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HIM, After the UFO Crash: a brand new start for author Koos Verkaik!

HIM, After the UFO Crash: a brand new start for author Koos Verkaik!

The last time we interviewed Dutch author, Koos Verkaik, there was an avalanche of new titles; both sci-fi novels and children’s books.
Koos Verkaik is a true master in his genre: Mystery, Adventure and Magic. He has published over sixty different titles.
He wrote his first novel, a sci-fi, when he was only eighteen years old, during a weekend. It was published immediately. He was only sixteen when he wrote a series about a young space traveler who went in search of adventures on a far-away planet. It got published in the weekly newspaper (three pages each week). He published with big Dutch publishers such as De Arbeiderspers in Amsterdam. Koos Verkaik is one of the most productive authors of the moment – and never ever had a writer’s block. He works very hard, writing every day.

Circle of Books: You set foot on American ground, you published book after book, but then…

Koos Verkaik: Then one company went bankrupt and the owner of another company passed away. She had become a good friend of mine and we had great plans for the future. All of a sudden, everything changed. The publishing world is tough anyway. You have to come-up with something special each and every time to attract the readers’ attention. Many publishing companies cannot keep their heads above the water and hordes of writers swamp the market with self-published books.
There are 18,000 different titles each year in a small country like The Netherlands. It is too much!
The serious, big publishers can only survive by taking on few writers – talented writers they believe in and who are easy to work with.

Circle of Books: You started all over again.

Koos Verkaik: Yes. Outer Banks Publishing Group in North Carolina offered me contracts for my two series of children’s books, Saladin the Wonder Horse and Alex and the Wolpertinger. The first books are out and everything is going well.
In The Netherlands< I had another series of children’s books, ‘Slimmetje’, (= ‘Smarty’) and we sold over 450,000 copies here. That helped, of course, to get publishers in the USA interested.

Circle of Books: And how about your novels?

Koos Verkaik: I have contracts for all my novels and for everything I will write in the future. Plus, the opportunity to put my novels on the screen! A well-known literary agent in the USA is Albert T. Longden. We worked together for quite some time. He started a company, Three Corners Entertainment in Princeton, New Jersey: “We search the world over for the finest written works to develop for film and television.” Albert offered me a contract for my novels HIM, After the UFO Crash and Dance of The Jester.

But it didn’t go easy. The editor-in-chief of my former publishing company had all kinds of odd objections. All parties involved started e-mailing one day and it became more disastrous by the minute. So I said that I would stop and sign nothing at all. But Al Longden and Jeffrey Batoff from Three Corners remained calm and finally all parties came to an agreement.

Two titles for film, that was quite something on itself!
But then Al Longden decided to give new life to his publishing company, Righter’s Mill Press, and offered me contracts for all my work! About fifteen novels are ready and of course I keep on writing…

Circle of Books: They start with HIM, After the UFO Crash followed by Dance of the Jester. You already had success with HIM – great reviews!

Koos Verkaik: How about this, written by reader/reviewer, Coco…
HIM, After the UFO Crash by Koos Verkaik is a book that you’ll read and then you’ll wonder did you really read what you did. Before beginning though you must be sure to have your seatbelt on nice and tight. Then hold on, because you’re about to go on one twist and turning ride of your life. Once you open the first page, it will grab and hold you tightly until you finish reading the last page. As you are reading, you will begin to feel that you are being drawn in and become a part of the story. Then when you think you have just read a fantastic part, up comes another one. Then there is more and more. The storyline is very unique and is a great one. You will be kept on the edge of your seat as you read all the action, thrills and suspense that are on each and every page. My question is, why would Arthur Croft create that special capsule, sending it into space then commit suicide? Or was it really suicide. The writing is amazing. After reading this you may (as I did), wonder can this someday be in our future. This book is a must read for all! It would make a great addition to anyone’s book shelf. It would also make a perfect gift for anytime of the year, especially for that special person that loves sci-fi. I gave it 5 stars, but wished I could give it more because it deserves more. I very highly recommend it all. I have to admit that Koos Verkaik hit it out of the ballpark with this book and Koos, I wait for another great book from you.

Circle of Books: That would make a good film indeed. For Dance of The Jester you went to New York, invited by Bill Thompson, the editor of the first books if Stephen King and John Grisham. That must have been quite an experience.

Koos Verkaik: It was! We worked in his office in the Empire State Building. He helped with the editing and gave me good advice. Back home again, I finished Jester and for the first time, I wrote my text directly in English.

Circle of Books: You started writing at the age of seven. Is it true that you worked late at night when you were still a kid?

Koos Verkaik: I was older then – thirteen, fourteen. Of course, I was not allowed to work all night long. The bookkeeper of my father’s company knew all about my writing and gave me something very special, a lamp that was used during the Second World War. Lights were forbidden then because they could attract bombers. I used the bulb to write at night: a small beam down on my paper. I worked with a ballpoint I still cherish. My parents never knew about it. I wrote hundreds of pages full of pure adventure. I followed my lessons at school with one eye open…

Circle of Books: So Righter’s Mill Press is your publisher now, Three Corners Entertainment will try to get your work in film. Can you give some more titles of books that they will publish after HIM and Jester?

Koos Verkaik: I write in Dutch, then start translating. Books that are ready for publishing:
All-Father, Wolf Tears, Neanderthal Dreams, Nickel Dime Boulevard, Merlin & Mephisto, Mortals and Gods, Legio, The Lost Art, Heavenly Vision, The Nibelung Gold… And more!

All news will be announced on these websites:
www.koosverkaik.com
http://www.rightersmill.com/

Circle of Books: And you never had a writer’s block…

Koos Verkaik: I don’t even know what that is. I wake up half past six every day and sit down behind my desk at half past seven. Surrounded by a couple of thousand books, most non-fiction. Listen to good music and write, write, write. And I said it many times before: I don’t write because it has become an obsession, but because I have a lot to tell.

Circle of Books: Can you tell some more about HIM, After the UFO Crash?

Koos Verkaik: This is what it is all about:
The sixties of the 20th century.
The race for the moon.
Arthur Croft is a great rocket engineer, a genius like Wernher von Braun.
He invents a clever two-stage rocket that will bring a winged satellite into orbit for the US army.
The same rocket will sent a special capsule into space – Project Earthling: inside the capsule is a puppet (Mister Universe) containing microfilms, photographs and all kinds of objects.
One hopes that the capsule once will be intercepted by extraterrestrial creatures.

But the big Arthur Croft commits suicide.

Nicole Ginella, his secretary, knows all about the fascination of Arthur Croft and many, many others who deal with space travel: they strongly believe that UFO’s are a reality. Together with CIA people and other men from the government, they form a strong club that will do everything to catch a UFO.
After the funeral of Arthur Croft, Nicole goes to Miami Beach.
A CIA agent, Wilbur Elliott, finds her there and has lots of questions for her.

Paris.
Jasper Froch is an American hippie, travelling through Europe. He is a pickpocket and an adventurer, but has no goal in his life.
Then he meets Antoine Faverel, a clochard.
The clochard finds out that Jasper Froch has an extraordinary talent: without realizing it, he makes use of synchronicity. (Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung gave this name to this phenomenon.)
The clochard explains: “First I’ll tell you about synchronicity. It literally means simultaneity. It is an intriguing phenomena! It is a marvelous coincidence. Two events that apparently have nothing to do with each other and of which the one is absolutely not the result of the other, gives one food for thought! Many people see it as an important warning or a sign. It was the famous Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist, Carl Gustav Jung, who came up with the term synchronicity and studied the phenomena profoundly. Synchronicity is unexplainable, elusive; it’s simply beyond us. Here are examples, experiences from your own life: you mention a kestrel, I see one; you talk about getting pushed by the storm, and a storm splashes rain against the windows; you mention the river Rhine, and I pick up a bottle of Rhine wine. You think of a novel by Poe, open a book at random, and read all about it on that particular page. Synchronicity should have to do with subconscious processes, because combinations of events also occur in dreams.”

Jasper learns how to control synchronicity and finds out that all kinds of coincidences lead him into a certain direction. He ends up in Schisterwald, Switzerland, not far from Bern, in the Kerner Klinik für Psychiatrie.
Dr. Felix Hartmann, a psychiatrist, asks Jasper to make friends with a very special patient: a rich American by the name of Francis Lockhart.

A small town in Florida, by the name of Sanguine.
No one knows why time after time again this small town that got ruined by the wildest hurricanes and tornados.
It is right there that a UFO crashes.
The CIA is there immediately.
Sanguine changes into a hippie town.
People act stranger and stranger and many of them turn out to be a genius: poets, painters and scientists create unbelievable things.
But there are also murderers, who are so clever that they become a danger for the USA.
There is a high fence built round the UFO.
The object hangs in the air, no one is able to remove it an inch.
In the meantime people in Sanguine are going stir crazy.

Jasper Froch meets a patient who is locked up in a cage in the clinic: Konrad the Kobold.
Konrad has information about the American rich man he found, lying naked in the mountains, his body covered with scratches.
He tells him that Dr. Felix Hartman has used electro-shocks to make his patient talk.
It turns out wrong and Francis Lockhart has an hypnotic influence on everyone in his neighborhood.
Finally, Jasper succeeds in becoming friends with Francis Lockhart and together they leave the clinic.

Finally, everyone turns up in Sanguine: Nicole Ginella, Jasper Froch, Francis Lockhart and others.

The army is ready to destroy the small town, but then Jasper finds out about the influence of the UFO, about Francis Lockhart and his own role in a very dangerous game.

We learn to know why the rocket engineer committed suicide and why such a big group of scientists, CIA end government people all worked together to give Arthur Croft the chance to start Project Earthling…

Circle of Books: Thanks, Koos. We wish you all the success in the world.

Koos Verkaik: Thank you very much for the opportunity to tell about my work.

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