I have a friend who loved the first two novels in Dean Koontz’s
Frankenstein trilogy, and every once in a while she complains that the third book hasn’t been published. So I, finally, did a little research and thought I would share what I found.
The first two novels came out more than two years ago—the first was co-written with Kevin J. Anderson and titled
Prodigal Son, and the second was titled
City of Night and co-written with Ed Gorman. The third was scheduled for release—at least in the United Kingdom—this past May, but it never showed up. It’s title:
Dead and Alive.
It turns out that Dean Koontz had some misgivings about subject matter and story location in our post-Katrina world. I found an interesting email quote—it is allegedly written by Dean Koontz—that gives me hope the third title will be released, and not too far in the future.
“After finishing the first two books, I decided not to try again with a collaborator but to plunge into the third novel myself. Hurricane Katrina presented an unprecedented narrative problem. After the tragedy and suffering endured by the citizens of New Orleans, I could not bring myself to set loose Victor and his creations to wreak more havoc on the city, so I had to figure out how to include the hurricane and work around it in a graceful way. This slowed things down. But I expect to finish Book Three soon, for publication in Spring 2008. No publishing date has been set.”
While I was doing the research I stumbled across a terrific website—the website I stole the Koontz quote from—that has a large (complete?) listing of the novels published by Dean Koontz over the years, including those hard to find science fiction novels he wrote in the 1970s. There is also a cover scan for every book listed, many of them I have never before seen. It is well worth checking out.
Click
Here to go there now.
I have more good news. The third and final installment of Dean Koontz's Frankenstein series is scheduled for release this summer. The exact date: July 28, 2009. The title: Dead and Alive. The first two novels in the trilogy--Prodigal Son and City of Night--were originally published in January and July 2005, respectively, and the third volume has been on hold for years. But, finally, it is here.
