Whitley Strieber Popular Books

Whitley Strieber Biography & Facts

Louis Whitley Strieber (; born June 13, 1945) is an American writer best known for his horror novels The Wolfen and The Hunger and for Communion, a non-fiction account of his alleged experiences with non-human entities. He has maintained a dual career of author of fiction and advocate of paranormal concepts through his best-selling non-fiction books, his Unknown Country web site, and his podcast, Dreamland. Early life and education Strieber was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Kathleen Mary (Drought) and Karl Strieber, a lawyer. He attended Central Catholic High School in San Antonio, Texas. He was educated at the University of Texas at Austin and the London School of Film Technique, graduating from each in 1968. He then worked for several advertising firms in New York City, rising to the level of vice president before leaving in 1977 to pursue a writing career. Early fiction Strieber began his career as a novelist with the horror novels The Wolfen (1978) and The Hunger (1981), both of which were made into feature films, followed by the less successful horror novels Black Magic (1982) and The Night Church (1983). Strieber then turned to speculative fiction with social conscience. Collaborating with James Kunetka, he wrote Warday (1984), about the dangers of limited nuclear warfare, and Nature's End (1986), a novel about environmental apocalypse. He independently authored Wolf of Shadows (1985), a young adult novel set in the aftermath of a nuclear war. In 1986, Strieber's fantasy novel Catmagic was published with co-authorship credited to Jonathan Barry, who was billed as an aerospace industry consultant and a practicing witch. In the 1987 paperback edition, Strieber states that Jonathan Barry is fictitious and that he is the sole author of Catmagic. Strieber's personal publishing company, Walker & Collier, is named after two characters in Catmagic. Later, less successful thrillers by Strieber include Billy (1990), The Wild (1991), Unholy Fire (1992) and The Forbidden Zone (1993). Short stories The author's short stories were collected in the 1997 limited edition volume Evenings with Demons. More recent short stories include "The Good Neighbor", published in Twilight Zone: 19 Original Stories on the 50th Anniversary, and "The Christmas Spirits" (2012), a modern retelling of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Communion and "the visitors" Strieber states that he was abducted from his cabin in upstate New York on the evening of December 26, 1985, by non-human beings. He wrote about this experience and related experiences in Communion (1987), his first non-fiction book. Although the book is perceived generally as an account of alien abduction, Strieber draws no conclusions about the identity of the alleged abductors. He refers to the beings as "the visitors", a name chosen to be as neutral as possible to entertain the possibility that they are not extraterrestrials. Neurologist Steven Novella remarks that the details of Whitley's tale of waking up seemingly paralyzed fits the description of hypnagogia, a fairly common neurological phenomenon that has been mistaken by some for an intervention by demons or aliens. Both the hardcover and paperback edition of Communion reached the number one position on The New York Times Best Seller list (non-fiction), with more than 2 million copies collectively sold. Although it was published as non-fiction, the book editor of the Los Angeles Times pronounced the follow-up title, Transformation (1988), to be fiction and removed it from the non-fiction best-seller list (it nonetheless made the top 10 on the fiction side of the chart). "It's a reprehensible thing," Strieber responded. "My book is a true story ... Placing this book on the fiction list is an ugly example of exactly the kind of blind prejudice that has hurt human progress for many generations." Criticism noting the similarity between the non-human beings in Strieber's autobiographical accounts and the non-human beings in his initial horror novels was typically acknowledged by the author as a fair observation, but not indicative of his autobiographical works being fictional: "The mysterious small beings that figure prominently in Catmagic seem to be an unconscious rendering of [the visitors], created before I was aware that they may be real." Since the 1987 publication of Communion, Strieber wrote four additional autobiographies detailing his experiences with the visitors: Transformation (1988), a direct follow-up; Breakthrough: The Next Step (1995), a reflection on the original events and accounts of the sporadic contact he'd subsequently experienced; The Secret School (1996), in which he examines strange memories from his childhood; and lastly, Solving the Communion Enigma: What Is to Come (2011). In Solving the Communion Enigma, Strieber reflects on how advances in scientific understanding since his 1987 publication may shed light on what he perceived, noting, "Among other things, since I wrote Communion, science has determined that parallel universes may be physically real and that time travel may in some way be possible". The book is a consolidation of UFO sightings and related phenomena, including crop circles, alien abductions, mutilations and deaths in an attempt to discern any kind of meaningful overall pattern. Strieber concludes that the human species is being shepherded to a higher level of understanding and existence within an endless "multiverse" of matter, energy, space and time. He also writes more candidly about the deleterious effects his initial experiences had upon him while staying at his upstate New York cabin in the 1980s, noting, "I was regularly drinking myself to sleep when we were there. I would listen to the radio until late hours, drinking vodka..." Other visitor-themed books of Strieber's include Majestic (1989), a novel about the Roswell UFO incident; The Communion Letters (1997, reissued in 2003), a collection of letters from readers reporting experiences similar to Strieber's; Confirmation (1998), in which Strieber reviews a variety of evidence that is suggestive of alien contact, and considers what more would be required to provide 'confirmation'; The Grays (2006) a novel in which his impressions of alien contact are presented through a fictional thriller/espionage narrative, and; Hybrids (2011) a fictional narrative that imagines human/alien hybrids being born into the modern world. Additional visitor-themed writings include a screenplay for the 1989 film Communion, directed by Philippe Mora and starring Christopher Walken as Strieber. The movie covers material from the books Communion and Transformation. Strieber has stated that he was dissatisfied with the film, which utilized scenes of improvised dialogue and includes themes not present in his books. Strieber also wrote a screenplay for his novel Majestic, which to date has not been filmed. Whitley Strieber has repeatedly expressed frustration that his experiences have bee.... Discover the Whitley Strieber popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Whitley Strieber books.