Alright...who is a Koontz fan???

Forbidden Snowflake said:

I have only read two books, I do not like him that much.

Can anyone help me on finding the titles?

The first one I have read like 15 years ago and it included someone hiding away in a house and a motorsaw, thing, plus a guy chasing that person. I do not remember more.

Then we have a shrink, that is treating a person with Agarophobia, but he is not treating her, he is implanting a second personality thing in his clients, when he says a certain code word they do everything he wants. And when he is done with them, they do not remember what he did. I loved that book

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Snowflake-the second one is False Memory, remarkably similar to Night Chills. The first one I need more info, but I bet I know it.

Flapdoodle said:

It's like comparing Turds if you ask me.

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But, some turds are better than others....and undoubtedly, some turds are better than no turds at all.

I like some of his older books - Intensity is probably my favorite. (Of course, I like some of King's books too - I don't think you have to like only one or the other).

Take care all -

Hey, it's just my opinion, and that counts for less than the six-bits you need for bad airport coffee, but...The worst book either King or Koontz ever wrote is better than 90% of the current genre fiction.

As much as I like King's style, I couldn't make it through a couple of his books. The most recent was "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon."
Likewise, I couldn't finish Koontz's "Dark Rivers of the Heart."

I also think the current generation of readers and writers of horror would do well to discover (or rediscover) Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Frank Belknap Long, and Harlan Ellison.

Again, just my six-bits. (Adjusted for inflation.)

Spoiler!

I LOVE Dean Koontz. Love him. I wanna be his baby sister. He churns out so much work, though, you have to take a break from him. There have been some novels I read and thought I'd read them before. He gets fond of phrases, and sometimes it seems he re-hashes old plotlines, but the man is a brilliant literary writer.

Yeah, I said it.

Dean Koontz writes literary horror and suspense. Love him. The stuff he comes up with drops my jaw. I couldn't even list my favorites, but I can tell you one I didn't like too much: Forever Odd. It just didn't live up to the original. It would have been better if Odd died at the end. Then I'd read the third one coming out, if I knew Odd would be a ghost. That'd be cool.

Siddow said:

I LOVE Dean Koontz. Love him. I wanna be his baby sister. He churns out so much work, though, you have to take a break from him. There have been some novels I read and thought I'd read them before. He gets fond of phrases, and sometimes it seems he re-hashes old plotlines, but the man is a brilliant literary writer.

Yeah, I said it.

Dean Koontz writes literary horror and suspense. Love him. The stuff he comes up with drops my jaw. I couldn't even list my favorites, but I can tell you one I didn't like too much: Forever Odd. It just didn't live up to the original. It would have been better if Odd died at the end. Then I'd read the third one coming out, if I knew Odd would be a ghost. That'd be cool.

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Is it school holidays?

Flapdoodle said:

Is it school holidays?

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Gah...I wish. They just went back to school.

Sorry, I get all juvenile when it comes to Koontz.

Siddow said:

Gah...I wish. They just went back to school.

Sorry, I get all juvenile when it comes to Koontz.

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Have you considered medical attention?

I've read Koontz for many years, starting with things like "Strangers", "Watchers", etc. There was a time there when he was easily one of my favorites.

The last few years, though ... not so much. His writing has gotten really florid ("The Taking", for example). His bantering dialogue sounds like an episode of "Gilmore Girls", overly smart and self-aware. The surfing references are getting wierd (did he take up surfing?).

Nonetheless, I still read most of his stuff. I just finished "The Husband" in only two days and mostly enjoyed it. The ending was a bit anti-climactic, but it was a fairly fast, suspensful read with stock Koontz characters.

He's still really successful. Obviously he's doing something right.

BiggerBoat said:

He's still really successful. Obviously he's doing something right.

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Or maybe the people who keep buying this stuff (Religiously) are doing something wrong.

I still want to know what Richard Laymon did to get all those books published.

Flapdoodle said:

Or maybe the people who keep buying this stuff (Religiously) are doing something wrong.

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Would you get over it already? Koontz is a successful author. I've never bought anything by Flapdoodle.

Siddow said:

Would you get over it already? Koontz is a successful author. I've never bought anything by Flapdoodle.

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I doubt you would buy anything by Flapdoodle, as you'd quickly move past F to K. Ko, that is, not Ki.

Literary horror, indeed.

I dig Koontz when he's more grounded (I really dig Intensity). He can write his a$$ off, but for my tastes his imagination runs well beyond amuck when he delves into the preternatural.

LOL... Am in the EXACT same place... Have never read Koontz, and just decided to start. I got Dragon Tears.

Koontz is a writer's writer

Well, my opinion is messy, so please take the whole thing into consideration.

Dean Koontz is a hack writer, whose early novels (I mean, like early-1970s science fiction) is almost so bad that it makes you guffaw. More recently, some books are near-literary, while others released the same year are formulaic entertainment.

And there's no words to clarify how much I admire the guy.

He doesn't always make the mark, but even in his most-failed novels I can step back & appreciate what he was trying to do. And if you've ever seen him speak, he starts off a little shy, but as he starts to describe the excitement of telling a story, he draws you in & you can't help but feel that raw excitement.

I stopped counting, but I've read twenty-some of his novels, a bunch of short stories (he had one in the legendary Again, Dangerous Visions anthology), I've got a copy of Hell's Gate within reach, & I'm hoping to find The Pig Society (from like 1969) but it's very rare.

I've liked some Koontz. Mainly I enjoyed One Door Away From Heaven. I tend to like the ideas for his plots, but I have issues when it comes to execution. He can get overly descriptive, but that I can live with. Some of his books though, like Twilight Eyes which I'm currently reading, drive me up the wall. I'm half way through the book. It seems as if parts of the past that should be important are intentionally not talked about, forcing me to just take the narrator's word for everything. I also hate the constant generalizations and moralizing. I can't say whether or not these are Koontz's personal ideas, but the narrator puts everyone into little sterotyped boxes. A character who's a dwarf is not allowed to be just an individual but must be a stand in for dwarves in general who apparently are all wonderful people. A main character from the hills of West Virginia can't just have a particularly bad family who happens to fulfill stereotypes, but it has to be stated that hillbillies in general are all bereft of religion and morality. Oh, and when it comes to characterization, I feel I know pretty much zilch when it comes to the narrator. For instance, instead of discussing character forming incidents of the past Koontz only tells us irrelevant information, like that the narrator's father is a good musician and that his mother likes plants. Okay, I'm done ranting. I know Koontz can do better. In the above mentioned One Door Away From Heaven and in Tick Toc, for instance.

I like Koontz. Have many of his books, but haven't read all of them yet. The one that comes to mind for me is The Bad Place.

Jamesaritchie said:

but I don't believe he's written a bad novel.

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Odd how much tastes can differ. I don't think he has written a good one. I've completed three of his and felt cheated, especially Winter Moon. I think there is great potential for his stories but he doesn't use it.

I've put down three others. He just isn't for me, but my sister loves his work.

I love Koontz. My very favorite of his is Watchers. It's one of my all-time favorite books. My least favorite is his new one The Husband. If it hadn't had his name on the cover and was in his newsletter, I never would have pegged him as the author.

The Husband didn't even interest me, from what the blurb read, it sounds too much like Velocity.

"False Memory", I believe is his best book.

I enjoy Koontz. I have to agree that his latest novels have been, well in my opinion, sloppy and repetitive. You do know that everyone will be all right...that they will escape because of some fantastic leap of faith that is utterly predictable. Bleh! For a while I thought he might be farming out his work - the novels just didn't seem to be that good. Maybe he has a big bowl with his standard plot lines and characters on little slips of paper and when he needs to crank out a book, he just grabs a handful and tosses them on the table. He writes the story in the manner the slips fall. Catty, eh?
Velocity was the first book in a long time that actually seemed to be his old writing style.
I loved Twilight Eyes and Watchers (I cried a little for the evil twin baboon beastie thing and his sad little Mickey Mouse doll) and I absolutely despised the Taking because of the ending! Bleh and double BLEH!!! If I wanted to be preached at I would watch the religion channel.

However I never pass up one of his books - a sad addiction I suppose - and I read them in one sitting. I eagerly await the third Frankenstein novel.

Stephen King also had a wonky period. The Regulators? ugh. Hearts in Atlantis was a lovely book...The Stand is an all time classic, Cell was just bizarre and left me feeling melancholy and his new one Lisel's Garden (Is that right??) I just noticed on the shelves. Eventually I will buckle and read it.
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a fun read for any Sox fan
So, there it is then. Two cents from a struggling horror writer sucking down a cigarette in the torrential downpour of Oregon.
hmmmmpf.