Story reflects author's new style

February 1, 2015

Though I feel like this review of The City is appearing a year late…

With “The City,” Dean Koontz once again has delivered a great read, a story that is well written, offers a message of hope and shows that how we react to choices given can impact our lives for years to come.
The book has the usual bits of mystery, scary moments mixed with moments of lighthearted normal life moments of the characters, and offers up a good dose of nostalgia of a time in our country — the late 1960s — when things were changing, and our television sets brought in those events to us every night. Events, such as race riots, bombings on college campus and demonstrations colored people’s memories and influenced a generation as never before.

Read the full review @ Journal-Advocate.com

Movies for guys to watch … for free

February 1, 2015

“Free” as in via Netflix streaming…

“Odd Thomas:” Typically, when I stream movies or TV shows, I’m pretty particular in the ones I pick. This was not one of those picks, and I was pleasantly surprised. I clicked on this one simply because I like the lead actor, Anton Yelchin (“Star Trek”), who plays the title character. Adapted from a Dean Koontz novel of the same name, “Odd Thomas” is a paranormal investigator who can see ghosts. Though somewhat predictable and at times plodding, it’s good sci-fi fare that benefits from Willem Defoe (“Spider-Man,” “Boondock Saints”) in a supporting role and some pretty solid CGI for a low-budget flick. It has heart, humor and decent action, and a touching ending that I didn’t really expect.

Read the full article @ The Dickinson Press.

BookReporter review of Saint Odd

January 22, 2015

In 2003, Dean Koontz published ODD THOMAS, which followed a 20-year-old fry cook from Pico Mundo, California, through the loss of his true love, Stormy Llewellyn, in a brutal mass murder. In the years since, Koontz has published six more Odd Thomas novels, concluding the series now with SAINT ODD.
In the two years since Stormy was killed at the Green Moon Mall, Odd has been traveling the country, drawn to various dark scenes and enigmatic figures. Throughout the series, he thwarts several major crimes or disasters using his psychic ability to see and communicate with the dead, though the body count is always still high. The bad guys are often nefarious cultists, and those assisting Odd are frequently mysterious or possibly magical. In SAINT ODD, the series ends with Odd finally returning to Pico Mundo and facing an evil greater than even the one that took Stormy from him.

Read the full review @ BookReporter.com

So Long Odd Thomas: Saint Odd

January 17, 2015

As much as anyone hates to see a story come to an end, nothing lasts forever. We’ve all seen television, book, and movie series that somehow survived long past their expiration date, in the process becoming parodies of what once attracted us to them to begin with. It’s like Jud Crandal said in Stephen King’s Pet Semetary: “Sometimes, dead is better.”
Perhaps more common are those series that are struck down in their prime: Firefly is my favorite example, but there are so many others – Dead Like Me, Freaks and Geeks,Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles – each with its own tragicomic backstory of studio meddling, executive cluelessness, and ignominious death on the frontlines of popular entertainment.
Sometimes, though, the audience gets lucky and a story ends just where it should. Loose ends are tied up or left with just enough slack to leave us with something to think about. Story arcs are resolved. Heroes and villains arrive at their destiny. We stand and give a round of applause, maybe wipe a tear away, and put the book or blu-ray or ticket stub away on the high shelf of our imagination.

Read the full review @ Suvudu

Book Review: ‘The Face of Fear,’ A Thriller by Dean Koontz

January 8, 2015

The title of this book tells you well what to expect of it: fear, suspense, red-hot emotions and unexpected twists and turns of the plot. Add to this the fact that the novel was written by Dean Koontz, a famous master of thrillers, and you won’t be disappointed from the very first page.
The story starts with a TV interview with Graham, the former mountain climber, who acquired supernatural mental capacity after an almost fatal fall off the slope of Everest. This psychic ability of the protagonist is the only deviation from a crime-detective story, in which nothing but the puzzle of reality exists. However, this assumption of Graham’s clairvoyant trait should not be categorized as a complete fantasy, as there are a few documented cases when psychics helped to solve crime mysteries. In any case, the story, told with convincing clarity of details is as believable as it could be in this genre.

Read the full review @ Blogcritics.

Kątem oka

January 4, 2015

Here’s a Polish edition cover for you. The title translates to “peripheral vision.” Leave a comment if you want to guess which book this is a translation of. (Source review.)

A review of Apokalipsa Odda

November 27, 2014

Życie nie jest łatwe, jeśli w pracy jest się kucharzem, a w nocy nawiedzają człowieka duchy, które mają na ziemi niezałatwione sprawy i szukają jedynego człowieka, który jest im w stanie pomóc. W sumie po pewnym czasie staje się to pewnego rodzaju standardem. Trudność polega na początku na komunikacji, jak zrozumieć kogoś kto już nic nie może powiedzieć. Przyzwyczaić należy się również do tego, że jeden z dwóch posiadanych psów również jest duchem…
Dean Koontz to znany pisarz amerykański, specjalizujący się w thrillerach oraz horrorach. W jego dorobku jest kilkadziesiąt pozycji, z których większość ukazało się w języku polskim. Obecnie ukazuje się kolejna książka, wchodząca w skład cyklu o dość nietypowym kucharzu Oddzie Thomasie.

Read the full review @ inertia360. (Or an English version via Google Translate.)

31 Days of Halloween: 'Odd Thomas,' 'The Raven' and 'Jacob's Ladder'

November 16, 2014

If you’re searching for a movie that provides just enough entertainment and tension then this is your movie. There are emotional impacts that will hit you harder than you’ll likely expect, but again…not like in the book. Perfect for teens or adults looking for lighter fare, “Odd Thomas” is without a doubt a sleeper worth watching.
Oh, and do yourself a favor; read the books. Even the worst of them are great.

Read the full article @ HeraldExtra.com.

Koontz’s “Odd Thomas” does not disappoint

November 10, 2014

The newspaper for Shippensburg University reviews the original Odd Thomas novel.

If you are an avid reader like me, you make sure there is enough spare time in the day to get lost in the eerie, futuristic worlds of Stephen King or fall in love with Nicholas Sparks’ latest absurdly charming male lead. Although I have read what seems like a million books, none have yet to compare to “Odd Thomas,” the greatest piece of literature every written (in my opinion at least).
“Odd Thomas”, written by Shippensburg University alumn, Dean Koontz, could be classified as a mystery, thriller, dark comedy or romance novel. The story takes place in Pico Mundo, California, a small town located in the Mojave Desert.
We are introduced to the protagonist, Odd Thomas, within the first chapter. We quickly learn that Thomas has a special gift (or some say curse) of seeing the dead, which plays a large role throughout the novel. Thomas warns the reader from the very beginning that he “leads an unusual life”, and evidence of this statement can be found throughout the entire story.
Main characters include Stormy Llewellyn, Thomas’s high school sweet heart whom he is destined to be with forever; Chief Wyatt Porter, the head honcho of the Pico Mundo Police Department and also Thomas’s surrogate father; Little Ozzie, a famous four hundred pound, six fingered writer who is one of Thomas’s closest friends. Finally Fungus Man, a sadistic creep of a guy who is the assumed antagonist of the story.

Read the full review @ The Slate Online.

The New American reviews The City

October 16, 2014

Dean Koontz’s characters are often a strange lot, and Jonah Kirk is no exception. In the hands of a lesser author, the story of a young black man with a gift for music growing up during the 1960s in Koontz’s unnamed city would probably become a painful dull preachment on the social ills of that era. When the reader discovers that another major character had been among the Japanese-Americans who spent the years of the Second World War in the Manzanar internment camp in California, the possibility for such preachment would often be redoubled. Not so with The City. Koontz does not offer characters who define themselves as “victims,” or who wallow in morbid self-pity. Far from making such characters objects of pity, Koontz leads the reader to see the strength which comes from adversity. As one character declares in the course of the novel, “Too many experts make art political, ’cause they believe great artists always held the same convictions as they themselves do. But the last thing art should be is political. Yuck. Double yuck. Keep your mind free. Trust your eye and heart.”

Read the full review @ The New American.

New Zelander review of Innocence

October 4, 2014

On the surface, it looks like girl meets boy, boy saves girl, but Innocence is much more than that.
Parts of it feel a little bit saggy, and the description of the snow, and the cold is a bit overdone, but Innocence still cracks along at a reasonable pace. The evildoers are unambiguously evil, and Addison and Gywneth are unambiguously good, and sometimes it’s refreshing to read a simple good vs evil morality tale.

Read the full review @ The Southland Times.

Spokesdog’s Book Review: Ask Anna

September 21, 2014

Here’s the first review I’ve found of the forthcoming Ask Anna:

I would like to introduce my readers to Anna Koontz. The newest (four legged) talent from the Koontz family who has followed in her dog-daddy’s footsteps with her first advice book for canines with plans to become the advice columnist for the canine world.  Dean Koontz writes, “we have complied for you this book of Anna’s golden advice to other canines, with the hope that it will help you understand your dogs better and will encourage you to stop being a ninny of an owner, if in fact you are one.”

Read the full review @ seattlepi.com

Malaysian Insider review of The City

September 10, 2014

The plot is typical Koontz. Jonah is somewhat similar to, say, Odd Thomas. Both are supernaturally gifted through unusual circumstances. But nothing dramatic. Both pay the price for their gifts and go through a solitary journey where only a few people are privy to their abilities. And both go through a life-changing loss. But at the end of the day, they are your average Joes…
But the genius here is Koontz’s understanding of ethnicity and the supernatural. Instead of taking the easy route of writing about a white American family, Koontz focuses on minorities. Jonah and his family are black, middle-class and educated. Then somewhere along the line, there is Mr Yoshioka, a Japanese American who is former Manzanar internee.

Read the full review @ TheMalaysianInsider.com

Koontz’s Latest: Lyrical, Tragic, and Brilliant

August 31, 2014

One of the many things I love about Dean Koontz is the breadth of his artistic pallet. Your average bestselling writer (and I do the same though I’m not a bestseller) will keep doing the thing that made him famous, over and over. And the public likes it most of the time.

Koontz improvises. He tries stuff. He can write horror or fantasy or mystery. He can be funny, or heartbreaking, or profound, or terrifying. The City, his latest, is mostly a fusion of the lyrical and the tragic.

Read the full review @ The American Culture.

Recent Watchers Review

August 31, 2014

Dean Koontz first came to the public’s attention in the early 1970s. He was originally considered a science-fiction author (his 1975 far-future Nightmare Journey contains talking evolved descendents of animals), but he soon established a reputation as one of the leading authors of horror/suspense fiction with s-f, fantasy, or supernatural elements.

Watchers, his most popular novel, straddles the border between science-fiction and “realistic” suspense fiction involving genetic engineering. In a detailed analysis in Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers (1996), Joan G. Kotker argues that it is a successful combination of science-fiction, suspense, a technothriller, a love story, a police procedural, gangster fiction and:

… overriding all of this, an inspiring dog story whose suspense is based on a series of threats to a very special dog.

Read the full review @ flayrah.com.

Barb's Bookshelf: The City

August 23, 2014

If you’ve been following my columns for a while, you already know that I am a rabid Dean Koontz fan, most notably of his “Odd Thomas” novels. I think I’ve read every one of his books, and own quite a few to re-read occasionally. However, he’s definitely struck another home run with The City. It’s weird, it’s magical, and it’s spooky too, all the things that make up a marvelous Koontz story!
Jonah Kirk is eight years old when we meet him, and his personality and insightfulness is similar to that of Odd Thomas. Jonah is the son of a wondrous singer still looking for her big break, and the grandson of an even more wonderful piano player. He loves the city, but not for its tall buildings, parks, and museums where he wanders, or the nightclubs where his mamma sings. He loves the city for its people.

Read the full review @ The Forest Blade.

Ben Affleck: He Really Was The Bomb In Phantoms!

August 23, 2014

The average Joe is Sheriff Bryce Hammond as portrayed by Ben Affleck. There’s a priceless throwaway line in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back where Affleck, as Holden McNeil, declares to Jay and Silent Bob that although he wasn’t impressed with Good Will Huntinghe thought that “Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms.” The reasons that I find myself watching bad movies are strange ones, indeed.

There is truth to that quote, however. Affleck really is the bomb inPhantoms. He’s one of the two characters, along with Liev Schrieber (who plays the creep card so well in this one but then again when has he not), who looks like they’re having any fun. He’s also the only character other than Joanna Going as the town doctor that keeps a clear head amidst the chaos.

Read the full article @ Moviepilot.

Life after dark

July 25, 2014

Honestly, before this book, I had no reference point to Dean Koontz. The only thing I’d ever read about him was one line in Walter Kirn’s wonderful take on the life of a regular high flyer, Up in the Air (you will remember George Clooney in the movie version). It went like this — “He’s reading Dean Koontz with a squinting intensity that Koontz just doesn’t call for and must be fake.” 
So Kirn’s opinion wasn’t exactly great motivation to start reading 
the novelist, and one you haven’t tried before. Never mind that he’s up there in popularity with Stephen King and Tom Clancy. But any New York Times bestselling author at least warrants one try, so I jumped in. To some welcome relief. Koontz is 
generally billed as a suspense thriller writer, but he is known to tread the supernatural, horror, and science fiction at times, and that is evident in all intensity in Innocence.

Read the full review @ Khaleej Times.
 

Nights and Weekends: The City review

July 19, 2014

Once upon a time, Dean Koontz was known simply as a horror writer—one whose novels inspired many of his readers to sleep with the lights on. Lately, though, Koontz has been reinventing himself—and while you may not get the same leave-the-lights-on thrills from his latest novel,The City, you’ll be haunted by it nonetheless. 

The City relates the unbelievable tale of young Jonah Kirk, as reflected upon by his 50-something self. The son of a singer and the grandson of a talented piano man, Jonah grew up surrounded by music—and it was inevitable that he would follow in his family’s footsteps. But if it hadn’t been for a magical woman—and a few remarkable dreams—things might have not turned out so well for Jonah Kirk. 

Read, and listen, to the full review @ NightsAndWeekends.com.

‘Odd Thomas’ did a lot to prove that ‘odd’ can still be a lot of fun

June 28, 2014

Here’s a late-comer to the Odd Thomas film reviews.

With this film, ‘Odd Thomas,’ it was more because of a legal issue that it wasn’t able to succeed on the big screen.

That mainly has to do with the fact that it was never given a chance to.

Overall, though, it is a shame because I would have liked to see how the public would have received a film like this.

Read the full review @ Maryville Daily Forum.