher of amazing horror fiction, and (full disclosure) publisher of this forthcoming book is running a contest to win $200 worth of books just for following them on the social medias. Just head on over to http://bit.ly/CDFreeBooks and follow the instructions. Ten people will win and there are eight ways to earn an entry.

Beauty & The Beard by Dean Koontz

February 26, 2012

How’s this for an ultra-obscure Dean Koontz reference? Check out the following screenshot from the video What if “Star Wars: Episode I” was Good by Belated Media.

Watch the whole video for yourself to get the context.

I wonder if Engadget even knows this is a Dean Koontz reference…

January 26, 2012

Cortexa’s ZE Home Controller: recreate Demon Seed for a fraction of the cost

How did they get the Pendleton online?

January 10, 2012

If you’re interested in just how the interactive www.77ShadowStreet.com was created, check out this article titled “The Other House’s 360-Degree Visual Effects Elicit Screams at 77 Shadow Street Interactive Website” from digitalmedianet.com.

Here’s a sample:

To achieve the size, scope and luxury described in the book, The Other House filmed inside 27 different interiors across seven locations in the greater Los Angeles area using a state-of-the-art 360o degree video camera. The camera, with its unique spherical design and 11 lenses, captures video simultaneously in all directions at once. When viewed in the proper web player online, the video format allows users to manually “look” in any direction with their mouse or touch pad during playback.

77 Shadow Street excerpt

January 10, 2012

Random House’s Suvudu has posted the first 25 pages of 77 Shadow Street online via Scribd.com which you can also read right here…

77 SHADOW STREET by Dean Koontz, Excerpt

77 Shadow Street used as a piracy example

January 3, 2012

The Daily Mail has published an article titled “eBook pirates cash in on Kindle sales boom as thousands turn to rogue sites for cheap downloads” in which it uses 77 Shadow Street as an example of a recently published book that’s been pirated online. I’ll leave my comments on the article itself out of this blog. If you’re interested in my thoughts on the topic, check out my Travelin’ Librarian blog.

77 Shadow Street audio preview

January 3, 2012

Turns out there’s a QR code on the back of the 77 Shadow Street audiobook box. (Shown right.) That leads you here, which leads you here, which includes the YouTube video below which contains the first five-ish minutes of disc one.

Dean's home art

December 7, 2011

According to PR Newswire:

[Richard] MacDonald’s art has been showcased in numerous one-man exhibitions in the US, Europe and Asia and is featured in private collections including those of former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Dean Koontz, Leann Rimes and opera legend Luciano Pavarotti.

So, I did a bit of Google image searching and found some examples of Mr. MacDonald’s work. (One shown right) What do you think of his work?

Dafoe Talks Dean Koontz' 'Odd Thomas'

November 28, 2011

From Bloody Disgusting:

Willem Dafoe has spoken out about his part in the movie version of Dean Koontz’ best-selling novel Odd Thomas. Anton Yelchin stars in the supernatural thriller as a clairvoyant short-order cook who encounters a mysterious man with a link to dark forces. Fifteen minutes of behind the scenes footage and finished scenes were showed at the Australian International Movie Convention earlier in the year and demonstrated director Stephen Sommers’ quirky horror film approach.
Although Dafoe said he hasn’t seen any of the footage himself, he has high hopes. The two-time Oscar-nominated star talks exclusively to Australian stringer Maria Lewis (@moviemazz). Story inside.
“You know, I haven’t seen any of it but I’m glad you’ve seen it and it looks good,” he said.
“There are many interesting things about that but what I’m really struck by is how good this young actor Anton Yelchin is.
“He’s fantastic, very bright, and he’s a really talented guy.“

Cemetery Dance Gets a mention in the New York Times

October 25, 2011

The best work in dark fantasy and horror fiction these days is being published by small presses, haunted literary boutiques established (mostly) in out-of-the-way places.

There’s Small Beer in Easthampton, Mass., and Subterranean in Burton, Mich.; Centipede in Lakewood, Colo., and Cemetery Dance in Forest Hill, Md.; Tachyon in San Francisco andChiZine in Toronto — and many more. They’re all devoted to the weird, to the strange and — most important — to good writing. (Some also stretch their editorial tentacles into traditional fantasy and science fiction.)

Did anyone like the film version of Phantoms?