For some reason I used to think Dean R Koontz was a poor man's Stephen King and never bothered with him. However, last year somebody left a copy of Odd Thomas at my work, so I thought what the hell and I read it. I found it to be a great story and thought Dean had a wonderful writing style that made it easy to empathize with and like the protagonist. Odd Thomas was a great idea brilliantly executed. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel Forever Odd. I've also seen the screen adaptation of his book Sole Survivor, which I also enjoyed.

My latest Dean R Koontz purchase is Lightning, which I scored at the market today for three bucks, I've added it to my pile of books to be read.

Are there any other Dean R Koontz fans here?    

I read 'Lightning' several years ago and it was a very painful experience for me.  Koontz described every little thing in detail, no matter how insignificant it was.  No one needs to read a full description of every piece of furniture in a room that a character walks through once.

If you put a gun to my head and ordered me to read another one of his books, I'd tell you to shoot me twice.


Phil

Wow. Now THAT"S hatrid. My dad has one of his books but I'm yet to read them.

Oh come on guys. You can't write the man off because of one bad book, even Stephen King has had his turkeys. Anyway, I'd be pretty surprised if you didn't like Odd Thomas. It's a story about this guy called Thomas, who sees dark spirits appear when something bad is going to happen. He realizes something monumentally bad is going down in his home town, when the spirits begin arriving en masse. The spirits don't cause the disasters, they just feed off the negative energy that's generated by them. It was a dam good read.  

It wasn't the story that turned me off (though, I didn't like it), but rather his writing style.  He wrote way too much detail, causing the story to drag to a grinding halt.  I'm pretty sure all his books suffer the same fate.


Phil

He's written a hell of a lot of books. Lightning was one of his early ones and Odd Thomas was one of his recent ones. Perhaps he's become a better writer over the journey. Anyway, you can lead a horse to water etc.

The only books I have read from him are Sole Survivor and Frankenstein Part 2 (or I am reading Frankenstein right now, but haven't had the time to finish it), and so far, I think he is a great author. His books always catch my interest now.

Sean

I own INTENSITY but I've yet to read it. I wanted to check it out because I heard that HIGH TENSION is a complete rip off of Intensity, stealing even the most fine details (the killer checking the heater/sink/taps to see if anyone has used them recently as he searches the room while Marie hides under the bed for example). I've seen PHANTOMS and it's not a very good film, but it's based on the Dean Koontz book of the same name and I hear the book is a lot better.

Quoted from Takeshi Oh come on guys. You can't write the man off because of one bad book.

I read more than just Dragon Tears. Long time ago I read "Watchers" and "Hideaway" (I think). Just not my type of book, that's all.

Thomas Harris, now those are books that can be read more than once!
:)

I really used to enjoy his books, I found them very tense and gripping once you got into them. Stupidly. I sold the collection I had a few years ago and have to say I have not read much of his latest stuff. If any.

There were some books in which he does not put so much into detail. The Voice Of The Night is a quick read and creeped me out when I was much younger.

The favourite for me are  Phantoms (shame about the film version), Hideaway, and Twighlight Eyes ( at least I think thats what it was called).

But I have enjoyed all of the books that I have read of his apart from one which I had to put down as I couldnt get into it - TickTock, about some toy-monster.

I don't read Stephen King either.


Phil

Phil's quote is hilarious....

I read "The Bad Place" in 9th grade, a while ago.  As to what I remember, I was horrified!  I'd pulled it off the teacher's shelf cause we had to read a book like once a month and then write a book report about it.  If anyone's read this masterpiece I'm sure you can sympathize.  

Needless to say I learned what the word Hermophrodite meant....WIERD.  I also learned that the book reports containing the word Hermphrodite get a C-.

Leave some rounds in that clip Phil...

Read Odd Thomas and you won't be disappointed. ;)

Odd Thomas was a great book.  However a lot of his other stuff is boooooooooooooring.  

I love Thomas Harris, I still say Red Dragon was the best of his "hannible" series.

Intensity is still a fantastic book today, let alone back 1995. I like him and have read a lot of his work. I like King better, but only marginally... if at all. POPSY is basically what KING has over KOONTZ, with me.

And HIGH TENSION was a complete and total, blatant, knock the fuck off, rip off, of INTENSITY... to bad Koontz has become a victim of his own work, much like George Romero and his shitty zombie movies.

I liked Koontz's earlier books ( Phantoms, etc) but somewhere in the late 80's, he started writing these insufferable characters. His leading characters became saints, all noble and caring for an invalid, or a mentally challanged child, or being just gosh-dang wonderful stand up tried and true blue Saints.  Am not sure what began or triggered this shift in his writing - it does seem to be a calculated attempt to be "heartwarming", but it turned me off his books for good.

He may have gotten off that trend after his numerous hair transplants lol, but after squirming through Lightning, I was not tempted to read more.