Finished Watchers last night. I enjoyed it a lot, despite a few minor issues with it. The story broke my heart in a few places, honestly.
I'm onto Your Heart Belongs to Me now. I know it's not one of Koontz's more popular novels or anything, but I thought I'd give it a whirl. I've read 130 pages today, which is a good bit for me. Haha. Can't wait to dive back into it later...
I remember liking Watchers quite a bit (though it's been a while). He's mostly sort of okay for me. I did like Fear Nothing and Odd Thomas, though. Brother Odd was pretty good, too, though Forever Odd was kind of meh for me. Haven't read the last two of that series. I know I've read a number of his other books, but can't remember many names.
My two-bob:
1) Koontz is not as good, or as consistent, a writer as King...but he's still better than most and has produced some fine writing.
2) His 'powers' appear to have waned markedly in recent years (IMO). He's not washed up, he's just not as good as he was around the turn of the century.
3) Demon Seed was arguably the stand-out in his earlier career (at least in terms of concept for the time). Strangers was the one where he really seemed to start finding his mark. (I'll qualify that now by admitting that I've not read all of his earlier/earliest books. I own Chase, Shattered, Demon Seed, Night Chills, The Face of Fear and The Vision, leading up to Strangers.
4) He doesn't seem to know when he's hit a rich seam. Fear Nothing and Seize The Night really should have been followed up over the years.
The scene where the gang fight the mutating priest in the house of the dead to the strains of Elton John singing 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight' cracks me up every time I read it. Brilliant juxtaposition.
5) Dark Rivers of the Heart looked like it contained a lot of paranoid horse...droppings to a lot of people, but turned out to be somewhat prescient.
6) Someone needs to take a 12-gauge 'Doggy-Be-Good' stick to some of his bloody Labs. And cut down the bougainvillea.
I know, that's why imho a person must enjoy bending certain grammar rules, as exemplified in this Churchill quote...
Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
Oh, and as for the bougainvillea, I spent some time at the Dean Koontz site, and enjoyed reading his comments. Once he wrote about a fan who'd written, telling him how glad he was that Koontz had not included a bougainvillea in his most recent book. Koontz said he doubled checked and sure enough there was no mention of a bougainvillea there. So, he contacted his publisher and submitted a revision for upcoming editions which included a bougainvillea.
My two-bob:
1) Koontz is not as good, or as consistent, a writer as King...but he's still better than most and has produced some fine writing.
2) His 'powers' appear to have waned markedly in recent years (IMO). He's not washed up, he's just not as good as he was around the turn of the century.
3) Demon Seed was arguably the stand-out in his earlier career (at least in terms of concept for the time). Strangers was the one where he really seemed to start finding his mark. (I'll qualify that now by admitting that I've not read all of his earlier/earliest books. I own Chase, Shattered, Demon Seed, Night Chills, The Face of Fear and The Vision, leading up to Strangers.
4) He doesn't seem to know when he's hit a rich seam. Fear Nothing and Seize The Night really should have been followed up over the years.
The scene where the gang fight the mutating priest in the house of the dead to the strains of Elton John singing 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight' cracks me up every time I read it. Brilliant juxtaposition.
5) Dark Rivers of the Heart looked like it contained a lot of paranoid horse...droppings to a lot of people, but turned out to be somewhat prescient.
6) Someone needs to take a 12-gauge 'Doggy-Be-Good' stick to some of his bloody Labs. And cut down the bougainvillea.
...as a Koontz fan-boy myself...I won't argue your points-they are good ones, and King too has had some bouts with meadow muffin creativity, it goes with the territory...I don't find Dean as sharp a writer in many ways as Unca Steve, but his wit and grasp of the absurd bring me back everytime...he just needs to pack away his portmanteau of preachiness-I appreciate his optimism, but it goes on like chunky peanut butter...also, finish the damn Christopher Snow series already! We know Odd's gonna die or somethin', he's pushed that since book 1, let Chris have his day in the moon...
...as a Koontz fan-boy myself...I won't argue your points-they are good ones, and King too has had some bouts with meadow muffin creativity, it goes with the territory...I don't find Dean as sharp a writer in many ways as Unca Steve, but his wit and grasp of the absurd bring me back everytime...he just needs to pack away his portmanteau of preachiness-I appreciate his optimism, but it goes on like chunky peanut butter...also, finish the damn Christopher Snow series already! We know Odd's gonna die or somethin', he's pushed that since book 1, let Chris have his day in the moon...
There's no doubt that stylistically Koontz can still bring it with the best of them and you can still find glimmers of his earlier work. But to me he's become a bit Disney-ish. His book Dark Rivers of the Heart is for me where he lost his edge. Robert B Parker had the same issues with his later Spenser novels.
One other thing that's more or less of a direct comparison between 'The Two Ks'.
We all know how SK writes by now, and the advice he's given out (Don't get it right, get it written; Produce the first draft in full, then work on it, and so on).
I read once - maybe on his website, maybe in the fore- or after-word to one of his books, I can't rightly remember - that DK's method was to write a line, then work on it until it was right before moving onto the next. IIRC, the analogy/image he used was of a tide dumping sand onto the shore.
While it goes to show that there is no right or wrong way to write, I can't help feeling that DK's method is far more time-intensive and laborious - to the point where many a project would probably die on page 1 out of pure frustration and/or the boredom of constantly grinding at it. So, if that is his method, it's not far short of a miracle that he's been as prolific as he has.
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