Koontzland - Dean Koontz discussion

I enjoyed this novel, for the most part, and would recommend it. It is a great tale of a mother and her lost son. Though there was some social commentary on Koontz's behalf woven into the dialog and behaviors of the characters, I didn't find it overdone, like it is in some of his novels. ***Spoilers*** Some of the things that detracted from the story are the typical unrealistic romance contained in many Koontz novels and the plot device of remote psychic powers (specifically, remote telekinesis and remote telepathy). I would have been more forgiving of this had the boy not been described as having some psychic abilities well before his being abducted and experimented on in the secret government facility, rather than developing the abilities only after the experimentation (which is portrayed as having augmented his existing abilities). If that were the case, then it would be like the psychic powers in By the Light of the Moon, which also rubbed me the wrong way, because the type of scientific interventions described (injection of nanobots) would not lead to the fanciful psychic abilities described in that novel. So, even if the boy had developed his abilities only after being injected with the engineered virus, I would not have been fully satisfied, but more so than I am by the fact that the virus only served to augment existing psychic abilities. Finally, the only evidence of the boy's having psychic powers before the experimentation is that he was really good at Black Jack at a young age. :-/

I'm glad you liked it, as it is one of my least favorite Koontz books. I had high hopes because it was written in the 80's, just after The Voice of The Night, whioch you know I enjoyed immensely. But this...this is just plain bad.

SPOILERZ - the whole thread contains spoilers, so if you pl;an to read the book you better do so before reading our posts.

Koontz has more often than not been compared to Danielle Steel, and this book is a good example why. Read this:

She felt as if the two of them had been here, like this, locked in an embrace, many times before.
"We hardly know each other," she said.
"Is that the way you feel?"
"No."
"Me, neither."
"I know you so well."
"For ages."
"Yet it's only been two days."
'Too fast?" he asked.
"What do you think?"
"Not too fast for me."
"Not too fast at all," she agreed.
"Sure?"
"Positive."
"You're lovely."
"Love me."

This dialogue is so poorly written that I dare to say even miss Steel would have carried it better. Koontz is just plain horrbile at human relationships and here he is at his worst.

"Tina realized that she had been wrong to think that celibacy should be a part of her period of
mourning. Just the opposite was true. Good, healthy lovemaking with a man who cared for her would
have helped her recover much faster than she had done, for sex was the antithesis of death, a joyous
celebration of life, a denial of the tomb's existence." - yeah mom...sorry your kid died, but I guess the sex made it all better huh?

Also with the phrase "Project Pandora" all suspense literally dies because it's obvious that the boy is alive, trapped in Koontz's usual government conspiracy. And the denoumenent ? Don't even kid me. If the boy can crash helicopters and make guns not work with his mind I deduce by the basics of logic that he could escape from the lab on his own, but then the evil scientist wouldn't have the chance for redemption and tying himself up (what?) and his mom wouldn't have the chance to shag the perfect, handsome detective. Also, he could write something less cryptic than "NOT DEAD" on the chalkboard.

The basic premise is good, but Koontz totally butchers it up by his usual poor characterization and foray into the field of government conspiracy. I won't even mention his resolution of the story because it's a deus ex machina of such proportions that makes me wonder how this got published, since it was 1981 and he was not yet a bestselling writer.

Maciek wrote: "I'm glad you liked it, as it is one of my least favorite Koontz books. I had high hopes because it was written in the 80's, just after The Voice of The Night, whioch you know I enjoyed immensely. B..."

I agree with all your criticisms, but they were not enough to ruin it for me as they were for you.

Jason "plasborgma" wrote: "I agree with all your criticisms, but they were not enough to ruin it for me as they were for you. "

I'm glad to hear that, but at the same time I'm a bit sad because I really hoped we could bash this together. Doh ! But there's still time...and books.

Maciek wrote: "I'm glad to hear that, but at the same time I'm a bit sad because I really hoped we could bash this together. Doh ! But there's still time...and books."

Yes, you've yet to read Breathless, which will provide all the mutual bashing we will ever need, trust me. I'm sure we'll have fun with Your Heart Belongs to Me, The Darkest Evening of the Year, and likely others. ;-)

Ha ha. Actually the first chapter of Breathless shows much promise. I'll have to look for it at my thrift store.
Do read The Darkest Evening of The Year - it's awful. However considering your opinion on The Eyes of Darkness I'm not so sure about mutual bashing of this title.
But a day without making a Koontz fan angry is a wasted one ! So I hope for the best.

Maciek wrote: "Ha ha. Actually the first chapter of Breathless shows much promise. I'll have to look for it at my thrift store.
Do read The Darkest Evening of The Year - it's awful. However considering your opin..."

I would say the first 60% of Breathless shows promise, but I doubt you'll like it after the first 10% or 20%. I'm pretty sure I'll dislike TDEotY, based on the few tidbits my aunt revealed about it a couple years ago.

Jason "plasborgma" wrote: "Maciek wrote: "Ha ha. Actually the first chapter of Breathless shows much promise. I'll have to look for it at my thrift store.
Do read The Darkest Evening of The Year - it's awful. However consid..."

Believe me, that novel made me think that Dean Koontz is propably content sitting at his house, lovingly petting his dog and slowly going insane.

Maciek wrote: "Believe me, that novel made me think that Dean Koontz is propably content sitting at his house, lovingly petting his dog and slowly going insane."

:-D

Maciek wrote: "Believe me, that novel made me think that Dean Koontz is propably content sitting at his house, lovingly petting his dog and slowly going insane.
"

Thanks for making me laugh once again Maciek :-)
I haven't read Eyes of Darkness yet, but it sounds like a good story to me.

Dustin wrote: "Thanks for making me laugh once again Maciek :-)
I haven't read Eyes of Darkness yet, but it sounds like a good story to me. ."

LOl, no problem. I'd laught too if I didn't take it as a n actual possibility. ;)

Dustin Crazy wrote: "Maciek wrote: "Believe me, that novel made me think that Dean Koontz is propably content sitting at his house, lovingly petting his dog and slowly going insane.
"

Thanks for making me laugh once a..."

Haha that was a funny remark. i think its true of all writers.

The Eyes of Darkness will be featured as a mini-group read beginning in February. We are still waiting for a specific start date, but if you're interested in reading this please join Nora, Lez and myself - we'd love to have you.

I got my copy yesterday :)

Finished The Servants of Twilight earlier than i expected so am now ready for my Eyes to be filled with Darkness :)

Alrighty Then. I will have to make this the next Dean Koontz book that I read :-)

I'm sure you're not really banned. If you pay your fines they will let you check out books again. How many times have you read this one?

I've never read this book. I haven't read the Servants of Twilight either - I am having lots of new Koontz experiences lately.

I have now started The Eyes of Darkness :-)

This is the first Koontz book I ever read! My sister-in-law bought it for me for my birthday a few years ago and I was thinking, Who is this Koontz guy, and why did you buy me his books? (She also bought me The Taking.) I have now read about 20 of his books. Thank God for sisters-in-law!

Only on chapter 9 so far, it has got off to a rather slow start and hasn't really sucked me into the story yet which most of Koontz's books usually do by the first or second chapter. Hoping it picks up the pace and hooks me soon.

NOT DEAD

finished this last night.
It does start out slow but picks up quite nicely, imnsho.

In your not so humble opinion :-) Had you read this one before?

I hope I end up liking it a bit better than The Key to Midnight which I just read and which was also originally written under the name Leigh Nichols. The audiobooks even have the same narrator, Tanya Eby, Brilliance Audio.

Yes, I had but it was a long time ago.
I like EOD better than TKTM, I will say that in this one Koontz isn't totally anti-scientists. Well, not all of them, yet. If that makes sense.

Nora aka Diva wrote: "...I like EOD better than TKTM, I will say that in this one Koontz isn't totally anti-scientists. Well, not all of them, yet. If that makes sense."

I like it quite a bit more than TKtM. In terms of scientists, this one is similar to Sole Survivor, because (view spoiler)[ it has a scientist who had been doing immoral experiments on children, but changes his/her ways and decides to help them (hide spoiler)].

This book is making me laugh during times when it's not meant to be funny :-)

It's NOT meant to be funny? Ohhh. huh, well at least I'm not the only one who laughed reading it then.
:)

Did anyone else notice the use of Koontz's pen names in chapter 14 for the law practice?
Elliot Stryker says:
"I'm one of the founding partners of Stryker, West, Dwyer, Coffey, and Nichols. We're one of the largest law firms in town. I can't take a whole lot of credit for that. We were lucky. We were in the right place at the right time. Owen West and I opened for business in a cheap storefront office twelve years ago, right at the start of the biggest boom this town has ever seen...."

Yeah that gave me the giggles. :)

It's been a few days since i last picked this one up, left it at chapter 9 which was a mistake because that's where it started to pick up the pace, i'm at the start of chapter 14 now and i'm thoroughly intrigued, wondering who, what and where those messages are coming from, i think i'm going to really enjoy the rest of this story.

Chapter Nine is my favorite chapter - a whole 2 pages long :-)

(view spoiler)[ Jason "plasborgma" wrote: "the only evidence of the boy's having psychic powers before the experimentation is that he was really good at Black Jack at a young age. :-/ "

He also predicted that his mutt got hit by a vehicle and I think that is really what proves everything :-) (hide spoiler)]

This book is so laughably ridiculous. I'm nearly done and debating between 2 and 3 stars.

As this has progressed, I think I will end up rating the The Key to Midnight higher than The Eyes of Darkness. This is turning into a disappointment for me :-(

Hoping for a good ending.

Okay I will give it 3 stars, but I thought it ended rather abruptly and tend to agree with our friend Maciek on the points he made earlier in this thread :-)

I liked this better this time around. (view spoiler)[... Mainly I suppose because Tina gets her dead son back, alive. (hide spoiler)]

It surprised me how much I had forgotten between the first time I read EOD and rereading it.

but I will concede that I can understand why some wouldn't enjoy the book as much as I did.

Nora, can you mark that first part of previous comment as spoiler? :-) Thanks Much. (view spoiler)[ That reuniting scene at the end one was of my favorites of book - loved it. (hide spoiler)]

Done, sorry wasn't thinking.

AL wrote: "I thought...never mind. I won't say what I would have done with the ending."

No, please tell us, just mark it as a spoiler :-)

Don't you think it ended abruptly?

Nora aka Diva wrote: "Done, sorry wasn't thinking."

Thanks :-)

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "Don't you think it ended abruptly?"

A bit I suppose but I didn't care, since (view spoiler)[...the main objective had been obtained, Tina got her son back. So the goal of the adventure had been achieved, kwim? (hide spoiler)]

I think a good ending might have been if (view spoiler)[ the boy sacrificed himself by draining himself of all his power to help his mom and the detective escape to tell the world what had happened (hide spoiler)].

Jason "plasborgma" wrote: "I think a good ending might have been if [spoilers removed]."

I wouldn't have like that at all. however I would have liked it if (view spoiler)[ Elliot had died getting Tina & Danny out of there or even if they all died together. (hide spoiler)]

I like happy endings and I'm happy with the way it ended except it seemed very abrupt as soon as the action was over that's all :-) but Nora, I know what you mean, the end result was achieved. I'm just used to Koontz's more recent books and a little more wordy elaborate philosophical endings. It was just action, action action (view spoiler)[ending in a helicopter crash (hide spoiler)] and then as soon as the action was over we have this short & sweet conclusion:
(view spoiler)[ As they drove off the plateau, around the burning wreckage of the helicopter, Danny said, "They were bad people. It's all right, Mom. They were real bad people."
To everything there is a season, Tina reminded herself. A time to kill and a time to heal.
She held Danny close, and she stared into his dark eyes, and she wasn't able to comfort herself with those words from the Bible. Danny's eyes held too much pain, too much knowledge. He was still her sweet boy - yet he was changed. She thought about the future. She wondered what lay ahead for them.
THE END (hide spoiler)]
It's okay - I'm just used to more story after the big finale. Y'all sure had some creative alternative endings. If I ever think of alternative ending that I would have like better I will surely post it here, but I'm not sure that I'll be giving it much more thought. :-) but I may surprise you.

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "...it seemed very abrupt as soon as the action was over..."

Agreed.

Oh goody - it's so fun when we agree on something :-) when I met Dr.Dombey, I thought of you.

When I started hearing about Dr. Tamaguchi, I kept thinking of my Tomagotchi which I had in High School. I had another Giga Pet too and one time I got in trouble in class because my Giga Pet went off when it needed attention. My friend's mom used to take care their Giga Pets while they were in school. She kept them in her pocket. If you don't know what a Tomagotchi or Giga Pet is click here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagotchi
or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_Pet
FYI: before these were invented, we had pet rocks.
Information on Pet Rocks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock
I think I am now dating myself when I admit I played with rocks before the digital age.

The Eyes of Darkness will be featured as our February 2014 Group Read :-)

Did anybody read The Eyes of Darkness this month? I was reading 11/22/63 by Stephen King. I still might get to The Eyes of Darkness the first part of March.