Dean Koontz Answers His Most Frequently Asked Questions

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1) What is the meaning of life?

We are here to eat as many corn chips and as much salsa as we are able.
When we have had enough, it is our time to go.

2) Will you ever write a sequel to any of your novels?

The only novel to which I've contemplated writing a sequel is Watchers, but
even that might never happen. There are two good reasons for not doing it.
First, new ideas grip me, and I am more excited about those than about
returning to older ideas. Second, I wouldn't want to write a half-baked
sequel because that would ruin everyone's memory of the first book. If
there's going to be a sequel to Watchers, it has to be every bit as strong
as the original. So, if one day the right idea hits me and I feel compelled
to write the sequel, then I will. Otherwise, I won't.

3) Have you ever been abducted by aliens?

Yes, but it wasn't a traumatic experience. They took me to dinner in a fine
French restaurant, to a Barbra Streisand concert where we had wonderful
seats, and then home. They behaved like perfect gentlemen.

4) In many of your books, I see poetry from The Book Of Counted Sorrows
What is this book, and where can I find a copy?

Frequently, when looking for just the right bit of verse to use in the
front of a novel or at one of the part divisions to underline one of the
themes of the story, I can't quite find what I need. When that happens, I
write the verse myself and attribute it to The Book of Counted Sorrows,
which is a nonexistent volume -- at least at the moment.

When I began doing this, it never occurred to me that so many people would
like the poetry well enough to seek out The Book of Counted Sorrows . Now
we receive a couple of thousand letters a year from readers who have looked
long and hard for the book without, of course, any luck. Ten or twenty
percent of that mail comes from librarians writing on behalf of patrons for
whom they have been unable to obtain a copy. I feel guilty about all the
time that's been wasted in these fruitless searches.

I do intend to have it published, once I've composed enough verses. I
imagine this will be sometime in 1996 or 1997.

5) Do you believe that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is correct?

It seems a little far out to me. But sometimes when I'm hanging from the
entry-hall chandelier by my toes and eating bananas, I have to wonder.

6) Where in the world do you get your ideas?

I'm not really sure. I read widely in all forms of fiction and nonfiction.
I subscribe to magazines covering a variety of sciences, medical research,
business, economics, and many other subjects. I don't actually read them in
search of ideas, but by packing the subconscious full of all this
information, I am priming the pump. Weeks, months, or years after I've read
about something, I'll suddenly get an idea that springs from what I've
read. For instance, I read about the latest developments in resuscitation
medicine perhaps a year before the idea for Hideaway popped into my mind.
But I know that if I hadn't read that piece, the idea never would have
occurred to me. I don't sit around consciously trying to come up with
ideas, but then I don't really have to, because my subconscious provides me
with more than I will ever be able to use.

7) Do you believe in life after death?

Yes. Very much so. But I do not, however, pretend to know what lies on the
Other Side -- though perhaps it's a place like "Baywatch" only not so
intellectual. I think it's wise to take along numerous rolls of quarters,
because regardless of what the afterlife may be, it's sure to include video
games and vending machines.

8) Are your stories ever based on things that have happened to you?

Well, I've never encountered aliens, given a home to an intelligent dog
that's escaped from a laboratory, or had encounters with a murderous
look-alike. But, yes, every book contains material that comes from personal
experience. I am in love with my wife, so I know what being in love feels
like. I have been shot at and have had to struggle for my life, so I know
how that feels. No character in any book is based solely or even largely on
any single person in real life -- they'd sue! -- but every character has
qualities and traits and habits and ideas that I've seen in real people.

Frequently I hear dialogue in real life that strikes me as funny, stupid,
naive, or interesting for some other reason, and I store it away for use in
a novel to make a character more convincing. I generally write about places
which I've visited -- or California, where I live -- so all the
geographical details and descriptions are out of personal experience. If
there's a subject about which I know nothing -- like thoracic surgery,
which was Ginger Weiss's specialty in Strangers -- I read about it, talk to
experts, educate myself as much as necessary. Therefore, though I'm not a
thoracic surgeon--or even a podiatrist--I do know what I'm writing about,
so in that sense I'm writing out of my personal experience.

9) Do you know why the chicken crossed the road?

Who knows why chickens do anything? They are mysterious and deep-thinking
creatures who function on a level far beyond our own. We are to them as
toads are to us, and we can never hope to grasp the world as chickens see
it any more than a toad can hope to work complex algebraic equations. Most
chickens disdain our intellectual pretensions, despise our television
programs, and mock our popular culture. We have nothing in common with them
-- except that they, too, are beginning to wonder if Madonna is really all
that interesting. If we ponder the meaning of any chicken's actions,
including those of the one that crossed the road, we will only be filled
with despair at our inadequate analytic and perceptive abilities in the
face of their greatness.

10) What is your favorite of your own books?

Right now I think it's a tie between Watchers and Intensity, which comes
out later in the year, closely followed by Mr. Murder and Dark Rivers of
the Heart.

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