[HN Gopher] What scares master of suspense Dean Koontz? Plenty ___________________________________________________________________ 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 ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-05-05 23:00 UTC)