Talk:The Book of Counted Sorrows

Terry Goodkind / Book of Counted Shadows
There was someone talking about how The Book of counted Sorrows was a book a character in Terry Goodkind's "Wizard's First Rule" had to memorize. This is incorrect. Goodkind talks about "The Book of Counted Shadows". --Msauers 03:11, 29 October 2005

Stephen Crane attribution?
The source mentioned in this article's footnote no longer seems to exist. I'd like to know why the quote suggests that these poems were attributed to someone called Stephen Crane, as I've never heard that. There was a 19th century writer called Stephen Crane, who may or may not have influenced Koontz' writing style. B7T 02:36, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Deletion?
Shouldn't this "article" be deleted? It is unsourced and written like an advertisement. Maybe Koontz himself or his publisher wrote it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.229.7.92 (talk) 06:04, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Dean Koontz Companion
So, this article has had a vague reference to The Dean Koontz Companion for years, drawing a more footnotes tag. I did some digging. The ref was added on 2 July 2011 by User:RossPatterson, with the comment "Pull over a source referenced in the pre-merge Book of Counted Sorrows article." Looking at that article from before the merge, and older revs, it does not appear to have ever referenced Companion, nor have any special content likely to have. So I just deleted the reference with my recent overhaul. — DragonHawk (talk|hist) 02:24, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Koontz 2008 podcast
The Koontz podcast from 2008 June has two parts. The actual links to the MP3 audio on the website are broken as of 2021 (possibly much earlier), but the files they're trying to link to are still there. For convenience, here is everything:


 * Part 1
 * Title = "Podcast Episode 25: Book of Counted Sorrows 1"
 * Dated = 2008 June 16
 * HTML = https://www.deankoontz.com/podcast-episode-25-book-of-counted-sorrows-1/
 * MP3 = http://www.deankoontz.com/audio/5-21-10audio/koontz_bookofcountedsorrows1.mp3
 * Length = 12 minutes, 33 seconds
 * Part 2
 * Title = "Podcast Episode 26: Book of Counted Sorrows 2"
 * Dated = 2008 June 22
 * HTML = https://www.deankoontz.com/podcast-episode-26-book-of-counted-sorrows-2/
 * MP3 = http://www.deankoontz.com/audio/5-21-10audio/koontz_bookofcountedsorrows2.mp3
 * Length = 11 minutes, 30 seconds

Part 1 has about three and a half minutes of introductory commentary, but the rest is mostly just Koontz reading excerpts from the published title.

Possible 2008 ebook edition
One interesting tidbit from the 2008 podcast is that Koontz plugs an e-book edition, purportedly recently made available for purchase on his website. Mention occurs at 1m30s in part 1, and at 11m10s in part 2. As of 2021, I can find no trace of that:


 * Sorrows isn't listed at all under https://www.deankoontz.com/books/all-books/ (even as an out-of-print title)
 * Using the site's built-in search function to find "sorrows" finds only the two podcasts
 * A similar Google search just finds the podcasts, or nav pages mentioning the podcasts, nothing more

I think my own searches are too original research to put in the article, though. I also don't want to put anything about this alleged 2008 edition in the article, without something more than an apparently-obsolete mention in a 12-year-old podcast. Maybe it was planned but never got released, or something like that.

Editions
Following is an attempt to correlate identifications found in various sources.


 * OCLC = OCLC Control Number from WorldCat
 * ISBN = International Standard Book Number
 * CGDK = Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz

Dashes can be ignored in an ISBN. The last digit of any ISBN is a checksum. ISBNs assigned before 2007 are 10 digits long. Newer ISBNs are 13 digits. Old 10-digit ISBNs convert to 13-digit ISBNs by prefixing with 978- and recalculating the checksum. The 978- equivalents are omitted from the above.

CGDK and WorldCat give different ISBNs for the Charnel House editions. The ISBNs given by CGDK have bad checksums. It looks like a simple typo, transposing 3 for 9 (the same pattern repeats for the -17- edition):

CGDK says: 0-327389-16-9 OCLC says: 0-927389-16-9

According to CGDK, the Charnel House editions are one printing with two different bindings. All were signed by the author. The -16- ISBN identifies the 1250 numbered copies, which are bound in linen and came in a slipcase. The -17- ISBN identifies the 26 lettered copies, which are bound in leather and came in a silk traycase with glass top.

Also according to CGDK, there were two print runs for the Dogged Press editions, in 2008 and 2009. The covers are slightly different, lighter vs darker gray, respectively. Nobody seems to have an ISBN for this edition.

Google Books only has this one title on file for Dogged Press. Also, Dogged Press is purported located in Newport Beach, CA, which is where Koontz lives. I'm wondering if Dogged is/was a vanity press set-up by Koontz to reprint Sorrows.