Bram Stoker Award-winning editor and writer James Aquilone and Monstrous Books have acquired the print rights to Jeff Rice’s novel Kolchack: The Night Stalker. Rice’s book was the basis for the cult TV favorite television series, which was released in 1972 — a year before the novel became available.
Now, Monstrous Books is planning a deluxe hardcover edition of Kolchack: The Night Stalker. The book will have a print run limited to 1,973 copies, and will feature essays and illustrations created specifically for this edition. You can help fund the book through its Kickstarter campaign.
Recently, Aquilone took time to discuss his love of all thing Kolchak, and the plans for this special new edition.
(Interview conducted by Danica Davidson)
CEMETERY DANCE: When did you first read the Kolchak: The Night Stalker novel, and what did you think of it?
JAMES AQUILONE: I first read the novel a couple of years ago when I was putting together the Kolchak 50th anniversary graphic novel. I loved Jeff Rice’s novel and was very happy that it felt like the Kolchak TV movies and series, which I of course was already familiar with. It’s a great book on its own and you can see why they wanted to turn it into a TV movie, which eventually broke ratings records.
How similar is it to the TV movie?
The plot is the same, and many of the scenes and famous lines from the TV movie were already in the novel. The book expands on the characters and is a terrific procedural that gives readers a look into being a reporter back in the 1970s. The author, Jeff Rice, was himself a Vegas reporter, so the story feels authentic and very real.
How did you get David Dastmalchian, Rodney Barnes, Mark Dawidziak, and Russ Braun involved? What do they each contribute?
David Dastmalchian, Rodney Barnes and Russ Braun are all huge Kolchak fans as well as amazing talents. I’m a big fan of all of them, so when I acquired the Kolchak license, they were atop my list.
David wrote the foreword, Rodney wrote the afterword, and Russ Braun did the cover art and interior illustrations.
Mark Dawidziak has a long history with Kolchak and Jeff. He wrote The Night Stalker Companion and was friends with Jeff. I wanted a piece in the reprint that focused on Jeff, and there’s no one better in the world to write that profile than Mark.
What do you think Kolchak’s legacy is?
Kolchak is a huge influence in the horror genre, especially in television. There had been nothing like it on TV before, and its huge ratings — the highest ever for a TV movie at the time — showed that viewers wanted horror shows. It of course directly inspired The X-Files, which itself inspired a ton of writers and artists over the last three decades. Without Kolchak, you probably also wouldn’t have had Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural.
Is there anything else going on at Monstrous Books that would interest Cemetery Dance readers?
I’m already prepping the next Kolchak project. Look for that in the fall. And I’m happy to say that Monstrous Books’ first project, Shakespeare Unleashed, is up for two Shirley Jackson Awards next month, one for best anthology and the other for short fiction (Jo Kaplan’s story “Something Is Rotten”).
