From the Corner of His Eye discussion

This book was a big disappointment. The only interesting character was the villain and the way in which he was eliminated did not do him justice. He was one of the best bad guys in mystery writing and he should have had a more suitable end. The rest of the book was maudlin and I felt like I was drowning in caramel. Every character was so perfect and good and flawless. Come on, let's have a little realism. The end was so abrupt. It was like Koontz said to himself, "OK I've written enough, let's wrap this up" I still can't figure out what the point of the book was. And all those biblical references. I felt like I was sitting in a church pew the entire time. Give me Lizbeth Salander anyday.

I believe that the point to the book was that one day Koontz was sifting through his fan mail, muttering to himself, "How I despise all of these people! I publish and I publish and I publish enough crap that they should be choking in it, and still they live and write me these trivial letters of appreciation! Don't they understand that my mission is to drive humanity to hate reading, to loathe literature and to want to claw their eyes out? Well, what if I wrote a book so bad that it made everything else seem like the greatest thing ever written by comparison! What can I include... I know, a blind boy who can avoid getting wet in the rain! And for a bad guy, a psycho! Because I do so love to write about psychos! I'll stick in a wacky cop who does coin tricks! But the real driving point to this, my greatest ever creation, will be the anticlimactic ending! People will read it, get to the end and then scream in frustration! BWAHAHAHA! And I'll call it something stupid like The Blind Boy Who Couldn't Get Wet! Genius! The world will die in a blazing ball of fire!"

And then he went down to the basement, unchained his editor and told him his plans while the poor man wept bitterly and pleaded with him not to do it. Months later, From The Corner of His Eye was published, and the apocalypse clock leaped 15 minutes forward.

Wil, your comment had me rolling! I sadly have to agree with both of you. I first read From the Corner of His Eye when I was 13, and it was one of my favorites for years. I read it a few years later after my standards improved, and I found myself rolling my eyes, even cringing, at Koontz's writing. The saccharine dialogue and preachy language just took me right out of the story (which I still maintain is an intriguing one). I also have a... dislike... of precocious kids, so naturally Barty, the Boy Genius, didn't garner much favor from me.

That being said, I don't think it's a terrible novel. Among his books, I think it's one of his best, and not even close to being in the bottom (have you suffered through Life Expectancy?). Maybe it's my childhood idealism peeking through, but the idea of trillions of alternate universes born by the choices we do and don't make existing alongside ours is both comforting and fascinating, and I appreciate that Koontz incorporated it into a (very sugar-coated) story about good and evil.

Have I suffered through Life Expectancy??? Yes,yes I have.

I have suffered through Life Expectancy, From The Corner of His Eye, Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Intensity, Velocity, Phantoms and Seize the Night, although Seize the Night was so ungodly terrible and I had already suffered through so much that I put it down a quarter of the way through, stamped on it a few times and then swore to myself I would never read Koontz again. Honestly, I should have done that after Forever Odd, which is the worst, absolute worst book I think I've ever read. Koontz's disdain for the rest of humanity just oozes out of every word in that book.

And you may wonder why, "this guy really hates Dean Koontz... why did he read so much of his stuff?" it's because I'm a huge Stephen King fan. And I know SK can be overrated at times, it's true. But I used to hear Koontz so regularly compared favorably to King that I forced myself to check out some of his books and see for myself. I bought a whole pile of them (the list you just saw me tick off), and read them all over a summer. Now, the books linger around on shelves around my house like marks of shame. "Hey, Wil, remember me? I'm Intensity! You read me!" and Ic ry, "No! No! Go away! I don't remember anything!" "Oh, yes you do... you remember the spider-eating scene. And you remember how it alllllll ends!" "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

So yeah, I hate Koontz.