Dean Koontz

[BrckBrln]

Has anybody read him? I'm thinking of getting The Good Guy, it sounds really good.

[BlueSkyGB]

He is sometimes hit or miss in my opinion....
I suggest the Odd Thomas series, that he has going...
Have The Good Guy at home but haven't started it yet.

Good Reading

[PeterL]

Some of Dean Koontzut, is very good, but, as Blue SKy noted, he is hit or miss. I can't remember much of what I read by him, but I think he is better than that guy from Maine.

[Stieg]

I think I prefer the guy from Maine only because he is more creative a la The Stand and The Dark Tower and even instilled messenges into his work, Carrie, The Shining, Christine, etc.

And with Koontz if you read enough of his works there is predictable patterns in the plot and character development his protagonists cycle through.

I confess I was big on Koontz as a teenager, back then a top ranking favorite, my three favorites were and always will be Watchers, Phantoms, and Midnight.

[BrckBrln]

I have a problem. I can't ever make a decision. It's either between this book or American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.

Tell me, is Koontz anything like Ellis? Are they similar writing styles? Should I go with the safe bet (Ellis) or something new (Koontz)?

[BlueSkyGB]

Cannot compare them,...completely different writing styles....
go with something new....give it a try...
do the 50 page test.....:)
if after 50 pages it doesn't grab you...put it down
too many books and too little time....

[BrckBrln]

Well, I just ordered The Good Guy. Hope it's good.

[kiobe]

Of all his books that I've read by him, Watchers is my favorite. I've read it three times.

[PeterL]

I think I prefer the guy from Maine only because he is more creative a la The Stand and The Dark Tower and even instilled messenges into his work, Carrie/i], [i]The Shining, Christine, etc.

While what's his name has written a few things that were pretty good, most of his stories follow a script. I will confess that I haven't read much, because what I read wasn't all that interesting. I heard The Dark Tower and what struck me the most was that Browning's poem was maybe 3000 words, but it took seven, I think, books for King to cover the same ground. Maybe Browning was too terse, but King wasted a huge number of words.



And with Koontz if you read enough of his works there is predictable patterns in the plot and character development his protagonists cycle through.


All writers repeat patterns, characters (or character types), etc. I don't hold that against anyone, as long as they don't simply tell the same story with the same details.

[Stieg]

From wiki:


Common elements

*Koontz is renowned for his skill at writing suspenseful page-turners, crafting memorable characters, and blending elements from numerous different genres (including horror, science fiction, mystery, and satire), Koontz has a tendency to moralize heavily, and frequently uses similar character types and plot structures. Some common elements found among many of Koontz's novels include:

Characters

*Until recently, Koontz had only rarely written more than one novel featuring the same characters, the two exceptions being the Black Bat Mystery' series featuring Mike Tucker, art dealer and professional thief (Tucker appeared in the novels Blood Risk, Surrounded, and The Wall of Masks, all written under the pseudonym of Brian Coffey); and the Moonlight Bay Trilogy, whose hero, Christopher Snow, appears in the novels Fear Nothing, Seize the Night, and a proposed but as yet unwritten third entry, Ride the Storm. In recent years, however, Koontz has written three novels featuring the character Odd Thomas (namely, Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, and the latest Brother Odd), as well as the ongoing Dean Koontz's Frankenstein series, based on a concept for a failed television show that Koontz was briefly involved with.

*An unusually smart, intelligent and beautiful female protagonist who tends to take the dominant "***-stomping" role whilst the male protagonist is more sensitive and the weaker of the two, though invariably the more humorous and easy-going (e.g. the roles of Bobby and Julie Dakota in The Bad Place, and Detectives Michael Maddison and Carson O'Conner in Dean Koontz's Frankenstein)

*A single mother bringing up her child superbly against all the odds, and a strong male character with the inevitable "love at first sight" (see Laura Shane in Lightning)

*A protagonist whose upbringing was either abusive (or at least extremely dysfunctional), or conversely, extremely idealistic, but who is in either case financially independent or successful in his or her chosen field)

*One of the primary characters is often a writer

*A pre-adolescent (more often than not a girl) possessing "adult wisdom" as a secondary protagonist; Mr. Murder has two such characters in the protagonist's daughters

*An irredeemable, sociopathic antagonist who is invariably destroyed by the story's end; usually someone who considers his or her warped, often delusional worldview to be philosophically transcendent (Edgler Vess from Intensity, Corky Laputa from The Face, Vassago from Hideaway, Ticktock from Dragon Tears, and Vince Nasco from Watchers, Punchinello and his father Konrad Beezo in Life Expectancy, and Valis in Velocity are just a few examples)

*An unusually smart or precocious child, one who seems extremely wise or mature for their age, but still retain an unmistakable childish aura (Chris Packard in Lightning, and Aelfric Mannheim in The Face)

Plot

*Attempts at plausible, logically consistent explanations for the seemingly fantastical events that occur in most of his novels (very few of Koontz's novels involve the overtly supernatural), often explained by unique genetic traits and natal conditions.

*Koontz's protagonists often arm themselves with guns to combat the various monsters and madmen they are forced to do battle with. Often a Chiefs Special or Heckler & Koch P7 appear as handguns (Koontz himself is a lifelong gun owner).

*A protagonist having to hide a dead body.

*A "happy ending" for most of the main characters.

Themes

*The ideal that love and compassion can save one from the apparent absurdities of existence and the cruelties of life

*Love for children by their parents
Reflection (sometimes at length) on the supposed societal decline of modern society in the past twenty to thirty years, either in a dialogue between two characters or in the private musings of the protagonist, sometimes centering the blame on supposedly liberal-based tolerance of criminal and/or undesirable activity; free love, drug use, and political correctness are frequent targets (The antagonist of Dragon Tears, for instance, evidently owes not only his superhuman abilities but also his pathological personality to his mother's use of illicit drugs while he was in utero.)

Other trademarks

*Koontz is an avid dog lover, and canines (typically an unusually smart Golden or Labrador Retriever) often feature prominently in his works: Fear Nothing, Seize the Night, The Taking, Watchers, Dark Rivers of the Heart, and One Door Away from Heaven are prime examples. Cats have often fared worse in his books (Koontz is allergic to felines), though he has occasionally included cats as characters, most notably the smart feline Mungojerrie in the Christopher Snow novel, Terrible Chester in the Odd Thomas novels and Aristophanes in The Mask.

*A setting in southern California

*A Ford or Jeep SUV

*An ability to travel by some type of understanding of space/time (such as Deucalion in the Frankenstein novels and Shepherd O'Conner and Jillian Jackson in By the Light of the Moon)

*Vivid, detailed descriptions of the settings' architectural and interior design elements.

*Strange Weather - A climax that coincides with the development of an unseasonable or unusual storm, with the penulimate moment of conflict often occurring during the height of the storm's violence.

*Amoral scientists using brutalizing techniques (especially upon children) to further their research (Sole Survivor, Frankenstein, The Door to December)

[kathycf]

Koontz can be entertaining, but I can't read more than one of his books at a time. In fact I usually find one Koontz book every year or so is plenty for me. They really can be a bit repetitive, especially with the decline of society/morality/social ills kind of thing...

I think Koontz is typical of many prolific authors in that some of his stuff is good, and some of it is just dull. I liked Phantoms, Intensity and Watchers.