Dean Koontz... not too popular with serious horror fans?

Hey guys,

Just curious. I've noticed that though he is still a rival to Stephen King sales wise, Dean Koontz doesn't have one book listed in our most commonly shared books.

A quick check of the board members who are most active here (I believe myself, ScaryGuy, Ken10 and OldSarge) shows very few Koontz books yet all had at least five Stephen King books.

I bring this up because even though I love horror novels I never did much care for Dean Koontz' style of writing. I'm wondering if other 'serious' horror readers share that opinion. (By 'serious' in this case I mean people who read several horror authors or post to this board regularly.)

I did join another horror group here at LT and there all the shared books are Koontz, but then that group is also pretty dead.

(I've noticed that it's the touchstones for the most popular authors that seem to not work.)

I thought the few Koontz books I've read were mediocre, and none of them stayed with me the way other horror novels have (including some Stephen King books)...so I definitely wouldn't go out of my way to add them to my library.

I don't read any horror these days, but back when I did I outgrew Koontz eventually. His characters and themes are so similar that it's hard to tell one book from another sometimes. Ig.

I've read more public library books by Dean Koontz. I don't know. He's okay -- I enjoy him. I think he's a popular read -- you like it while you're in it, but after you finish you move on. I can't think of any of his books that I've re-read though.

There is a fine line with horror. There are a lot of suspense/thriller novels that would work in horror just as well. I would put Koontz mainly in that category (S/T) as a writer.

I like a supernatural aspect -- Koontz delivers that sometimes, but, seems to me, most of the time it's explained away. I like the unbelievable lurking in the modern world. That's the joy of escapism! (The joy of the unbelievable wreaking destruction in John Q. Public's humdrum world.)

Koontz is a prolific writer. That could be the problem too. The more there is the lesser the effect (I've gotten that way with King as well). The lesser the books, the more impact. I think you can judge a writer better with a few books done well than with a "diploma mill" system of writing.

I'm have to admit to reading very little Stephen King (although I'm reading a collection of his short stories), so hopefully that doesn't disqualify me as a "serious horror fan." At the basic level of writing style, Koontz can charitably be described as equal parts "uneven" and "derivative." His stuff can be entertaining, but he's got this weird way of going from minimalist to verbose to pulpy that makes my head hurt.

With me it's Koontz' authorial voice that gets on my nerves. I've noticed even when it's an introduction to something and not a novel I just don't like his 'voice'.

I've read Darkfall, The Face of Fear, Intensity and TickTock (oh God, TickTock was bad!) and have given up for now. My wife used to be a Koontz fan, so we have twenty or so of his older books laying around, but even for free I just don't feel like bothering.

It's funny, because he wrote the scripts for Phantoms and the Fox miniseries of Intensity and they were terrific (I wish the miniseries would be released on DVD). But when I read the novel Intensity the words kept getting in the way of my enjoying the story.

Richard Laymon is an author that can skate awful close to this line for me, but he always manages to keep my interest enough for me to keep reading and buying.

Although I can't say I'm a 'serious' horror reader, I enjoy a book that scares the bejesus outta me. I stopped reading Koontz (not that I read too many to begin with) after Mr. Murder which was right after I had read King's The Dark Half. Now, I don't know who's book came first, but they seemed verrrrry similar. And King did it bettah!

My problem with Koontz is that it's too easy to see his wheels turning. I can picture him with a file card box (or Tinderbox software) selecting personality traits at random to construct a character and then selecting plot points at random to construct a story.

There seems to zero inspiration to his writing. It always reminded me a great deal of what Harlequin writers are expected to do. The publisher mails you a formula and you fill in the blanks, like a Mad Lib and make it flow together. The definition, I suppose, of formulaic genre writing.

I can tolerate this in only one genre--200-page genre murder mysteries. I think it's because a simple murder mystery is so much like a jigsaw puzzle that it's more like a game than a novel. I like understanding the rules so I can play along.

But horror, of all genres, should be more free-form, riskier for the author as well as the reader. You should feel like the author stepped off a cliff to get somewhere. I never felt that with Koontz.

#8 - I think, to build on my past comment, I get a similar feeling about Koontz with regard to style. For example, I find that a passage meant to evoke ominous foreboding suggests that Koontz pulled out his "Book of Lovecraftian Words." Or a character will show off his toughness by suddenly waxing Chandleresque.

Wow. Glad to see that I'm not the only one turned off by Koontz. I'd never bothered to analyze what it was about his booked that didn't work for me, but you have all raised some good points.

One thing I have noticed is his tendency to try to inject humor in inappropriate places. Also his humor falls flat. In the end it just made me think: If the author isn't taking this suspense story seriously, why should I?

To me horror and suspense are inherently silly anyway. The only way to make them work is for the author to take his story seriously.

I like Koontz as a thriller writer. His pacing is generally pretty rapid and he makes his characters sympathetic enough that I care what happens. That said, I don't really consider him a horror writer, but more of a paranormal thriller writer. He's good for a break once in awhile from very intense horror.

I think the problem with Koontz' work is that it's so obviously genre writing. There's an appeal there that is strictly generic in terms of what it's trying to achieve. As opposed to a book like The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, which works as literary fiction, PA fiction and even on a certain level as Sci-Fi.

I also think there's an attempt at being a "bestseller." And when that's the intent there has to be a certain amount of dumbing down in the writing, as in journalism, where the writing has to be accessible to the average 7th grader.

As for being prolific, there are plenty of writers who churn out books and do it well...King, Joyce Carol Oates (I lreally enjoyed Zombie, Phillip Roth, Clive Barker, and all of them, though their work has a similar "voice" can move from subject to subject and do each well.

Obviously, this is just my opinion, but writing is a talent (something innate) as much as a skill (which can be learned), and I think Koontz has certain skills, but he just lacks certain talents.

(Just my two cents.)

I've read only three books by Koontz, Shattered, Velocity, and Life Expectancy. Shattered was poor, and even for a large-print, 250-page thriller it took me a while to get through it. Velocity was much better, but still nothing to praise in terms of modern horror/thriller. But Life Expectancy was just fantastic to me. The plot was so different, and the characters still seemed interesting, even though they were a bit generic. It was a great, surreal journey, that one.
So, I guess I don't really know about Koontz. He can be brilliant (at least to me) and gut-wrenchingly awful.

To me he's just a better 'ideas man' than a writer. His books often sound good. It's his writing style that sets my teeth on edge. Not 'what he says' but 'how he says it'.

To be fair, while I slam Koontz regularly, my husband, who is a fan of hard sci-fi, says I'm too hard on him. He's not a Koontz fan, but he has read a few Koontz books, and found them "just fine."

I attribute this to a couple of specific things:

1) I've read Koontz's "horror" novels. My husband has read more high-concept science fiction plots.

2) My husband is an "ideas man" himself. Characterization? Pshaw. He doesn't have to believe in the characters as long as the "science" is well-supported. Characters simply move the plot along.

Even among my friends who are Koontz fans, there's a general consensus that he's kind of hit and miss.

Returning to this thread's original question, I've long been tempted to say that Koontz does not write good horror, but perhaps he is justifiably popular with a more general readership. He seems, from what I'm hearing, to be very readable when he's doing accessible science fiction, especially technology fiction--sort of in the vein of Robin Cook or Michael Crichton.

But, personally, I'm like you jseger: concept sounds great, but the execution sets my teeth on edge.

I'd second (third?) the whole "execution" causes "teeth on edge" judgments, although it doesn't surprise me that someone who writes so many books will occasionally stumble onto something that connects with a reader.

I was actually thinking recently that one of the most interesting thing about Koontz' books may be his own baggage. I base this on the two Koontz books (one early, one late) I've read, both of which figure absent or sadistic parental figures as a big theme. But he manages to imbue the parental figures in the later book with a mite more depth, as if perhaps he's trying to understand his own past a bit better, which led me to wonder how the parental neglect theme has developed over the years in his books.