I read Koontz back in HS. Every book left me feeling the same way: he wrote well until the last chapter or so, then he couldn’t come up with decent ending and so just tacked something on. The last book of his I read, and that made me realize I really did not like his writing style was… Midnight? The one where people were devolving and evolving and 3 people turned into wolf-people who orgied themselves into a giant amoeba that was unstoppable until “Hey, I’ll crash my plane into them!” guy came from out of the blue.
Because of this thread, I bought Phantoms, Strangers, and Night Terrors (or whatever) at a used bookstore, and I have to say they are nowhere near as good as I remember.
I think the thing that bothers me the most is that he constantly has to explain the motivations of his characters, as in this made-up example:
“I can take care of this myself”, Myra said, thinking about all the times her ex-husband would take care of things for her, making her feel like a child. It wasn’t until her divorce 6 months ago that she realized that she was dependent upon him to such a degree.
Wash, rinse, and repeat 5 pages later, and for every 5 pages hereafter.
That was my reaction as well, that he is too successful for an editor to red-pencil large sections, make him re-write parts, etc.
I just had to post this.
That’s just what I was thinking!
I agree with the thread: some great (if pulpy) stories, and some truly dreadful ones, and most of it largely recycled.
Still, for anyone who has enjoyed some of his stuff, I do recommend checking out Fear Nothing and **Seize the Night **on audio book. They’re read by Keith Szarabajka (Holtz from Angel), who manages to make Koontz’s rambling description style into a virtue. He’s my second-favorite audio book reader after Lenny Henry.
Its weird seeing these zombie threads get revived…seeing all the Dopers that no longer post from years ago. Perhaps its because I have only been around (damn…four years now? Sheeit!) a short time in comparison, but I find myself skimming through zombie threads to see which posters were active back then and see how many names I can recognize as much as I read them for content…anyone else do that?
Again, his SF novel, Beastchild, is quite good.
I started reading several Koontz books back in the 90s (don’t know all the titles, though, because I started first with the translations) and liked them as thriller fare.
I have a thick omnibus with not only short stories, but also interviews with him, where he explains growing up extremly poor somewhere in the Appalachian mountains with an abusive father (he later discovered that the father was probably mentally ill), and only grandparents as a temporary refuge providing him with books. He studied to become a teacher, and then became disillusioned with both Republican and Democratic programs because he saw that all programs/ projects to help people just meant stupid rules and bureaucracy. He kept writing all the time until he hit big success and then quit.
Sometime in the 2000s he switched to libertarianism and started preaching and that’s what really turned me off in his newer novels. Sure, that the cops don’t help the hero because … (insert stupid reason) is standard thriller trope, as is the shadow organisation with unlimited resources and knowledge along with the unstoppable killer (ghost/ demon, genetically engineered person).
But to rant over 1 page long why, when a rich artist-movie director high on drugs shoots up a gas station, and a cop kills him, the cop will be threatened afterwards and left out alone? How everybody needs guns because society won’t protect him? That gets old and is getting so strong it turns me off.
In addition, he seems to have forgotten he ever was poor - almost all his heroes are now wealthy enough to buy tons of guns and other accessories while running from the killer. I think there’s one homeless woman with her son in the Tick-Tock man, but she ends up with the rich guy at the end, naturally.
In light of the abvoe libertarian rant against govt., it’s both understandable that as millionaire himself, (and suffering from myopic personal experience extrapolated to generalities) Koontz and his characters enjoy the ease with which money circumvents laws.
I read the Face some time ago, and felt the end was a let-down, too, because of the cheap last-minute (during the elevator ride to hell!) conversion of the former childhood friend/ bad guy. Moreover, it wasn’t real remorse, as in being sorry for what he did, it was being sorry for himself that he didn’t experience love like the good guy.
In addition, the bad guy in a yellow rain coat dropping candies laced with drugs so children get nightmares to undermine society … good grief, how old are these guys? And he’s childish one moment, super-competent the next when doing the kidnapping. As the plot demands it, apparently.
I also disliked the moment where the good cop breaks into that house to discover the starved victim and his first thought is not getting help, but getting help while covering up his illegal breaking and entering because otherwise he would be dismissed. Um, if you think your cause is serious enough to justify breaking the rules, then damn enough bear the consequences! (If the consequences are dismissal, then the rules are broken, but still - that won’t change them either).
Well, I tried it. I just threw it at the wall.
[spoiler] This guy finds a stray dog in the woods. It is instantly apparent that the dog is quite intelligent, but when he takes it home, it becomes apparent that it is unbelievably intelligent. It gets him a beer out of the fridge, but that’s just the start. When it wants to ask a question, and the guy isn’t getting the idea, it dumps dog biscuits on the floor and then shapes them into a big question mark. It can tell a phone book from other books, and it knows what it’s for.
Eventually he tells his girlfriend about it, and they spend an indeterminate number of days enjoying each other and the dog, trying to communicate with it, but never succeeding the way they want. Meanwhile, the dog is quite able to communicate with them. For example, when it wants them to get married, it runs over to a magazine stand and picks out a copy of “Modern Bride” magazine, and lays it at their feet. After they laugh it off and put it back a few times, it mangles it so they have to buy it.
To be fair, the woman is 30 years old and has never seen vegetables before, but the guy is supposedly normal.
And then, one day, the girl has a stroke of GENIUS! Are you sitting down? She figures out, all by herself, that when they ask him a question, the dog can wag his tail for “yes,” and bark for “no.” Suck on that, Noam Chomsky![/spoiler]
OK, maybe I was hasty. So I picked it back up and read a couple more paragraphs.
[spoiler] And the guy, who realized after five minutes with the dog that it understood English, and saw the dog making symbols with dog biscuits, and knows it can tell one book or magazine from another, is skeptical! He doesn’t think this complex system of “yes” and “no” will work! Even when the dog understands it instantly, and responds appropriately, he thinks it’s just a coincidence!
My best guess is that the dog has an IQ of 100, the girl, 90, and the guy, 70. On a good day. I hate hate HATE books where the protagonists are idiots.
And I haven’t even mentioned the main plot, which so far is the government trying to keep a secret, which it knows the Russians already know about, from the Americans whose lives it endangers.
[/spoiler]
90 minutes I’ll never get back. If this is one of his best, I’ll pass.
I think we all deal with a smattering of them on a regular basis.
I used to love Koontz but these days I feel like I’m being preached at when I read a novel, that these meek but pure hearted people shine with an inner light and vitality and of course always prevail over evil which is completely unrealistic, it’s as if he’s infusing his books with too many of his own personal beliefs and I’m aware he truly does believe that the world and everything in it holds a secret and infinite meaning, which is fine but I dont want to be forced into hearing this every time I read a book.
Every good person has to be a baker or someone who cooks home cooked meals that warm both the heart and soul or if it’s not that then it’s something else he’s obsessed with.
And of course his intense critiques of artictechter which are drawn out, tedious and aren’t really worth mentioning yet your forced through sometimes pages of them, dogs are a goven and always a golden retriever then the plant obsession though I forget the name of it, begins with B.
I want to love his work again but the enemies are always the same and you don’t even need to read the entire book to know good will trump evil, making it rather predictable, more so lately it’s been even preachier and more often than not I find myself rolling my eyes and closing the book.
Has anyone read his last book The Thirteen Year Old Zombie??
The last book of his that I read was, I think, the second or third Odd Thomas novel. And I wish I hadn’t. Koontz has gotten really really screwy since he got religion.
I enjoyed Oddkins! 
Sadly long out of print.
I read some of the zombie posts from 2012, and one of them mentioned how much the poster likes reading zombie threads to see all the old names, so I checked, and this thread was started in 2002!
I’ve never yet been “in the mood” to read Koontz, but I’ve read two of his books on airplanes: Tick Tock and Sole Survivor. Neither was a masterpiece, but both were interesting and enjoyable.
I think he does a LOT of airport sales, and has a LOT of “fans” like me. He’ll never win a Pulitzer, but he makes a nice living as an entertainer, and that’s fine by me.
I didn’t know he had. I know he started buying into conspiracy theories…
Koontz’ latest book, The Thread That Wouldn’t Die
Hi Mr Salads - what do you think now you’re in your 30’s? 
FWIW, I read only one of his books after seriously strong recommendation and hated it. Can’t remember the title but it had an ex-military guy and a super intelligent dog, but that seems to be thematic? Bad writing all round.
MiM
I read Lightning which, as others have said, was good.
I recall reading one other book by him and thinking that it wasn’t near as good. I don’t remember the name, the plot, or even if I finished it.