Latest Posts
The Register Book Club Hosts Dean Koontz
January 1, 2016
Dean will be speaking to The [Orange County] Register Book Club in Santa Ana on January 14th at 3:30pm and 7:00pm. Tickets are available for $10 via Eventbrite, and more details can be found on the Register Book Club Facebook page.
2015 Blogging: Year in Review
January 1, 2016
Check it out @ http://jetpack.me/annual-report/22097126/2015/
Authors we’d love to have dinner with
December 21, 2015
Tarine
I would love to have dinner with Dean Koontz.
His wit and sarcasm based on his responses to the questions that his fans pose to him is something that I really think I’d enjoy.
He seems to be an absolutely fascinating character of a person and I’d love to learn more about his life.
It would be a night of general merriment and laughter. I know this is a short motivation but it’s exactly what I’d love to do with my favourite author, no serious talk about what motivated him to write the books and genres he wrote in.
I can only assume that he gets it so often from so many people. I’d love to just get to know him as a person.
Read the full article @ Women24.com
Delving into the mind with author Dean Koontz
December 21, 2015
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.
Read it all @ OCRegister.com.
Dean Koontz on Cultivating Story Ideas
December 21, 2015
Did you catch this new essay form Dean?
When asked where I got my ideas, I used to say from an idea shop in Syracuse, which had been owned by the same family for six generations.
I was a smartass then. I’m much sweeter now.
In truth, story ideas come at me from all directions and at speeds ranging from snail-crawl to speeding bullet.
The premise behind Ashley Bell didn’t pop into my head full-blown, but it didn’t take days to develop, either. I have a friend, Frank Redman, who’s contending bravely with brain cancer. I wanted to know more about gliomatosis cerebri, the cancer he has, and as I was reading about it, I suddenly had the idea for a novel that begins with a 22-year-old woman, diagnosed with gliomatosis cerebri, whose doctor tells her that she has a year to live, to which she replies, “We’ll see,” and within a few days, her cancer goes into remission, though it is a type of cancer that never relents. The doctors are astonished, and with that, the story is set in motion. I realized then that the novel would be about the character’s obsession with understanding why she was spared from death.
Read it all @ Read It Forward.
Greg Kihn Do It All: A Conversation with a Rock n’ Roll Lifer
December 21, 2015
Rock Cellar Magazine: What sparked your work in the horror novel realm?
Greg Kihn: Stephen King and Dean Koontz inspired me to become a writer. Dean has been a good friend over the years. I love sitting in front of the word processor late at night banging away on a new novel. It’s a lot of fun. The first book I did was in 1996 and that was Horror Show.
Read the full interview @ Rock Cellar Magazine.
A few more Ashley Bell reviews
December 21, 2015
Koontz raises the bar with latest thriller, “Ashley Bell” – Fredricksburg.com- Dean Koontz parle de son nouveau thriller Ashley Bell – actusf.com
Oh the Horror: 8 Adaptation-ready Dean Koontz Books
December 21, 2015
With a career spanning nearly fifty years thus far, a slew of bestsellers, and an extraordinarily prodigious bibliography, Dean Koontz is a household name for many. Known for his tight plotting, vivid prose, and page-turning suspense, his books have sold over 450 million copies worldwide and have been published in thirty-eight languages. Given his popularity and the cinematic style of his work, it’s no surprise that Koontz is one of the more widely adapted authors of his generation. From his earliest works like Shattered to more recent bestsellers like Odd Thomas, the imagination of Dean Koontz has proven to be fertile cinematic ground. But when you have a bibliography clocking in at over 100 titles, there are bound to be some overlooked gems in need of adaptation. With his latest novel, Ashley Bell,now on bookshelves, it’s the perfect time to talk about a few Dean Koontz favorites we’d love to see on the screen.
Read the complete list @ word&film and then leave your suggestions in the comments.
GoodReads Choice Awards 2015
December 20, 2015
Guess which of Dean’s books won for best horror novel…
Andres Ponce Art For Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Storm Surge #3
December 20, 2015
Bleeding Cool has some digital versions of pages from Storm Surge #3 in both inked and colored versions, sans text. Click through for other samples.
The world before ‘Star Wars’
December 20, 2015
Inspired in part by the Japanese subgenre of giant robot movies, the 1976 Korean animated feature Robot Taekwon V is a charmingly chintzy-looking cartoon about a heroic scientist who counters his evil counterpart by pitting his lone super-android against the villain’s mechanical army. When the Star Wars robots debuted a year later, they were so charming that they altered the way these kinds of characters were deployed in the years that followed. Pre-1977, robots in 1970s science-fiction movies tended to be personality-free tools of justice or weapons of war. Sometimes they were malicious in another way entirely, as in the 1973 thrillerWestworld and its 1976 sequel Futureworld, where advanced animatronic amusement park attractions develop sentience and begin to kill the guests. In that same sinister vein, the big-screen adaptation of Dean Koontz’s novel Demon Seed, released in April 1977, stars Julie Christie as a woman who gets impregnated by her estranged husband’s supercomputer.
Read the full article @ The Kernel.
Frankenstein: Storm Surge #3 preview
December 20, 2015
Back on the 15th Bleeding Cool had an “Exclusive” preview of the third issue of Frankenstein: Storm Surge. Funnily enough, Comic Book Resources had that same preview a day earlier. Click either link for all the images.
Ashley Bell reviews
December 14, 2015
Ashley Bell is out and the reviews are coming in quickly so please excuse the link dump.
- Book review: ‘Ashley Bell’ is one of Dean Koontz’s best – TribLive
- Book review: Dean Koontz shows he is still the king of suspense – South China Morning Post
- ‘Ashley Bell’ one of Dean Koontz’s best – Press of Atlantic City
- ‘Ashley Bell’ rises to top of Koontz’s best – Albuquerque Journal / Associated Press (so has been printed elsewhere…)
- Dean Koontz’s ‘Ashley Bell’: A colorful tale that veers toward the otherworldly – Washington Post
- New Dean Koontz Book Ashley Bell Available Now – Dread Central
Frankenstein Storm Surge #4 in December 2015 Previews
December 6, 2015
Early Ashley Bell review
November 29, 2015
From Examiner.com
Bibi Blair never had time for fate or the supernatural. She was a take charge type of person that focused on the things that she could see and conquer. Bibi’s world comes crashing down around her when she finds herself suddenly afflicted by a rare form of cancer that gives her less than a year to live. Bibi at first approaches the disease as just another concrete obstacle for her to overcome but she is forced to accept that there could be something more to it after a visit from a strange man and his dog that leaves her seemingly healed. She may have overcome the cancer but the struggle of her life has just begun…
Charnel House edition of Ashley Bell shipping soon
November 23, 2015
According to the Charnel House Web site:
ASHLEY BELL by Dean Koontz will be shipping the first week in December. It will be released simultaneously with the Random House trade edition. There are few copies remaining and will ship in time for Christmas.
That’s One Creepy Cover Andres Ponce Did For Frankenstein: Storm Surge #2
November 23, 2015
More @ Bleeding Cool.
Dean's home to be moved to third place
November 23, 2015
Dubbed Villa de Formosa as a tribute to the owner’s Taiwanese roots, the three-story house will have 52,000 square feet of living space and subterranean parking under one roof…
Currently, Orange County’s biggest single-family home is the Newport Coast compound owned by Hot Pockets millionaire Paul Merage. Building permit records show it has almost 45,000 square feet on 4.8 acres.
Author Dean Koontz’ Amazing Grace, a four-lot compound in Newport Coast, appears to be Orange County’s second biggest home, with 37,550 square feet of living space and parking, according to building permits.
Read the full article @ OCRegister.com
What do editors mean when they say… "Sorry, but, the motivation is missing?"
November 5, 2015
The days of finding one of those more obscure, yet known items that I don’t already have are getting further and further apart. However I get to reset that particular clock with the arrival of this little gem form 1969 containing the essay mentioned in the title of this post.
"Post-Novel Confusion: Ashley Bell" by Dean Koontz
November 1, 2015
Red the full essay @ DeanKoontz.com.