Essays

I’ve been assaulting you with these posts for a few years now, and none of you has complained. Consequently, in order to take maximum advantage of your good will, I intend to pursue more aggressive steps to assist you in arriving at the correct and life-enhancing decision that owning all my books in multiple formats is the most certain path to happiness. Because your well-being is my primary concern, I urge you to consider that the minimum number of formats for each title in your collection should be hardcover, trade paperback, eBook, audio, and large print.

If you were to add a few foreign language editions—say, French or German or Bulgarian or Swedish—your happiness would be even more abundant and enduring. However, I wouldn’t be a responsible happiness coach if I failed to warn you that adding 20 or 30 or more foreign-language editions of each book could lead to a condition of such ecstasy that you will melt like a Hershey’s bar left in the sun. Scientists tell us that is a warm, sweet, painless, wonderful way to go, but then you would no longer be here to experience the incredible joy of reading my future novels.

If you happen to be one of those strangely selfless people who care less about your own happiness than about the happiness of others, the previous two paragraphs will have been unconvincing. Therefore, though I detest fearmongering as a sales tool, I feel morally obligated to tell you that scientists have reached a consensus and almost unanimously agree that possessing a large collection of my editions leads to a much longer, far healthier, and indescribably happier life than if you’re a fool who only reads one of my books occasionally.

I hesitate to present to you the disturbing statistics that prove a terrifying correlation between failing to collect my books and rapid physical decline, plagues of suppurating warts, toe fungus, and bulbous nose disease. Instead, so that you might continue to sleep well at night, I will only say that there’s a scientific reason why the average Koontz reader is much better looking and better smelling than those unfamiliar with my novels.

It is difficult to believe that we are already in May, especially if you are someone who denies reality as assiduously as I do. My very darn scary novel, The House at the End of the World, came out last January. Although I have indulged in some thumb twiddling, my next novel, After Death, will be published on July 18, 2023. In all humility, I will say it’s an action-packed, spooky story that involves the Singularity and presents the subject in a way no one has thought of before. Maybe with good reason.

With warmest wishes from me and everyone here in Koontzland, and in memory of those stoned to death by ignorant mobs who have so often misunderstood bulbous nose disease as a sign of demonic possession,

Dean Koontz