The Works of Dean Koontz

[Deleted]

I'm proud of myself because I have not yet read The Good Guy, because I have sworn I will no longer buy his shit in hardcover. The summer of eighth grade, I discovered Cold Fire at the used bookstore and proceeded to read everything he'd ever written. And every year when a new winter-release title would come out my mother would buy it for me for Christmas. I'm sure part of it is that I am now older, but he's also gone way downhill. His characters were always pretty cookie cutter, but at least he was trying and delivered some books that were concept-driven and moved the plot along. The last several I've felt like the plot has been token so he can let his twee little Gary Stus wander around and quip. And the sentence-fragment, cutesy-language thing he's been doing the last several books drives me up the wall. It's not clever. It's obnoxious.

The worst character-reusage is the precocious little girl with a brace on her leg and one deformed hand. But a beautiful face. Seriously, think up some other deformity that's not really a deformity. (I also call hypocrite that he's always going on about how mentally/physically handicapped people are just as worthy and so special etc, but his Down's syndrome characters are always guys. His females are gorgeous and spunky, but with one weak leg. Well, horrors. Or if they're brain-damaged in a coma? Yeah, still beautiful.)

I am kind of intrigued by The Good Guy now though, because all I'm remembering about the end of Mr. Murder was that the guy ate himself.

[trifle]

How is Velocity? Because I just picked up a used copy as a beach read. If it's terrible, I'm only out 50 cents...

[forever1267]

The first half of Phantoms was some of the scariest stuff I had ever read.

And then he starts explaining things. And it all goes downhill.

I remember noticing that in The Bad Place and two or three others of his that I've read. Starts off well, goes downhill once answers are given.

[aims]

ennui said:

And there always seems to be the damned golden retriever.

I really enjoyed "Fear Nothing," and "Seize the Night" -- they feature a black Labrador mix.

I loved the puppies in Watchers, Fear Nothing and Seize the Night. I want my guy <----------- to be smart like they are. And because it would be awesome teaching a dog to read.
Also the guy in FN and StN seemed kind of cute. Interesting disease too. But again it is a cool mystery until he starts explaining it. Does Dean Koontz just suck at conclusions and explainations?

[Beeelicious]

Yeah, at the end of Mr. Murder the clone/killer/guy metabolized himself into skin and bones. But, the "network" that created him was an all powerful and clandestine group that is secretly controlling the entire nation using assasins to off anyone who gets in their way. <yawn> Guess who ends up being the bad guy in The Good Guy?
I do think Mr. Koontz is probably a really cynical nutjob with a really warped imagination. I wouldn't be surprised to find out he does extensive research - hands on - for his books. Yikes. Someone dig up his back yard!

[pittipat]

Koontz was always sort of a guilty pleasure read for me. Kind of a Stephen King lite if I wanted a little scare but still wanted to sleep at night.

But yeah, I got weary of the same rehashed characters after awhile. I'm inspired though. When I finish rereading Order of the Phoenix, I'm pulling out Watchers. Love that dog!

[Deleted]

I read Velocity, but I have only the vaguest memory of the premise, and could not tell you how it ended. I do seem to remember that it went pretty fast though, so it probably wouldn't be too bad for a beach read. If it was painfully bad I think I'd remember.

Ditto on being scared by the first parts of Phantoms. I think his insistence on explaining things with bad science might be part of his downfall. Personally, I'd have been happier with a Stephen King "it's pure evil just because it is" type of explanation. I really liked Watchers too, and was disappointed that it went on to inspire like, twelve of the worst movies ever made.

Thanks for the Good Guy explanation - I will avoid. I've had enough government conspiracies, thank you. Has anybody ever checked out Koontz's website? I don't know if he still does this, but when I looked at it a while back he was posting as his dog. Like, he did updates in the voice of his dog and did an interview with his dog, and so on. I guess his fandom likes it, but I judged him.

[birdface]

marchingpenguin said:

Ditto on being scared by the first parts of Phantoms. I think his insistence on explaining things with bad science might be part of his downfall. Personally, I'd have been happier with a Stephen King "it's pure evil just because it is" type of explanation. I really liked Watchers too, and was disappointed that it went on to inspire like, twelve of the worst movies ever made.

I just finished this book last night for the first time and I agree, but I also disagree. I agree because his explanations just don't really work (or for me, were somewhat disappointing for some reason) but what I didn't understand was why the creature was so evil to begin with. I mean >>> he mentioned the creature had taken on the "darkness" that existed in all the beings it absorbed, but I couldn't help thinking, what about the good parts? Not everyone is cruel and vindictive and hateful. We all have those aspects within us, but we also have joy, community, togetherness. <<< That's where the book lost me.

[azaleaqueen]

Does anybody know why the third installment of the Frankenstein series never materialized? Was it because of Katrina?

[Deleted]

It might be, I could have sworn I read that the third installment was going to have the characters battling the villains in post-Katrina New Orleans. Koontz also mentioned somewhere that he'd found it much harder than he expected to work with co-writers. (Speaking of that, I'm a little surprised that with an extra writer in the mix, the series still contains so many rehashes of his previous characters and ideas.)

Good point birdface. It's a little weird that he didn't even address that, since he usually beats the good-in-humanity angle kinda hard. Maybe because it was not human, it was automatically lacking in shiny morals. I dunno. But it also absorbed dogs, and dogs are always good! They're like the noblest thing in Koontz-world. Huh.