[HN Gopher] What scares master of suspense Dean Koontz? Plenty
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What scares master of suspense Dean Koontz? Plenty
Author : samclemens
Score : 37 points
Date : 2023-05-05 02:39 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| UberFly wrote:
| Heard him on Art Bell 20 years ago. Was a great interview. I
| remember him being really down to earth.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| https://archive.is/zHegT
| version_five wrote:
| Still, every night Koontz places a freshly printed copy of
| whatever manuscript he's working on in the fridge -- just in case
| of a conflagration.
|
| I know this is all about showing how eccentric he is, but really?
| I'd be more interested to understand why he doesn't use offsite
| backups. The fact that he's printing it implies a digital copy.
| m463 wrote:
| I suspect premature release of an upcoming book by a hacker
| group is a more real threat than a fire.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Was listening to a podcast about this a while back; it's very
| much a thing (though it's usually via social engineering;
| emailing the editor pretending to be a translator or
| similar). There's some mystery over _why_ people do it, IIRC;
| there's not much money in it.
| version_five wrote:
| My guess is that sort of thing involves the publisher that
| has early drafts of the manuscript though, was that the
| case? They seem like a weaker link (more people involved)
| than the author.
|
| Also I'd be curious to know the hierarchy of which leaks
| are more valuable. I'd speculate (I could be way off) that
| mass market paperbacks like this are not a hot commodity in
| the warez world, but then again I don't know what would be.
| Maybe that's all part of the mystery.
| akiselev wrote:
| I don't think there's much mystery - it's almost entirely
| for bragging rights. I remember when _Harry Potter and the
| Deathly Hollows_ was leaked on LUElinks a week or two
| before release and it was just some random bloke who wanted
| to impress everyone. Same with the recent Discord leaks.
| UberFly wrote:
| Plus he's probably set in his ways. He also doesn't even use
| the internet, even to do research.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| He's big on printouts for emergency backup.
|
| OSC was, too, I think, after he lost a bunch of writing.
|
| The refrigerator is an interesting location. It almost brings to
| mind the symbolism of the act/location itself, in the "why not
| just a cool fire safe, I mean look at your bulging wallet" sense.
| The guy had stainless steel interior doors custom designed for
| his home library.
|
| So, using a fridge seems kinda irrational in various ways. Maybe
| unless you're a big _Crystal Skull_ fan.
|
| I wonder what other authors have done along these lines. Do they
| save only the current manuscript, some subset of papers
| representing achievements, or whole pallets, etc. I mean,
| certainly a pallet is practically nothing, if it provides peace
| of mind, backs up lots of good stuff, and takes up less floor
| space than the golf cart?
|
| I printed out my life timeline with major events and things once,
| just to have something of a history around in case of a fire, or
| fire and my screaming death. It felt absolutely ridiculous to
| print it out and store it, and I really hoped nobody found the
| document while cleaning out the fire-proof thingy.
|
| But while packing it away, I got to wondering about a reasonable
| upper bound of storage for people who write a lot of good stuff,
| published or not.
| dmbche wrote:
| There is a scene in 100 years of solitude[0] where a background
| character (the butcher? Or baker?) dies, and while in his house
| they find crates and crates filled with thousands of sheets of
| papers, all covererd in handwriting. I think they don't even
| check what it is, if it's a journal or something else. They
| move on.
|
| Kinda stuck with me.
|
| Also, don't know why, but this makes me think of filmmakers
| using salt mines to store film negatives! [1]
|
| [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hundred_Years_of_Solitud
| ... [1]:https://www.agweb.com/news/business/technology/hidden-
| underg...
| jebarker wrote:
| When I had my family trust notarized the lawyer recommended
| keeping a copy in the freezer as it's the most likely place in
| the house to survive a house fire.
| bagels wrote:
| I have a hard time believing that the freezer would be better
| than a small fire safe for that purpose. The freezer has
| plastic seals that would melt, letting the heat in. All the
| frozen food/ice freezer would melt making for water damage.
| ketzo wrote:
| ...I mean, presumably you put it in a Ziploc bag first...
| kingcharles wrote:
| As someone that just lost everything I own to fire I think
| this is a bad idea. The fire is a problem, certainly, but a
| secondary problem that killed all my paperwork was the fire
| service putting out the fire. That high pressure water is
| getting into literally everything, even things that seem like
| they are totally and fully water resistant.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| I admit he does something well because he sells so many books but
| ive tried to read a few and god damn i cant do it. Theyre so
| poorly written, so implausible, such bad characters.
|
| I cant believe the article puts him in a class with john grisham.
|
| And i dont think its just my subjective opinion either. Look at
| the movies that have been adapted from their works in comparison.
| Grisham's books were interpreted into a ton of thrillers that
| were successful & have stood the test of time. Same with other
| thriller writers. Koontz movies have universally flopped into
| obscurity. And while not all good books can be made into movies,
| its a reasonable test for a thriller.
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| Agreed, not good author. But someone got there before me:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35833341 and worth seeing
| (15 seccs).
|
| Apparently Koontz did his own voice there and I've got a lot of
| time for those who can laugh at themslves.
| AndrewStephens wrote:
| I know this is not what the article is about, but I read a lot
| of junk and Dean Koontz has been on my Do Not Read Not Matter
| How Enticing The Blurb list for decades after being burnt twice
| by terrible (and terribly long) novels.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I think what he does well is "be consistent to a voice," which
| you have to admit is a talent in itself. On top of that, simply
| having the drive to write _so freaking much_. I can barely be
| arsed to write a meaningful technical document or RFC and this
| guy's churned out 500 _books_. That's god damned impressive by
| any measure.
| omgmajk wrote:
| I kinda like him, Koontz has written some gems. This is being
| unnecessary mean.
| mindcrime wrote:
| Wow. I couldn't disagree more vehemently if I tried.
|
| I would put him well above Grisham personally. For my money,
| Koontz is one of the most under-appreciated writers living
| today. And I don't think whether a writers works have been
| translated into successful movies or not is even slightly
| meaningful as a metric.
|
| For what it's worth though, I totally acknowledge that that is
| my subjective opinion.
| dmbche wrote:
| Could you recommend one or two of his that you are
| particularely fond of?
| strictnein wrote:
| Growing up Koontz was kind of my filler in between Stephen King
| novels. Felt inferior, but enjoyable enough. Great for
| airplanes, where you could likely finish it on the flight back
| home.
|
| I haven't reread them, but Hideaway and The Door to December
| really stuck in my mind, especially the latter.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Weird, I feel the other way around. I was just telling my
| family the other day that if there's a Dean Koontz novel in an
| AirBNB or a house I'm a guest in, I'm absolutely picking it up
| and probably finishing it in a weekend.
|
| (Although, now that I'm looking through his bibliography, I
| don't see a single title I remember, though some plots are
| coming back to me.)
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > Still, every night Koontz places a freshly printed copy of
| whatever manuscript he's working on in the fridge -- just in case
| of a conflagration.
|
| Don't modern refrigerators use pentane as the refrigerant which
| is pretty flammable?
|
| If there were a fire, there is a good chance that the inside of
| the refrigerator could be literally toast.
|
| A fireproof safe would be a better option for physical copies and
| offsite backups of digital copies.
| neilv wrote:
| For on-site, I'd get a high-end document/data safe. Some of
| them swing open like a fridge, if he has a ritual he wants to
| preserve.
|
| Also, some techie could rig up transparent off-site backups
| that are guaranteed not to cause the interruption/distraction
| that he goes to pains to avoid.
| hinkley wrote:
| Brian from Family Guy should worry him:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKAouJB5SXg
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