Maybe it’s trendy to hate on Koontz but I enjoyed his books when I was a bit younger. The Face, Watchers, TickTock and a couple others but I also liked Clive Cussler at the time so there is that. I think I found it easy to pick up and read as opposed to an investment like King.
A quick google says that Koontz has sold 450 million books and is worth over 200 million. I’m sure he is okay with not being some people’s favourite.
I enjoyed the hell of his books at one point, read a bunch of them over the course of a year or two. In hindsight he’s very formulaic and everything is pretty predictable, but they’re a fun read for what they are.
Y’know what, I think I either completely fabricated a memory in my head or more likely got the person confused. I very vividly remember hearing about a prolific wealthy author who got called out for taking credit for a lot of other people’s work but I now can’t find any word about it being RL Stine despite my memory. No idea who I’m remembering.
I got to spend a couple of days at a sci-fi convention at a table next to Richard Hatch of the 1970s Battlestar Galactica fame. He was a really cool guy and we spent all day joking around. Every so often, someone would come by and say, “hey! You’re uh… uh…” and I would say, “he’s Dirk Benedict.” (That was his BSG co-star). Once I told a lady that she better not call him Dirk Benedict because it makes him really mad.
If I had a photo of Dirk Benedict, I would have asked him to sign it.
Sadly, Richard Hatch is no longer with us. I really enjoyed hanging out with him. He was way into tabletop gaming and even would leave the table sometimes to host a session. I’m not a huge TTGer anymore, but I wish I could have had Richard Hatch as a GM.
I’ve had a lot of cool experiences meeting people in the sci-fi/fantasy world by working tables at sci-fi cons due to two different reasons about ten years apart, but that era of my life is over. I can only go as a regular conventioneer now. I take my daughter to them on occasion if one is nearby because she likes to look at all the cosplay.
I also got to see Gwar and The Misfits do a free double-act concert late at night at DragonCon in the 90s, which topped most of the notable people I met, even though my experience with pretty much all of them was good.
In Québec in 1998 during the ice storm, we missed power for 5 weeks. They derailled train to bring them at some place to plug their big diesel generators on the city power system.
Yes they were driving train on the asphalt road, I’m sure you can find pic and videos or it.
King is my favorite author, hands down, but I don’t understand why so many people seem to look down at Koontz. If we’re really being honest, Koontz would be much more well regarded if it weren’t for the fact that he’s so frequently directly compared to King, and Stephen King is a one-of-a-kind, once in a lifetime literary master. Absent the comparison to King, the bulk of Koontz’s work holds up quite well. It’s entertaining writing with relatable characters that are easy for become invested in. Hell, some of his ideas were not only terrifyingly imaginative, they were also oddly accurate predictions of the future. Demon Seed is uniquely chilling in that it was almost comically over the top with its seemingly ridiculous technology that has since very much become a reality.
I would also argue that Koontz has had a few film adaptations that ended up better than the King adaptations of their time. Phantoms, Watchers, Servants of Twilight, Whispers, Intensity, and Mr. Murder were all pretty great.
Koontz has a great track record. He simply suffers from living in the shadow of a modern day colossus like King. Absent the comparison, I feel Koontz would be much more favorably viewed.
The past few months to a year or so we’ve seen a total restructure of the internet. Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have been actively scaring away their user bases.
It’s resulting in a split and divided internet. Like the days of old. Fediverse ActivityPub integration is the only thing that can undo that and revive these all-in-one style communications platforms.
I beg to differ. If there’s one thing, even though I only got properly into the Internet around 2020, I have heard about how old social media was FAR better for the internet in general than stuff like Youtube and Twitter from people like Kurzgesagt; it allowed for more IRL-like social interaction through the segregation of communities into different ‘cliques’, kind of what Reddit and Lemmy are trying to capture. As a consequence, there was far less open and widespread drama, random hate and misinformation, unlike today.
Stating obvious shit like it was some hidden piece of wisdom? Inability to handle subtleties like “lying” vs. “saying an incorrect statement”? Voting system? People repeating the same shit over and over, without reading the others’ comments?
EDIT: I’m highlighting that this YT comment section shows a lot of things to hate in Reddit. In some aspects they’re behaving exactly like redditors; in some they’re actually doing it better, even if YT is a cesspool of idiocy.
Point 1 & 3 basically. Every thread where there’s an obvious subtext it seems like the top 5 comments are telling you about it while patting themselves on the back for figuring out while seemingly not having read any of the other comments.
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