Tick Tock ! (Dean Koontz in general)

Member Name: 666disturbed

Product:	Dean Koontz in general
Date:	10/10/02 (1977 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: D.Koontz writes cracking books

Disadvantages: Dooyoo don't have many of his books listed for review !

Marvellous i'n' it ? I write a bloody review on a book and it aint on dooyoo, well, i'm gonna put me op here anyway and if it gets locked then so be it.

I've jus read Tick Tock and it's a blast, so here i go with my review !!!!!!!Tick Tock!

Tommy Phan is trying to live up to the American dream in every way. Since arriving from war torn Vietnam as a small child he saw all that was American and decided to embrace it.
Tommy’s parents do not share the same ideals as Tommy and are disappointed that he has not joined the family business, the bakery, which has grown to be a substantial empire over the 20 years that have elapsed since the arrival of the Phan family.
Tommy dreams of owning a Corvette, ever since he saw one as a small boy, it has been his Shangri-La. He has rejected his parents’ way of life and has become a novelist, (a common theme in a lot of Dean Koontz books), he writes cheesy detective novels about a character called Chip Nyugen, who is big and tough, who can take on the most dangerous crime syndicates and win. An expert in martial arts with a cool attitude towards women, Chip is everything that Tommy wants to be.

Tommy’s mother calls regularly to give him a hard time for never being around, although he gets around as often as he is able to. He feels harassed and yet guilty for having let down his mother on so many occasions.

Ok so far? I’ll do a little background as I’m going along here I think. Koontz wrote this book as a relief for himself after many years of writing much darker novels. It shows that he has not taken this book on board too seriously as although it has it’s dark points it is not the psychological conundrum that readers of his books have come to expect. Having said that, it is an intriguing book and keeps the reader guessing all the way through.

Back to the plot…….

Tommy lives the dream and buys the
Corvette of his dreams, but he is overcome with guilt. After a strange and uneasy drive home in the car, he decides to simply turn his mind once again to writing his detective novels.
All goes well until a knock on the door, and a mysterious rag doll is left on the step with a note in Vietnamese pinned to it’s hand. Tommy no longer reads Vietnamese, as he hasn’t practiced since he was a small boy. So he takes the doll inside and drops it on the couch whilst he tends to his novel……….. Things start going bad for Tommy almost straight away. After leaving his novel temporarily he returns to discover chilling words typed on the screen of his computer, he also notices that the doll has moved. Shortly after Tommy’s life becomes a surreal nightmare from which he must escape from until dawn………… The clock is ticking, tick tock tick tock…………… Will the hero find out what the hell is going on ? Will his family help him along the way ? What interesting people will he meet during his night of terror and how will they end up ???

I enjoyed the book immensely for many reasons:
1, The timescale can be similar to the readers, I was able to read the entire book in a day, the same timescale that Tommy Phan had to survive.
2, It is a well paced book and does not dwell too long on boring situations that go nowhere.
3, I bought the book second hand for 99p and felt I got a whole days entertainment for less than a quid.
4, It’s a feel good book, an adventure that takes you along for a ride and leaves you thinking, “Yes, go Tommy, go Tommy !!!”.
5, It is of course beautifully written, by an author I have come to regard as the best suspense writer of recent years.

I’d highly recommend Koontz books to anyone who is a reader of King or of Herbert, he has the same aura about him.
I would not recommend this book to people who
have little imagination, as you’d sit there reading it thinking “Yeah, right, as if…..”.

As short stories go, it is not a masterpiece like Arthur C. Clarke or Jimmy Ballard write, but it is a fine introduction to an author whose works number in the dozens, each one a fascinating insight into the working of Koontz mind.

I feel I know the author so well that I could let on to him in the street if I saw him. But that’s part of the greatest illusion that an author can give to the reader, one of personal involvement with the book and therefore themselves.

4 out of 5 stars from me.
An excellent way to get into the style of Koontz if you haven’t read his books before, for those that have, this is a blast from start to end and will not disappoint.




Writers footnote:

It’s nice to be back around Dooyoo again, I’ve missed the crowd of nutters around here that I was becoming so used to ! I hope you are all doing well and I’ll be about to catch up on ops and rate all your ops from bottles of ketchup to brand new Bentleys etc……
Mad as Cheese !
666disturbed

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