King Koontz

From an anonymous commenter, attributed to “unknown”, posted on a forgotten article I read earlier in the week:

“Stephen King is to the Rolling Stones as Dean R. Koontz is to the Beatles.”

To those in the know this makes absolute perfect sense. Over the past 35 years I’ve put away 38 Kings and 16 Koontzes – an average of one-and-a-half per year, though in the period of 1988-1990 I think I read half of those 54 books (including all but one Koontz).

My favorite King? Hands down, It. Runner-up, Tommyknockers.

My favorite Koontz? More difficult, probably a toss-up between Whispers, Phantoms, or The Bad Place.

King’s works are sprawling, ungainly, often epic, sometimes filler-filled, kinda vulgar. In other words, Rolling Stones-ish.

On the other hand, Koontz’s novels are meticulously crafted perfect-length perfections, doing what they set out to do in a very good way, the Platonic Form of mastery. Quite Beatle-esque.

Stephen King is to the Rolling Stones as Dean R. Koontz is to the Beatles.

I challenge anyone who is aware of these two writers and these two bands, who may not have stepped into the waters of post-Me Generation horror, to sample a King at random, then a Koontz at random, and alternate.

You’ll realize anonymous’s remark attributed to “unknown” is as close to Truth as Beauty.