Lividian Publications

[Ben Staad]

Woohoo! Exciting times it sounds like.

Wishing you and LP a fantastic 2024.

[Brian James Freeman]

I posted some news about our 2024 production plans including hints about two projects with major New York Times bestselling authors we haven't published here at Lividian before:

https://lividian.com/lividian-public...lans-for-2024/

Brian

[Brian James Freeman]

I'm not sure when my first eBay "win" was, but I know that my account was created on November 18, 1998.

Holy shit - that was 25 years ago!

I realized the other day that I was signing a contract with an author who was younger than my eBay and Amazon accounts... ha

My first Amazon purchase was a good one - one for the ages:

September 15, 1998:

• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
• Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
• Bag of Bones by Stephen King

WOW! That is a great order.

[TacomaDiver]

I'm not sure when my first eBay "win" was, but I know that my account was created on November 18, 1998.

Holy shit - that was 25 years ago!

My first Amazon purchase was a good one - one for the ages:

September 15, 1998:

• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
• Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
• Bag of Bones by Stephen King

[Brian James Freeman]

I know this is random, but over on Patreon I'm thinking about my first eBay auction win way back on December 24, 1998, which then reminded me of "The Fuel of Tender Years" by Joey Froehlich, my first Amazon purchase. Diehard Stephen King collectors might remember Joey:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/do-you-remember-94997113

[Dave1442397]

I skipped this one. I've been reading Koontz since the '80s, and while I like his work, a lot of his books have the same themes (dogs, kids, black ops) and they start to blend together. I know I read Elsewhere, because it's in my Calibre library, but I don't remember it at all.

I'm trying to cut back on buying books "just because", so even though I know this will be another beautiful Lividian production, I'm holding off.

[brlesh]

In my teens and twenties Koontz was one of my go to author. Drifted away from his stories long ago and have occasionally thought of going back. This will be a good re-introduction to his work. Looking forward to it!

I started reading King in the early 80’s and this lead to my reading Koontz soon after. As both were K & K, and hence shelved next to each in the horror section of the bookstores (wow, remember those!), I started to read Koontz pretty regular.

My first Koontz was Phantoms, which I liked quite a bit. Other Koontz reads at the time, not as much. I think the comparisons to King hurt Koontz, at least in my teenage mind, as no one could compare to 70’s to mid 80’s King. I remember really liking Watchers from this time period, but everything else Koontz wrote in the 80’s just escapes my mind and I stopped reading him for several years.

Then in the mid 90’s I had an uncle that got me back into reading Koontz. Novels like Mr Murder, Midnight, Hideaway, & Dragon Tears were all enjoyable, if not memorable.

In the late 90’s I read his collection Strange Highways, which was memorable, and the Christopher Snow books, which I liked a lot (the Christopher Snow book had a distinct tie-in back to Watchers).

But in the early 2000s Koontz burn out started again. The last Koontz book I read was From the Corner of His Eye, which to this day remains the only book I‘ve finished, closed, and then threw across the room in frustration. A story that could have easily been told as a 60 page novella that was padded into a 600 page novel.

I haven’t read Koontz since, and based on the overviews of his novels, haven’t really been tempted with anything he’s written until Devoted a couple of years ago.

All this being said, I did order a copy of Elsewhere (have to keep my Lividian streak going), even though I was kind of lukewarm on the novel’s overview. Maybe if I like Elsewhere I’ll give Devoted a try somewhere down the line.

B

[Splync]

I'm shocked that Brian is doing a newer Koontz title, as Charnel House usually snatches them up.

I'm intrigued, personally!

[RonClinton]

Chiming in on the Koontz comments: I had the same reaction as Martin and Ron, though I think that I started reading him in the 90s, but mostly his older stuff. Like most, I loved Watchers to death and have a few pleasant memories of his other books, but, at least when I drifted away, I noticed a underlying template to his books, hitting some of the some tropes over and over again, that just kinda turned me off. I still have a couple of his books in the TBR that stood out to me--used paperbacks of Odd Thomas, What the Night Knows, and The Funhouse, along with SST's edition of Devoted--but they always slide back down the pile.

There was a definitive overuse of particular tropes and cookie-cutter character types (and brilliant dogs), and what seemed like a general dumbing-down of the quality of prose, whether intentional to expand his mass-market reach or incidental I have no idea. Looking at the Wikipedia bibliography, I remember enjoying just about everything up to MIDNIGHT in '89, but a succession of disappointing novels like THE BAD PLACE, COLD FIRE, HIDEAWAY, and DRAGON TEARS pushed me away in the early '90s. I did enjoy 1995's STRANGE HIGHWAYS (collection) and INTENSITY, but other attempts like the first ODD THOMAS and a couple others just confirmed that he was no longer for me. It wasn't with pleasure that I realized that, because I *really* enjoyed his stuff from NIGHT CHILLS in '76 to LIGHTNING in '88...that was one helluva decade of fantastic fiction.

[Sock Monkey]

Chiming in on the Koontz comments: I had the same reaction as Martin and Ron, though I think that I started reading him in the 90s, but mostly his older stuff. Like most, I loved Watchers to death and have a few pleasant memories of his other books, but, at least when I drifted away, I noticed a underlying template to his books, hitting some of the some tropes over and over again, that just kinda turned me off. I still have a couple of his books in the TBR that stood out to me--used paperbacks of Odd Thomas, What the Night Knows, and The Funhouse, along with SST's edition of Devoted--but they always slide back down the pile.

[Martin]

Same experience with me. Loved his early work in the late '70s and '80s, but his work in the '90s quickly and progressively pushed me away. Of all his recent work, this particular one caught my eye the most when it came out in the trade edition...not enough for me to actually buy the thing and see if that ember of interest was justified, but <shrug>. I have been giving this Lividian edition some thought because of that interest, but then I think if I don't have enough honest interest to buy the $25 trade, do I have enough for the deluxe edition costing six (or ?) times more. But we'll see...this might make, for me, a good secondary-market buy, if by chance the price is friendlier at that point (which probably isn't likely, but....).

That is interesting that you say his writing in the 90s pushed you away. I literally have no memory of why I drifted away from his writing, but my timeline matches yours. I may have to review his bibliography to see if it helps me to realize that maybe some of his works turned me off. As I receive all Lividian titles as part of my Patreon subscription there was no buying decision for me to make, but I was pleased with the announcement.

[RonClinton]

In my teens and twenties Koontz was one of my go to author. Drifted away from his stories long ago and have occasionally thought of going back. This will be a good re-introduction to his work. Looking forward to it!

Same experience with me. Loved his early work in the late '70s and '80s, but his work in the '90s quickly and progressively pushed me away. Of all his recent work, this particular one caught my eye the most when it came out in the trade edition...not enough for me to actually buy the thing and see if that ember of interest was justified, but <shrug>. I have been giving this Lividian edition some thought because of that interest, but then I think if I don't have enough honest interest to buy the $25 trade, do I have enough for the deluxe edition costing six (or ?) times more. But we'll see...this might make, for me, a good secondary-market buy, if by chance the price is friendlier at that point (which probably isn't likely, but....).

[Martin]

Any love for the next book? Sounds like a fun read.

https://lividian.com/just-announced-...trnlCAmiLHaPxY

In my teens and twenties Koontz was one of my go to author. Drifted away from his stories long ago and have occasionally thought of going back. This will be a good re-introduction to his work. Looking forward to it!

[Ben Staad]

Any love for the next book? Sounds like a fun read.

https://lividian.com/just-announced-...trnlCAmiLHaPxY

[Ben Staad]