List of dean koontz books in order
His alcoholic father mistreated him as a child frequently.
Dean koontz after death
He attended the Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, where he won a fiction contest sponsored by The Atlantic, a famous American lifestyle magazine. He received his diploma in Throughout the s, he also served for the Appalachian Poverty Program, a non-profit organization that aided the underprivileged. He switched to Catholicism while still in college.
Dean was born into a Roman Catholic family. His father is Raymond Koontz, and his mother is Florence Logue. There is no news about his siblings. They are still together and often publish images on social media.
However, there is no news about their children, son, and daughter. Dean Koontz began his career in by publishing his first novel, Star Quest. He went on to publish over a dozen science-fiction books after that. Screenplays [ edit ]. Film adaptations [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. The New York Times.
Dean koontz books in order
January 11, Retrieved Retrieved 23 September Archived from the original on Borgo Press. ISBN San Francisco Chronicle. Advocates for Self-Government. National Catholic Register. Archived from the original on January 17, Dean Koontz : a writer's biography.
Dean koontz watchers: Dean Ray Koontz (born July 9, ) is an American author. His novels are billed as suspense thrillers, but frequently incorporate elements of horror, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and satire.
New York, N. ISBN X. LCCN Lewis to Left Behind. Greenwood Press. October 3, Publishing Perspectives. Deseret News.
Biography of dean koontz writer brown
Archived from the original on September 6, Retrieved 13 August Three Complete Novels: Dean R. Dean R. With Kevin J. Twilight , Pocket Books, , revised edition published under name Dean R. Ferman and Barry N. Popular among both adult and teen readers, Dean R. Koontz is an acknowledged master of a hybrid class of books that combine suspense, horror, romance, and science fiction.
His more than seventy books have sold in the millions and have been adapted for such successful movies as Demon Seed, Watchers , and Shattered. Though often dubbed a horror novelist, Koontz himself rejects such labels and views his own work as basically optimistic, showing hard-fought battles between good and evil. A favorite Koontz theme is the conflict between emotion and reason, and the emotional level of his books—a step beyond the usual plot-heavy nature of much of the genre—has gained him the respect of many critics.
According to Charles de Lint, writing in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , Koontz consistently succeeds at "telling a harrowing, highly suspenseful story featuring quick-witted protagonists who face the world with a positive attitude and exchange rapid-fire dialogue. An only child, Koontz grew up in Pennsylvania.
In his first novel, Star Quest , was published, and Koontz quickly followed it with a second science-fiction novel. In the early s, determined to make a try at full-time writing, Koontz was aided by his wife, who agreed to support the family for five years while her husband followed his dream. He adopted an assortment of pseudonyms and tackled various genres, including science fiction, mystery, and thrillers.
Dwyer about the after-effects of Vietnam on a veteran, as "the beginning of my real career as a writer. Writing in several genres aided Koontz in developing his own unique form of dark suspense, and his addition of humor, romance, and occult elements have created a distinctive body of work. Considered his breakthrough novel, 's Whispers is a dark and violent story of childhood cruelty, rape, and murder.
Hilary Thomas is a survivor of abusive alcoholic parents who has become a successful screenwriter; she is attacked by millionaire Bruno Frye, whom she subsequently stabs to death. When Bruno returns from the grave to stalk her, it is left to Hilary's police officer boyfriend to help her unravel the twisted tale of Bruno's childhood and reveal the powers at work in this "slick tale of horror," as Rex E.
Klett described the book in Library Journal. A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that the "psychological portrait of the sick, sick Bruno makes skin crawl. Koontz considers the horror novels Phantoms and Darkfall "sidesteps in my career. Soon the characters begin to experience nightmares, intense fears, and even supernormal powers that drive each toward uncovering the mystery and conspiracy that binds them.
Johnson dubbed the novel an "almost unbearably suspenseful page-turner.
Dean koontz books
The misuse of science is at the heart of Watchers , which was chosen one of the American Library Association's best books for young adults in Recombinant DNA experiments go wrong at a government lab, and suddenly two mutants—one with human intelligence to be used for spying and the other a killer—are on the loose in Southern California.
According to Koontz, between the words "Popular" and "Best-selling" lie all the differences between two approaches to writing, a reflection of his decision in a year after publishing Writing Popular Fiction to leave the narrow field of science fiction. Signs of Koontz's early success as a writer came first with contracts he had landed at major publishers like Random House, Atheneum, and Bobbs-Merrill.
Film versions of Watchers and other thrillers from the s, however, eventually convinced Koontz to give up on selling movie rights to his work unless he could retain authorial control of the screenplay. His dissatisfaction with film treatments of his work and strong sense of ownership towards it explain in large part why there have been far fewer Koontz novels filmed than those of his counterpart, Stephen King.
This proprietary sensibility has even been extended to the published editions of his early work. As a result, Koontz has retrieved the for all of his early and out-of-print science fiction, with the avowed intent of either republishing certain works in rewritten form as in the case of his novel Invasion, written as Aaron Wolfe, which appeared completely reworked in as Winter Moon or keeping them outof-print as long as law permits.
Koontz's critical reception has always been, and continues to be, positive.
Reviewers recognize that his fiction is no more and no less than high-standard commercial fiction and, as a consequence, have scored him well in that regard. Few of his novels have achieved the level of artfulness of contemporaries like Stephen King and Clive Barker, or lesser-known fiction writers like Ramsey Campbell and T.
Certain patterns clearly emerge in most of his mature, later fiction: there is always a love interest; major and important minor characters generally come from dysfunctional families and broken homes based in part on Koontz's own ; an oddball sense of humor infiltrates the occasional banter between characters; and his politics, when revealed at all, incline towards a libertarian, anti- gun control stance with a strong dose of pro- civil rights liberalism thrown in.
Finally, despite his abdication of the genre, science fiction—based premises run throughout the later major fiction: Watchers, Shadowfires, and Midnight focus on the threat of genetic engineering ; Night Chills offers a disturbing portrait of mind control; the story of Lightning is driven by time travel; and Dragon Tears, The Vision, The Bad Place, and Cold Fire depend upon the psychokinetic abilities of their protagonists and antagonists.
Because he cares about his craft in a way that few commercial writers do, Koontz has risen to the top of bestseller lists; he has demonstrated how much he cares by keeping his lesser works out of print and his major works from the corrupting influence of television and film producers. Popular fiction is meant to give readers pleasure, and Koontz does not fail in his mission.
In The Dean Koontz Companion, horror-fiction writer Charles de Lint summed up Koontz's contributions to fiction like this: "Dedication to his craft, an optimistic belief in the inherent goodness of humankind, a loving partner, and business acumen … these have all combined in Koontz to give us an author capable of bringing a reader to tears and laughter, sometimes on the same page, in a manner that no other author has been able to duplicate.
Greenberg, Martin H. The Dean Koontz Companion. New York , Berkley Books, Koontz, Dean Ray. How to Write Best-Selling Fiction. Cincinnati, Writer's Digest Books,