The Case for a WATCHERS (Dean Koontz) Television Series, More Podcasts
How Dean Koontz's "intelligent golden retriever versus a monster" story would make a great 1980s nostalgia piece. Also more podcasts I'm in and some Augusta updates.
A few years ago, fellow Atlanta Horror Writers Association member Andy Davidson posted on Twitter about his lifelong love of Dean Koontz's novel Watchers. Apparently he'd first read it when he was ten and re-read it every year since. I read the book somewhat later — I got into Koontz in middle school with Cold Fire and read Watchers and Phantoms soon afterward — and so I replied I would love to see a quality movie adaptation. Unfortunately, most of the film versions were direct-to-video garbage.
(Seriously, in the first one Travis and Nora, a married couple in the book, are a mother and a son. A later version made Travis a military deserter rather than a decorated Delta Force retiree. One looks like a rip-off of Predator. Etc.)
Andy suggested a television series would be better than a film, something that reminded me of S.M. Stirling's comment at DragonCon many years ago that books made good miniseries. Although my first thought was something like one of those British TV series that lasts for around ten episodes and then is done, I remembered the 1960s TV series The Fugitive. Although in the 1990s film the events look like they take place over about a week to a month, the original TV series ran for four seasons. The Fugitive presumably takes place in the 1960s and Watchers takes place in the 1980s, both before truly large-scale government and private surveillance and tracking. It would be much easier for Dr. Richard Kimble to evade the U.S. Marshals or Travis, Nora, and the super-intelligent dog Einstein to evade the NSA, the KGB, and the predatory monster The Outsider for a prolonged period.
(It's been years since I read Watchers, but the NSA guys hunting Travis discuss how between his experience as a Delta Force operative and how he and Nora sold Nora's house for cash, tracking them would be difficult. And we see that thanks to Travis's military experience, he knows just how to get false papers.)
The first season could be "everybody meets everybody" and the early hunt for the Outsider, with the climax being the Outsider killing Travis's landlady. This gives the NSA and their local-cop allies the pretext to openly pursue Travis and Nora — they claim the landlady was killed by Travis’s (nonexistent) pet panther and they want to “question” him. The second season and perhaps a third could cover how Travis and Nora are fugitives, the KGB's assassin, Einstein's distemper scare (seriously, that part of the book was upsetting), and the final confrontation with the Outsider.
Between the different factions hunting them, how some are working at cross purposes (the NSA and the KGB's hit-man), and one is chaotic force of destruction (the Outsider), a Watchers TV series could last awhile. And given fiction's increased interest in exploring social issues, one could touch on other topics besides "how will Travis, Nora, and the dog escape the baddies this week" or "how will the NSA keep the Outsider from blowing the cover-up by going on a rampage this time."
(In the book Nora, raised as a recluse by her emotionally-abusive aunt, initially has little ability to function in the real world and is stalked and nearly raped by her newly-hired handyman. Given how fearful and lacking in self-esteem Nora is and how inept she is at "adulting" when we begin the story, I could easily imagine her blaming herself and not reporting it to the police if Travis and Einstein hadn't stopped it. And if I remember right, the perpetrator only pled guilty to a lesser charge and got jailed because Travis — a man and a decorated soldier — wouldn't tolerate the police not taking it seriously. Travis's first wife died of cancer they didn't know she had until it was too late, so you could touch on health care, the importance of catching cancer early, etc. And lead NSA agent Lemuel Johnson is so hard-driving and neurotic because his father, a self-made wealthy black man who managed it during Jim Crow no less, raised him without any tolerance for failure whatsoever. One could use flashbacks Lemuel has to meeting Einstein and the Outsider before they escaped the lab to show how just pitiable and messed up the Outsider is despite how to all outward appearances it's a merciless monster. There's a lot of room for thoughtful stuff here.)
And if you make it a 1980s period piece, there's no cell phones, doing everything in cash isn't suspicious, the Patriot Act doesn't exist, etc. That would allow for a much longer show simply because the NSA wouldn't be able to locate Travis and Nora easily, nor immediately locate and squash the KGB. And the success of It and Stranger Things shows that now is a good time for 1980s nostalgia pieces. Barnes and Noble even pointed out that those who loved Stranger Things would really like Watchers.
Episodes of the Blasters and Blades Podcast I’m In
Gini Koch, a fellow member of the Atlanta chapter of the Horror Writers Association, got me in touch with the masterminds of the podcast Blasters and Blades. Since then, I have been on several episodes. Here’s a list, starting with the most recent.
#390: Let’s Dig Deep Into The Dune IP-This one is an overview of the Dune universe, including the various film and television adaptations. I have some fun discussing what the original conception of the Butlerian Jihad was — although creator Frank Herbert’s son Brian basically makes it a Terminator war in space in the prequels he wrote using his father’s notes, it’s my understanding the original concept was basically a terrorist war or uprising against technologies people were becoming too dependent on. One podcast participant (on the video chat) even shows off his cell phone to demonstrate what the Jihad would not have liked.
#330: Treachery and Villainy, An Origin Story-This one is about writing good villains, including providing them with understandable motivations. Most people view themselves as the heroes of their own story, after all. We discuss a lot of different villains, like Thanos from the Marvel movies, Littlefinger from Game of Thrones, and more.
#314: Let’s Get Nerdy With a Battlestar Galactica Bonanza-As you might expect, this one is all about Battlestar Galactica, the late 1970s TV show revived when I was in college and soon afterward (the early 2000s).
#247: Matthew Quinn, Grand Steampunk Tzar-This one is focused on my Wastelands steampunk military fantasy series.
#100: Matthew Quinn, Artists Rendering Tales of Terror-This is the first time I appeared on the show and it’s focused on The Thing in the Woods and The Atlanta Incursion. I don’t know if The Walking Worm ever comes up, but they have promised to do a special episode on the Kickstarter when it’s ready. Hopefully that’ll be sometime this summer.
Host J.R. Handley has promised to do a Very Special Episode on my The Walking Worm Kickstarter when I get it set up. Right now my plan is to set up the page in late May for people to follow and actually raise the money in June, July, or August.
Fellow Horror Writers Association Members Coming To Augusta
Although I’d originally planned on attending AugustaCon on 6/1, it turns out I had a family function and had to have someone take over my table. Fortunately Marlena Frank and Kelley Frank, whom I know from the Atlanta Horror Writers Association, were able to help on very short notice.
If you’re in the area, swing by and check them out. I’ll be coming to the Georgia Horror Fest on 9/22, so don’t worry I haven’t abandoned Augusta. :)