Dean Koontz is one of the most prolific writers in the genre of thrillers of 80’s and 90’s. He also worked for television and film industry as screenwriter and occasional executive producer.
Dean R. Koontz or Dean Ray Koontz was born on 9th July, 1945 in Everett, Pennsylvania. He studied in Shippensburg State College and graduated from there. After that he worked as a teacher for an anti-poverty campaign in the 60’s. He used to write in his spare time but hasn’t started his writing career and served as a high school English teacher outside of Harrisburg. In the 70’s, he began his full-time writing career with the support of his wife, Gerda. His initial work comprised of novels from various genres including romance and thriller under a large number of pseudonyms.
Koontz won an Atlantic Monthly Fiction Competition when he was a senior in college. He has an estimated number of over 400 million copies sold and his work has been published in more than 38 languages all over the world. His books have topped New York’s bestsellers’ list thirteen times and he also has to his credit of becoming the bestseller in countries as diverse as Sweden and Japan.
In 1973, his novel Demon Seed was sold to MGM and the movie did a moderate business and despite its unpleasant concept of a computer’s wish to produce offspring made its way into the prime time television.
Koontz also worked for novelizing the screenplay of an upcoming movie The Funhouse, which was highly anticipated. Koontz breakaway from traditional novelizing of screenplay and came up with excellent work that was published months before the movie was released. Though it was to promote the movie, the novel itself was a huge hit. But after the movie was released; it couldn’t do well and the failure of movie to do well on screen also plunged the novel’s popularity in the market.
His skillful story telling and effective build up for characters and to create thrilling and mysterious plots earned him reputation of a bestseller writer. Several of his novels were adapted to the screen and he also wrote the screenplay for the film version of Phantoms (1998). His several other short stories and novels have been projected into the television and films.
Koontz has established his name among the likes of Stephen King and Tom Clancy with his name going into several miniseries and earning him a high fan following as a selling point.