Kōji Suzuki

A haunting collection of short stories from Koji Suzuki, author of the smash thriller, Ring, which spawned the hit film and sequels. The first story in this collection has been adapted to film (Dark Water, Walter Salles), and another, "Adrift" is currently in production with Dimension Films.

Dr. Ando who has yet to recover from his son's death at sea, conducts an autopsy on an old friend who has died under unusual circumstances. The corpse, that of cynical philosophy professor Ryuji Takayama, has something to tell him. And Ryuji isn't the only one who chooses to make a reappearance in this story.You don't know what the RING is yet. The terms of the curse of the videotape undergo a jaw-dropping reconfiguration in this novel, the horror master's stunning reinvention of his own bestselling tale. Spiral is written as a stand-alone work; for Ring fans, its' a sequel that redefines the word.

Asakawa ist Journalist. Zuerst ist der Tod seiner jungen Nichte nur eine Familientragödie. Dann erfährt er, dass in derselben Nacht drei ihrer Bekannten ebenfalls an Herzstillstand gestorben sind, und seine Neugier ist geweckt. Seine Recherchen führen ihn zu einem Video, das die vier gesehen haben. Es handelt sich um eine mysteriöse Montage beklemmender Bilder, an deren Ende eine klare Aussage steht: Wenn der Betrachter nicht einen bestimmten Auftrag erfüllt, wird er eine Woche später sterben. Dummerweise ist ausgerechnet dieser Auftrag auf dem Band überspielt worden. Zuerst hält Asakawa das alles für kompletten Unsinn. Aber dann beschleicht ihn doch die Angst. Was ist, wenn das Video wirklich Menschen den Tod bringen kann? Zusammen mit einem Freund will er den Ursprung des Videos und damit den Auftrag ergründen. Aber je mehr sie in Erfahrung bringen, desto größer wird seine Panik. Denn der Fluch scheint real, und Asakawas Zeit verstreicht. Kurze Chronologie eines Erfolges: Aus dem Roman machte Regisseur Nakata Hideo einen Low-Budget-Horrorfilm, dessen phänomenale Einspielergebnisse in Japan mehrere Fortsetzungen zur Folge hatte. Jetzt gibt es wie so oft bei ausländischen Erfolgen das amerikanische Remake des ersten Films. Kôji Suzuki hat Elemente wie Psycho-Horror, Grenzwissenschaften und die gute alte Rache aus dem Jenseits genommen und daraus eine Mischung aus Detektivgeschichte, Thriller und urbanem Mythos geschaffen: Das Video, das den Tod bringt. Der kühle, distanzierte Stil des Autors ist anfangs etwas gewöhnungsbedürftig. Aber er sorgt für eine beklemmende Atmosphäre voller Spannung. Dazu kommen viele Ideen, die zwar auf den ersten Blick so konventionell erscheinen, dann aber erstaunlich bizarre Wendungen nehmen. Und das Ende ist eine echte und effektive Überraschung. Das ist leiser Horror, der sich hauptsächlich im Kopf des Lesers abspielt, und darum so gut funktioniert. --Andreas Decker

A mysterious videotape warns that the viewer will die in one week unless a certain, unspecified act is performed. Exactly one week after watching the tape, four teenagers die one after another of heart failure. Asakawa, a hardworking journalist, is intrigued by his niece's inexplicable death. His investigation leads him from a metropolitan tokyo teeming with modern society's fears to a rural Japan--a mountain resort, a volcanic island, and a countryside clinic--haunted by the past. His attempt to solve the tape's mystery before it's too late--for everyone--assumes an increasingly deadly urgency. Ring is a chillingly told horror story, a masterfully suspenseful mystery, and post-modern trip.

IS HOPE ITSELF THE ONLY ANSWER? The renowned author of the Ring novels unravels a story of lovers wrestling with the darkness within themselves—be it selfishness, lust, or despair—in a deeply introspective romantic mystery that will tug at your mind as well as your heart. A seemingly amnesiac woman sits mutely before her psychiatrist. Unable, or perhaps unwilling, to speak, the only time she shows any hint of emotion is when she hums a song—and the song becomes the first clue. Pregnant but abandoned by her lover, who boarded a tuna boat to brave turbulent waters far from home, she’d waded into the pitch-black waves one evening to drown herself...because when you feel like you’re stranded at sea all by yourself in the dead of the night, those waves call for you, lulling you to sink into the silence beneath. What we go on to discover is a cursed fate, a ruthless reality, and the dark humor of a world ruled by the indifferent forces of chance. They say you never know what the future holds, but what if you’re told that you only have precisely a fifty-fifty chance of attaining happiness?

The Inspiration for the New Major Motion Picture RINGS Learn the final truth about the Ring! In this much-awaited conclusion of the Ring trilogy, everything you thought you knew about the story will have to be put aside. In Loop , the killer mimics both AIDS and cancer in a deadly new guise. Kaoru Futami, a youth mature beyond his years, must hope to find answers in the deserts of New Mexico and the Loop project, a virtual matrix created by scientists. The fate of more than just his loved ones depends on Kaoru's success. Loop is written as a stand-alone work though it is best enjoyed by fans of Ring and Spiral . The author's own favorite of the trilogy, this astounding finale is an emotionally resonant tale that scales conceptual heights from an angle all its own. Fiction about fiction has rarely been so gripping.

Twenty-one years after the legendary bestseller Ring, which spawned blockbuster films on both sides of the Pacific, and thirteen years after Birthday, the seeming last word on iconic villain Sadako and her containment, internationally acclaimed master of horror and Shirley Jackson Award-winner Koji Suzuki makes his much awaited returned to the famed trilogy's mind-blowing story world with a new novel, S. Takanori Ando, son of Spiral protagonist Mitsuo, works at a small CGI production company and hopes to become a filmmaker one day despite coming from a family of doctors, When he's tasked by his boss to examine a putatively live-streamed video of a suicide that's been floating around the internet, the aspiring director takes on more than he bargained for. His lover Akane, an orphan who grew up at a foster-care facility and is now a rookie high-school teacher, ends up watching the clip. She is pregnant, and she is...triggered. Sinking hooks into our unconscious from its very first pages with its creepy imagery, and rewarding curious fans of the series with clever self-references, here is a fitting sequel to a tale renowned for its ongoing mutations.

The Inspiration for the New Major Motion Picture RINGS A mysterious videotape warns that the viewer will die in one week unless a certain, unspecified act is performed. Exactly one week after watching the tape, four teenagers die one after another of heart failure. Asakawa, a hardworking journalist, is intrigued by his niece's inexplicable death. His investigation leads him from a metropolitan tokyo teeming with modern society's fears to a rural Japan--a mountain resort, a volcanic island, and a countryside clinic--haunted by the past. His attempt to solve the tape's mystery before it's too late--for everyone--assumes an increasingly deadly urgency. Ring is a chillingly told horror story, a masterfully suspenseful mystery, and post-modern trip. The success of Koji Suzuki's novel the Ring has lead to manga, television and film adaptations in Japan, Korea, and the U.S.