Old Reliable?

I used to be an avid Koontz reader, and many of the books from his back catalogue are very familiar to me: from about the era of Phantoms in 1983, through Twilight Eyes, Watchers, Lightning, and Midnight during the 80s, I kept up with his books. I remember The Bad Place vaguely, the cover of Cold Fire vividly but nothing about the book, and then Hideaway in 1992 was the last Koontz book I read. I was falling out of my “horror phase” about the same time as Koontz was himself, and something about the new Koontz phase - vaguely mainstream-y covers, generified thrillers - didn’t appeal to me.

But he’s still burning up the bestseller lists, so I figured I would take a look at something recent, just for old times' sake. Odd Thomas seemed like a good place to start, since a good portion of Koontz' output in this century has been that book and the sequels to it.

As I’ve mentioned, Odd sees dead people. He’s a 20 year-old living in Southern California, but he sounds suspiciously like a literate 60 year-old writer whose pop culture references are all from decades ago. He must have spent every waking minute studying cultural minutia from the past to sound so out of date! Sarcasm aside, it's too bad that Koontz chose to tell the story in first person, since Odd’s unconvincing characterization is even more grating. Simply put: Koontz has no handle on the 20 year-old brain, and it sabotages the book from the start.

The first chapter of the book had an interesting revelation for me: as I was listening to it (the audiobook version), I had a vivid flashback to what it was like to pick up a new Koontz book back in the 1980s. Namely, that the first 50-100 pages were tough to get through, the writing was bad, and the characters wouldn’t click. But then once the storyline kicked in, the book improved immensely and you could get a sense for why Koontz was doing so well as a writer. Setup was not really his thing, and frankly, why bother if you can churn out the good stuff later on in the storyline?

That was not the case for Odd Thomas, since the book, apart from the missteps in narrative voice, starts off quite strongly. We’re introduced to Odd, most of the people in his neighbourhood and his life, and he solves a crime right off the bat. A ghost of a girl points the way to her murderer, who of course doesn't go quietly. Good stuff, if derivative of The Sixth Sense.

After that, though, the energy leaks out of the book, like an inverted progression of how his books used to be. Odd solves a murder in the first few chapters, then spends the bulk of the book telling us that bad things are going to happen soon. There are weird shadowy creatures called "bodachs" that congregate where evil is about to happen, and there sure is a lot of evil about to happen in Odd's town. I’m thankful that Koontz didn’t do the stereotypical plot for someone who can see the dead, but this stuff was just boring. Worst of all, after sidetracking into a bunch of material not particularly related to the premise as laid out in the beginning, Koontz provides a sting-in-the-tail that's a breathtakingly-direct lift from The Sixth Sense.

Just like Odd’s narrative voice is not convincing as a 20 year-old, Koontz uses a lot of details about life in 2003 but the story still feels like it’s floating in its own bubble, tethered to reality here and there, but in a curious way never really intersecting with us. Part of it is that the writing is not particularly sharp or new.

But that’s a bestseller for you, says my cynical side. Nothing about the book is sharp or new, but who cares? It’s relentlessly middle of the road, right down to the word choice, but Koontz is still old reliable. Reliably laughing all the way to the bank, which is not the final revenge but it’s pretty close. True; all the same, Koontz won't be making any new trips to the bank on my account.

I had originally thought that I would revisit some Koontz classics like Lightning or Whispers, but now I'm going to leave it. Koontz might surprise me, but I'd prefer to remember them as "possibly good" rather than wading through the tough 50-100 pages at the beginning and discovering that the rest doesn't measure up either. Odd Thomas casts a long reflection for me; I don’t trust Koontz anymore.

Tags: Dean Koontz , disappointment , ghosts , horror , mysteries