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Dean Koontz
 Born
on July 9, 1945, best-selling author
Dean Koontz has written more than seventy supernatural and
science fiction thrillers, including The Bad Place (1990) and
Mr. Murder (1993). But life for Koontz hasn't always been
filled with success.
He grew up with an alcoholic, schizophrenic, abusive father who held
forty-four jobs in thirty-four years. He was fired from most of them for
punching out his bosses.
The Koontz family was poor, and Koontz
often spent time living with relatives and friends of the family. He
became obsessed with comic books and science fiction novels and began
writing books himself, selling them for a nickel apiece to friends and
neighbors.
 As
a young man, Koontz married his high school sweetheart, took a job as an
English teacher, and wrote whenever he had the chance. He published
his first book, a science fiction thriller called Star Quest, in 1968.
 Over
the next eighteen years, Koontz wrote fifty-four novels, none of which was a
bestseller. They were books with titles such as Demon Child
(1971) and The Flesh in the Furnace (1972). He used ten
different pseudonyms because he was publishing several different books each
year. He finally made the hardcover bestseller list with his novel,
Strangers (1986), about a group of people across the country who
slowly realize that they've been brainwashed by the government.
Koontz continues to publish books, although he has made it a point never to
go on a talk show or do a nationwide book tour because of his fear of
flying. Despite that fact, almost every book he has published has been a bestseller,
and he has sold more than 200 million copies worldwide. His
most recent book is The Taking, which
was released in May 2004.
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