DAMN YOU DEAN KOOOONTZZZZ
The last two books I read were by Dean Koontz. The thing is, I love Dean Koontz. He's like Stephen King for people like me who love King's ideas but hate his writing style. I first discovered Koontz in one of my dad's bookshelves, where he had basically every Koontz novel ever published (big fan of trashy horror and crime novels, my dad). I read one (The Bad Place) on a whim and was hooked.
I've read a ton of Koontz's novels, from his early works like Shattered and The Face of Fear right up to his most recent books, the two I just finished: Relentless and What the Night Knows. I had fun with them.
That said, Dean Koontz is a godawful writer.
You know those really awful lists sites like AskMen and MSN put out, utter trash like "10 Lies Every Woman Tells" and "20 Secrets Your Man is Hiding", where every list is just regurgitating the same tired old cliches over and over but sometimes you read them anyway because fuck it, there's nothing else and you want something that doesn't require your brain to be functioning? Yeah, Dean Koontz is the literary equivalent of an AskMen list promising 15 Ways to to Tell You're in the Friendzone. He is so bad, guys.
I'm going to tell you about Relentless, because it's easily the most hilarious thing Dean Koontz has ever written.
Relentless is about Cubby Greenwich, who the book finds beginning the publicity for his newly published book. As usual, he is rolling in money (the only poor people in Koontz novels are the expendable extras) and living the good life with his disgustingly twee little family. They have a dog. Of course they have a dog, every Koontz protagonist has a dog. Sometimes the dog is dead and floats around as a ghost on the huge perfect lawn outside but they still have a fucking dog.
Anyway, Cubby's charmed life is suddenly upset when he gets a bad review from one Shearman Waxx, a highly esteemed critic writing for a national newspaper. The review is vicious and mean-spirited, with very little good to say about Cubby's book. Distraught (seriously, he's distraught) he tells his wife and his agent and his editor and the waiter at his local restaurant. They are all outraged. Cubby is a genius! That guy just didn't understand how brilliant Cubby's book is! Hell, it's not even a book, it's too good for such a title, it's Jesus's own tears drifiting down from Heaven to land elegantly on the pages Cubby spread out for them.
"Shearman Waxx is a very strange man," says Cubby's waiter, who is acquainted with him thanks to Waxx being a frequent customer. "A very strange man."
Okay well, nobody asked this random side character for his opinion and I'm sure I'll never see him again, but thanks for your thoughts, guy.
We find out that Waxx lunches at the restaurant more or less every day. Cubby and his son Milo decide to spy on him the next day, just to see what the dude's like.
Let's take a minute to talk about Milo, because he is in every Koontz book ever. I don't mean the actual character Milo himself, I mean the preternaturally intelligent quirky child, usually male, between the ages of six and thirteen, that Koontz just loves to push into every book. In the other book I finished recently, What the Night Knows, she's called Minnie. In Relentless he happens to be called Milo. Aside from differences in age, sex and name they are the same character. And it's not even a likeable character, it's the type of character who is described by people trying to be tactful as "precocious" and described by me as "a pain in my ass".
Have you ever met a child, Dean Koontz? What is wrong with your children? Why do none of them scream or cry or shriek or do any of the normal things a child suddenly faced with a demon/axe-wielding psychopath/mad clown with a grudge would do? Why do they always have to be geniuses? Why does their dialogue always read like you flipped open a book of Kids Say the Darndest Things! quotes at random and went, "Yep, that's good enough for me!"? You write children like DreamWorks writes talking animals.
Anyway, we're in the restaurant. Cubby and the character written like every part that ever sunk a child actor's career are watching Shearman Waxx. The waiter drifts by.
"Waxx is such a strange man," he says. "So very strange."
Again, thank you. I swear, that is literally all this character says. He cares about nothing except the fact that Cubby's sphincter-tighteningly good book got trashed by this very strange, oh so strange, incredibly strange man. I'm not sure he even works there, he doesn't seem to know what the specials are or anything, unless the specials really are Shearman Waxx Is A Very Strange Man.
Cubby and Milo take a toilet break. Then Milo pees on Shearman Waxx.
Accidentally, I mean. He doesn't just go back out to the restaurant and head over to Waxx with his fly unzipped, ready to aim. If he'd done that he might have been a more likeable character. No, what happens is Waxx comes out of a cubicle while Milo's doing his business and gets caught in the crossfire. Cubby says sorry. Waxx says, "Doom."
Huh. He is a pretty weird guy.
What happens next takes place in far fewer pages than all the talking about what a weirdo Waxx is and how brilliant and awe-inspiring Cubby's books are, but those pages are infinitely more readable because Koontz is no longer typing with just one hand.
First Waxx sneaks into the Greenwich household. Cubby wakes up to find Waxx in his room, and he and his wife are swiftly tasered. Though Waxx leaves swiftly after, leaving the two of them and, unfortunately, Milo alive, it's far from over: he blows up their house at noon. The family however are on to him (because of intuition and of course their tiny genius son who knows everything) and have already escaped.
Waxx launches a manhunt. Apparently somehow able to track them, he anticipates their every move, and seems impossibly prepared for everything. Cubby's wife Penny suggests they head to her parents' house. Her parents are gun addicts.
This is the point in every Koontz novel where I mutter, "Oh for fuck's sake." Dean Koontz loves guns. There is literally nothing that Dean Koontz thinks cannot be resolved by shooting someone. If Dean Koontz had written the Bible the Last Supper would have ended with Jesus shooting Judas in the face. I half suspect that the end of every Koontz manuscript is just the word GUNS in huge font, and his editor sighs and tries to write something that will fit.
When my flatmate saw me reading Relentless she came over and said, "Have you got to the point where they shoot everyone yet?" and then added, "Oh wait, no, you're not at this part yet," and pointed at a slim section of the book's pages near the end. She has not read Relentless.
Oh, you remember their dog? You know, the one I mentioned near the beginning? She's still with them, and she can teleport.
You might be going "wait, what?" right now but I want you to remember that the two sentences I just dedicated to the dog being able to teleport is a lot more mention than Koontz ever gives the issue. The fact that she can teleport is never used or really mentioned again, except in one extremely minor plot point that we all forget about five seconds after it took place.
Twenty pages about how brilliant and talented Cubby is and what a strange strange strange man Waxx is not to appreciate this fact. A sentence about their dog being able to teleport.
In the midst of all this Excitement! we discover that Waxx is part of some shady cult-like organisation whose purpose is... well, you know, I'm not totally sure. I don't think even Koontz is sure. All I could really gather is that they don't like optimistic works of art, whether those are books or films or paintings. If someone creates something too optimistic they go and torture them and everyone they love to death, just for shits and giggles. At no point does anyone mention the horrific and gruesome deaths of Pixar's entire staff but I assume it happened.
The head of this organisation is Waxx's mother, Zazu Waxx. Zazu appears for approximately five pages, then she shoots Cubby dead. But it's all fine, because Milo has invented a device that can reverse time a minute or two, so Cubby comes back to life and kills Zazu before she kills him.
If that sounds like an incredibly rushed summary of the finale, it's because the finale actually is that rushed. Everyone takes the "Milo's invented a time-reversal device" thing in their stride, basically. Hey, it happens. And their dog can teleport, not that it matters since that's apparently never ever going to be useful.
We end the book with Cubby having taken his family into hiding; Zazu may be dead, but the rest of the organisation (sans Waxx, somebody stabbed him - but at this point I cared about as much about that Koontz did about the dog's supernatural powers) are still out there, gunning for... optimists, I guess.
Hey, it's an entertaining read and I know it doesn't sound like it but I did enjoy the book. Kind of. But you know what? What I would really enjoy is if we banned Koontz from writing about dogs, children or guns and see how he got on. I know the resulting manuscript would probably just be 100 pages of keysmashing caused by his panicked flailing but I can dream, I can dream.
I've read a ton of Koontz's novels, from his early works like Shattered and The Face of Fear right up to his most recent books, the two I just finished: Relentless and What the Night Knows. I had fun with them.
That said, Dean Koontz is a godawful writer.
You know those really awful lists sites like AskMen and MSN put out, utter trash like "10 Lies Every Woman Tells" and "20 Secrets Your Man is Hiding", where every list is just regurgitating the same tired old cliches over and over but sometimes you read them anyway because fuck it, there's nothing else and you want something that doesn't require your brain to be functioning? Yeah, Dean Koontz is the literary equivalent of an AskMen list promising 15 Ways to to Tell You're in the Friendzone. He is so bad, guys.
I'm going to tell you about Relentless, because it's easily the most hilarious thing Dean Koontz has ever written.
Relentless is about Cubby Greenwich, who the book finds beginning the publicity for his newly published book. As usual, he is rolling in money (the only poor people in Koontz novels are the expendable extras) and living the good life with his disgustingly twee little family. They have a dog. Of course they have a dog, every Koontz protagonist has a dog. Sometimes the dog is dead and floats around as a ghost on the huge perfect lawn outside but they still have a fucking dog.
Anyway, Cubby's charmed life is suddenly upset when he gets a bad review from one Shearman Waxx, a highly esteemed critic writing for a national newspaper. The review is vicious and mean-spirited, with very little good to say about Cubby's book. Distraught (seriously, he's distraught) he tells his wife and his agent and his editor and the waiter at his local restaurant. They are all outraged. Cubby is a genius! That guy just didn't understand how brilliant Cubby's book is! Hell, it's not even a book, it's too good for such a title, it's Jesus's own tears drifiting down from Heaven to land elegantly on the pages Cubby spread out for them.
"Shearman Waxx is a very strange man," says Cubby's waiter, who is acquainted with him thanks to Waxx being a frequent customer. "A very strange man."
Okay well, nobody asked this random side character for his opinion and I'm sure I'll never see him again, but thanks for your thoughts, guy.
We find out that Waxx lunches at the restaurant more or less every day. Cubby and his son Milo decide to spy on him the next day, just to see what the dude's like.
Let's take a minute to talk about Milo, because he is in every Koontz book ever. I don't mean the actual character Milo himself, I mean the preternaturally intelligent quirky child, usually male, between the ages of six and thirteen, that Koontz just loves to push into every book. In the other book I finished recently, What the Night Knows, she's called Minnie. In Relentless he happens to be called Milo. Aside from differences in age, sex and name they are the same character. And it's not even a likeable character, it's the type of character who is described by people trying to be tactful as "precocious" and described by me as "a pain in my ass".
Have you ever met a child, Dean Koontz? What is wrong with your children? Why do none of them scream or cry or shriek or do any of the normal things a child suddenly faced with a demon/axe-wielding psychopath/mad clown with a grudge would do? Why do they always have to be geniuses? Why does their dialogue always read like you flipped open a book of Kids Say the Darndest Things! quotes at random and went, "Yep, that's good enough for me!"? You write children like DreamWorks writes talking animals.
Anyway, we're in the restaurant. Cubby and the character written like every part that ever sunk a child actor's career are watching Shearman Waxx. The waiter drifts by.
"Waxx is such a strange man," he says. "So very strange."
Again, thank you. I swear, that is literally all this character says. He cares about nothing except the fact that Cubby's sphincter-tighteningly good book got trashed by this very strange, oh so strange, incredibly strange man. I'm not sure he even works there, he doesn't seem to know what the specials are or anything, unless the specials really are Shearman Waxx Is A Very Strange Man.
Cubby and Milo take a toilet break. Then Milo pees on Shearman Waxx.
Accidentally, I mean. He doesn't just go back out to the restaurant and head over to Waxx with his fly unzipped, ready to aim. If he'd done that he might have been a more likeable character. No, what happens is Waxx comes out of a cubicle while Milo's doing his business and gets caught in the crossfire. Cubby says sorry. Waxx says, "Doom."
Huh. He is a pretty weird guy.
What happens next takes place in far fewer pages than all the talking about what a weirdo Waxx is and how brilliant and awe-inspiring Cubby's books are, but those pages are infinitely more readable because Koontz is no longer typing with just one hand.
First Waxx sneaks into the Greenwich household. Cubby wakes up to find Waxx in his room, and he and his wife are swiftly tasered. Though Waxx leaves swiftly after, leaving the two of them and, unfortunately, Milo alive, it's far from over: he blows up their house at noon. The family however are on to him (because of intuition and of course their tiny genius son who knows everything) and have already escaped.
Waxx launches a manhunt. Apparently somehow able to track them, he anticipates their every move, and seems impossibly prepared for everything. Cubby's wife Penny suggests they head to her parents' house. Her parents are gun addicts.
This is the point in every Koontz novel where I mutter, "Oh for fuck's sake." Dean Koontz loves guns. There is literally nothing that Dean Koontz thinks cannot be resolved by shooting someone. If Dean Koontz had written the Bible the Last Supper would have ended with Jesus shooting Judas in the face. I half suspect that the end of every Koontz manuscript is just the word GUNS in huge font, and his editor sighs and tries to write something that will fit.
When my flatmate saw me reading Relentless she came over and said, "Have you got to the point where they shoot everyone yet?" and then added, "Oh wait, no, you're not at this part yet," and pointed at a slim section of the book's pages near the end. She has not read Relentless.
Oh, you remember their dog? You know, the one I mentioned near the beginning? She's still with them, and she can teleport.
You might be going "wait, what?" right now but I want you to remember that the two sentences I just dedicated to the dog being able to teleport is a lot more mention than Koontz ever gives the issue. The fact that she can teleport is never used or really mentioned again, except in one extremely minor plot point that we all forget about five seconds after it took place.
Twenty pages about how brilliant and talented Cubby is and what a strange strange strange man Waxx is not to appreciate this fact. A sentence about their dog being able to teleport.
In the midst of all this Excitement! we discover that Waxx is part of some shady cult-like organisation whose purpose is... well, you know, I'm not totally sure. I don't think even Koontz is sure. All I could really gather is that they don't like optimistic works of art, whether those are books or films or paintings. If someone creates something too optimistic they go and torture them and everyone they love to death, just for shits and giggles. At no point does anyone mention the horrific and gruesome deaths of Pixar's entire staff but I assume it happened.
The head of this organisation is Waxx's mother, Zazu Waxx. Zazu appears for approximately five pages, then she shoots Cubby dead. But it's all fine, because Milo has invented a device that can reverse time a minute or two, so Cubby comes back to life and kills Zazu before she kills him.
If that sounds like an incredibly rushed summary of the finale, it's because the finale actually is that rushed. Everyone takes the "Milo's invented a time-reversal device" thing in their stride, basically. Hey, it happens. And their dog can teleport, not that it matters since that's apparently never ever going to be useful.
We end the book with Cubby having taken his family into hiding; Zazu may be dead, but the rest of the organisation (sans Waxx, somebody stabbed him - but at this point I cared about as much about that Koontz did about the dog's supernatural powers) are still out there, gunning for... optimists, I guess.
Hey, it's an entertaining read and I know it doesn't sound like it but I did enjoy the book. Kind of. But you know what? What I would really enjoy is if we banned Koontz from writing about dogs, children or guns and see how he got on. I know the resulting manuscript would probably just be 100 pages of keysmashing caused by his panicked flailing but I can dream, I can dream.