Dean Ray Koontz is a successful and well-known American author of the twentieth century. He is known commonly as the Master of Suspense. Koontz writes novels that take us into worlds filled with adventure and suspense, dealing with extraordinary topics such as technology, time travel, and serial killing. In his lifetime, he has produced over sixty novels under several pseudonyms. Ten of his books have made the New York Times hardcover bestseller list. To add to this achievement reached by only nine other writers, eleven of his books have risen to the number one position in paperback. Koontz's style uses a lot of imagery as he creates a world of invasive mutability, alien mutations and fantasies. Most of his novels contain monstrous children or genetically altered animals with human characteristics. The "angelic qualities of children prove to be potential aliens beneath their human skin". (Rogers) For Dean Koontz, writing a novel is as if "making love, but it's also like h!
             aving a tooth pulled; pleasure and pain." That feeling felt through out his novels embodies issues that are very real to the readers, and bring insight as well as entertainment. His main characters suffer from horrible diseases or misfortunes but still manage to enjoy a "normal" life. In his novels, he cruelly yet effectively goes beyond the boundaries of human identity creating characters that are usually "modeled after himself, his family or people he knows." (Random House)
             In order to understand Dean Koontz characters, one most understand Dean Koontz's mindset. (Random House) Interviews with Dean Koontz focus on the serious themes of his books and on the details of his difficult childhood. Brought up in a dysfunctional home in Pennsylvania, love was a foreign word to him. His faulty childhood brimmed over with disorder and abuse, because his father being an alcoholic, who diagnosed as bein...