Latest Posts
First look @ Ask Anna
July 15, 2014
Yesterday I got my hands on an “Uncorrected Proof” of Ask Anna. Really it’s more of a promotional booklet at it contains just 12 pages including the front and back covers. Also, the proof lists a release date of 28 October 2104, while Amazon.com lists 7 October 2104. Looks like we’ll have to wait to see which is correct.
Another typo in The City ARC found
July 13, 2014
This one was found by Erick Garcia and occurs on page 210 of the ARC. The missing hyphen was found in time for the trade release. I’d say this kind of typo is a lot more common than the other one.
More Intensity
July 13, 2014
A while back I posted a gallery of my many editions of Intensity. Well, it turns out that through a conversation with Ted Armack, that I’d missed a few. So, here they are: three UK editions and one Russian.
The Write House by Dean Koontz
July 12, 2014
The Wall Street Journal published an article by Dean earlier this week regarding his home:
When real-estate values crashed in Southern California in 1991, my wife, Gerda, and I found an incredible opportunity in Newport Beach. We were able to buy 2½ acres on a bluff with unobstructed views of the Pacific.
After we closed, we spent the next four years with three different architects before we started building a house. When we finished, I became a more productive author, and today we enjoy our home so much that we rarely want to go out.
From the start, Gerda and I knew the house was going to take about seven years to finish. It was an insane undertaking for an author who writes six days a week, but eventually everything fell into place. I had been waiting my entire life to build a house that I would never want to leave.
Read the full essay @ WSJ.com.
Unread Books and the Ancient Enemy: An Interview with Dean Koontz
July 12, 2014
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.”
Read the full interview @ Lybarger Links.
The Best Baked Corn
July 12, 2014
As some of you may know Dean published the “Best Baked Corn” recipe in the December 19, 2010 issue of Parade Magazine. Needless to say, that isn’t one of the easier items to find these days. However, there’s now another way to get a copy of this recipe: just drop Nancy Huggins an e-mail (nancy.huggins@gmail.com) and ask to purchase a copy of her Enjoy the Recipes of Rich and Famous Celebrities – Second Edition for $24.99 plus shipping. Included within is Dean’s corn recipe and a brief accompanying essay, along with many other recipes form other authors, actors, and politicians ranging from Stephen King to Lady Bird Johnson.
For those looking for a little more information on the genesis of this cookbook, check out this article from The Beloit Daily News.
Koontz Kindle Single Jumps up Ebook Best-Seller List, Hachette Holds on
July 11, 2014
A Kindle Single from Dean Koontz and Penguin Random House has broken into the top-five of the Digital Book World Ebook Best-Seller list, a first for this list.
…The Neighbor by Dean Koontz is both a standalone Kindle Single selling for $0.99 as well as a prequel to a new novel from Koontz, The City, which came out July 1. The Neighbor is currently No. 4 on the ebook best-seller list. With less than a full week of sales, The City is currently No. 50 on the list (and therefore does not appear below). We’ll keep close watch over the next few weeks to see if and when The City has success that follows The Neighbor.
Read the full article @ Digital Book World.
Detours Limited Edition Sold Out In 55 Hours!
July 11, 2014
Well, if you were putting off ordering your copy of Detours, you’re out of luck.
The 1000 copy signed Limited Edition of Detours sold out in just 55 hours, which is especially amazing since it was offered over a holiday weekend when book sales are almost always nil. Thanks to everyone for all of your support!
Source: BrianJamesFreeman.com.
A 1989 film version of Phantoms?
July 10, 2014
We’re all aware of the 1998 Ben Afleck film version of Phantoms. However, according to the IMDB trivia page for the film, there was a version in development almost a decade earlier:
An adaptation of Phantoms was originally set to be made in the late 1980s/early 1990s by New World Pictures & Allied Vision Entertainment but was shelved after New World filed for bankruptcy.
I’d read this previously but had not ever found any actual documentation for such a film. Well, I’ve got some now. This is a page from a “trade magazine” from 1989. Unfortunately, I don’t have any further details at this time but if I find any I’ll be sure to share.
That typo wasn't just in the print version
July 10, 2014
Just a quick follow-up on my recent mention of the typo in the print ARC of The City. I remembered I had a eBook version of the the ARC too so I took a look. Yep, it’s there in the electronic version too. Would someone be willing to let me know if it got fixed in the official eBook release? (I don’t generally buy those.)
Dean's in People Magazine's Hottest Bachelors issue!
July 10, 2014
Well, an ad for The City is anyway. Don’t worry, from what I hear he and Gerda are doing just fine. 😉
Happy Birthday Dean!
July 9, 2014
Happy 69th birthday Dean. Keep on writing!
Dean on the Reading and Writing podcast
July 7, 2014
The 165th episode of the Reading & Writing podcast features an interview with bestselling writer Dean Koontz. Fourteen of Koontz novels have reached number one on the New York Times best seller list. Koontz’s latest novel THE CITY was published this week.
Listen to the episode @ readingandwritingpodcast.com.
Rutgers faculty and staff share the titles they can’t wait to tackle
July 7, 2014
Ellen Lieberman, associate dean, Douglass Residential College, New Brunswick: When I’m not reading books and articles about living-learning communities and women in science, technology, engineering and math (for research purposes), my “go to” type of book is science fiction, and my favorite fiction writer is Dean Koontz. Koontz captivates me with his integration of “light” and “dark” magic woven into wonderful storytelling. It’s the type of book you can read in a short period of time and escape to another world. His new book, The City, which is being released this summer is described as, “a place where enchantment and malice entwine, courage and honor are found in the most unexpected quarters, and the way forward lies buried deep inside the heart.”
Read the full article @ Rutgers Today.
Commercial for The City
July 6, 2014
Badges of summer: Join our two-month quest to squeeze the most from the season
July 5, 2014
READ A RANDOM COTTAGE NOVEL
Earning this merit badge is easy. If you’re heading to the cottage this summer, don’t pack any books. Leave your e-reader at home, leave the magazines in the mailbox and leave it to fate. One of the peculiar joys of cottage life is to submit to the reading habits of the previous occupants.
You know the kind of books I’m talking about: Wedged between a Monopoly set dating from the 1970s and a neglected cribbage board, these books gather dust 10 months of the year. Hardcovers too heavy to bring home, water-stained thrillers, paperbacks with the back cover torn off, fantasy series that never made it to HBO, historical bodice rippers an aunt forgot in the guest bedroom.
There are certain authors who are native to cottage bookshelves: Dean Koontz; Patricia Highsmith; Stephen King (Needful Things is just about as common as mosquitoes). These aren’t the kind of books you’ll discuss at your next dinner party, but this is one of the purest reading experiences life offers, unencumbered by Goodreads or the New York Times Book Review. These are books that save you on afternoons when it seems the rain will never end, on evenings when there’s nothing good on TV, on mornings when all you want to do is stay in bed just a little longer. Best of all, it’s an opportunity to read outside your comfort zone, take a chance on a genre or author you’ve never tried before.
Read the full article @ National Post.
Jim Engster interviews Dean on WWNO
July 4, 2014
#1 New York Times Best Selling Author Dean Koontz has done it again with The City — a riveting soul-stirring story of Jonah Kirk. On today’s show, Koontz speaks of his latest novel which he says is his wife’s favorite.
Listen to the full show @ WWNO.org. The interview with Dean starts at approximately 37:00.
Call Me Ishmael: First Lines From New Books
July 4, 2014
“My name is Jonah Ellington Basie Hines Eldridge Wilson Hampton Armstrong Kirk.” —From “The City” by Dean Koontz
Read the full article @ The Wall Street Journal. (Which uses the original cover design in the article, so I do so here.)
Small error in The City ARC
July 4, 2014
With the number of ARCs I’ve read (as opposed to proofs) I’ve really not found a lot of errors in the texts. However I spotted this one at just about the end of The City‘s ARC. I’ve double-checked it against the trade hard cover and it was fixed.
What I find most interesting is the typo itself, “11” instead of “ll”. I’ve mainly experienced this type of error when it comes to optical character recognition (OCR) post scanning a text, as opposed to manual transcription. It makes me wonder why OCR would have been done on what I assume was a manuscript that was submitted electronically.
Interview re: The City on Patheos.com
July 4, 2014
We live in an age where we believe that science and technology have made us aware of all that is, but the world is a deeply-layered place, of which we understand only the tiniest part.
By Leo Brunnick, June 30, 2014
Dean Koontz sat down with Leo Brunnick (founder and CEO of Patheos) to talk about his latest novel, The City.
This new release continues Koontz’ tradition of writing stories that are exciting and thrilling and scary, while at the same time full of hope and meaning. The City is a story told through the adult eyes of Jonah Kirk as he relates some things that happened to him and his family when he was a boy. Set in a prototypical American city in the 1960s, The City tells a tale of the evil that is present in the world, but also shows that evil can be offset by the far-greater goodness and love that is also there, even where that good is often quiet and unnoticed, and makes the headlines far less often. Avid readers of Koontz’ work notice the strong spiritual messages and symbolism that permeate his work, and in The City Koontz gives a view of the world, of divinity, and of the power of love that readers will find very moving. Expect to cry a lot when reading this book …In many of your books, and perhaps increasingly so as your work progresses, you show the presence of the Eternal, of Divinity, in nature, animals, relationships, and moments. How do you express that in a story like The City?
The stories I write—aside from the specifics of the story itself—talk about the operation of grace in our lives, which I see around me all the time. And the older I get, the more I see it. I think as you get older, and if you keep yourself alert and aware of what’s going on around you, you gain some wisdom, and it helps you see that.
With The City I wanted to tell a story that was about all the different types of love that exist, about the reality of evil, and about the magic that cities that comes from the operation of grace in our lives.
The City started as a much smaller book—basically as an e-single to help promote my previous book (Innocence) – with the connection being that this was in the same “universal city.” But as I started telling the story, I became enchanted with the voice of the character, this young piano prodigy Jonah Kirk, and about fifty pages into writing I realized this was going to be a novel. As I wrote, I had one of those experiences that writers can’t call forth on demand, and which certainly don’t happen to me very often—what psychologists call being in a “flow state” where it seems like you’re hardly writing the piece, that you’re more of a conduit for it. It made the experience of writing this book exhilarating from beginning to end.
Read the full interview @ Patheos.com.