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Bloody Disgusting doesn’t like 77 Shadow Street

March 7, 2012

Well, here’s their punch line:

Along with his weird, over-explanatory gun fetishism (“The Baretta 9mm featured a twenty-round magazine, a six-inch Mag-na-ported Jarvis barrel, and Trijicon night sights“), Koontz rolls out all of his traditional tropes for his drooling fan-base, but the resulting novel is a boring, under-plotted mess for anyone but Koontz loyalists.

Read the whole thing at Bloody-Disgusting .com. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know.

Politics

March 3, 2012

I’ve been a bit hesitant to post this as I don’t want to really get into political issues but this keeps coming across my feeds lately so I’m just going to share it without comment.

From OCWeekly:

Dean Koontz, the Stephen King of Newport Beach, Gives to Texas GOP Senate Candidate

Newport Beach author Dean Koontz has contributed $2,500 to former Solicitor General Ted Cruz, one of three Republicans hoping to replace Kay Bailey Hutchinson as U.S. Senator in Texas.

more

The Mask cover art

March 3, 2012

Mask PPBKHere’s the cover art for the Bantam premium paperback edition of The Mask that’s being released this coming Tuesday, March 6, 2012.

Ticktock premium paperback on the way

March 3, 2012

According to Amazon Bantam will be releasing a premium paperback edition of Ticktock on 31 July 2012. No cover image is yet available.

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.

Beauty & The Beard by Dean Koontz

Watch the whole video for yourself to get the context.

Intensity Premium Paperback

February 26, 2012

Intensity PPBKThe premium paperback edition of Intensity was released back on January 31st and I’d somehow missed it until earlier this week.

Dean Koontz to Speak at Laguna Playhouse

February 17, 2012

via broadwayworld.com:

New York Times best seller and internationally acclaimed author Dean Koontz will provide an insiders view of the literary world and speak about his experience, recent works, and upcoming projects during a “A Special Evening with Dean Koontz” at The Laguna Playhouse on April 2, 2012 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm.  Barbara Barrett Demarco, host of KUCI’s Writers on Writing and Book Salon will introduce and moderate the evening. 

Tickets to the event are $50.00 per person and may be purchased by calling The Laguna Playhouse Box Office at (949) 497-2787 Ext. 1 and online.

Read more: http://losangeles.broadwayworld.com/article/Dean-Koontz-to-Speak-at-Laguna-Playhouse-42-20120214#ixzz1meg02jS0

House of Thunder trade re-release

February 17, 2012

Looks like The House of Thunder will be getting the trade-paperback treatment with a release date of 4 September 2012. (No cover art yet of course.)

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

The Bad Place trade paperback

January 26, 2012

The Bad Place TPBKSomehow I’d missed that back on January 3rd, Berkley released it’s latest trade paperback reprint, this time of The Bad Place which includes the 2004 Afterword by Dean.

Edward Lee writes like Dean Koontz?

January 16, 2012

ghouls_titlesHere’s another one for the ephemera appendix…

I’m a Dean Koontz fan obviously. I’m also a big fan of Edward Lee. Would I say these two authors are anything like each other? Most definitely not. Dean leans toward the subtle, while Ed is anything but subtle. So, much to my surprise I find the following statement on the back of the Necro Publications release of Edward Lee’s Ghouls:

“A novel of unrelenting horror in the tradition of Dean Koontz.”

Granted this book was originally published by Pinnacle in 1988 so maybe this text is being reprinted from a much less extreme time in Ed Lee’s life but I must admit this comparison, in my experience, is a bit of a stretch. When I get to reading it, I’ll see if I can post something that might explain it all.

77 Shadow Street is No. 1

January 14, 2012

According to The New York Times, 77 Shadow Street made the #1 spot on the bestseller list this week and is the 14th Koontz title to do so. If you’re interested here’s the chart they present showing the details.

image

77 Shadow Street UK HC for half price

January 14, 2012

77 Shadow Street UK HCAccording to this page @ SFX Magazine, the latest issue has a coupon for half off the UK hard cover edition of 77 Shadow Street at your local WH Smith from 19 January (release date) through 7 February. Too bad that us US folks can’t use this coupon online.

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:

360cameraTo 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

All eight US editions of 77 Shadow Street

January 5, 2012

Click for Flickr version with descriptive notes.
Eight US Editions of Dean Koontz's 77 Shadow Street

Deeply Odd

January 4, 2012

Did you catch this bit in the latest issue of Useless News?

Dean is currently writing ODD APOCALYPSE, the fifth Odd Thomas novel, which will be published in July 2012. As soon as he has finished it, he will write the sixth in the series, DEEPLY ODD. Then he will most likely write a non-Odd novel before returning to the seventh and final book in the series.

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

77 Shadow Street QRCodeTurns 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.

77 Shadow Street copyright error?

January 1, 2012

77 Shadow Street Large PrintI received my copy of the large print edition of 77 Shadow Street the other day and just noticed that it has the following copyright statement:

Copyright © 2010 by Dean Koontz

As you can probably guess all the other editions list a 2011 copyright date. I’m assuming this is an error but it’s things like this that the Collector’s Guide is designed to point out.