Odd Thomas - Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz is a prolific writer. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, he has managed to score New York Times best sellers with 8 hardbacks and 11 paperbacks in a writing career that spans 5 decades. Odd Thomas was published earlier this year and represents a Christmas gift based on my love of the horror/fantasy genre. “My name is Odd Thomas, though in this day and age when fame is at the altar at which most people worship, I am not sure why you should care who I am or that I exist.” Those opening words of chapter 1 set the tone for the introspective 20-year-old to tell a strange tale in the first person to his metaphorical audience that amounts to you and I. Set ...  Read the complete review

"To overcome evil with good is good; to resist evil with evil is evil." Odd by name and odd by nature seems to be the opinion of many in Pico Mundo when faced with twenty year old Odd Thomas the grill chef extraordinaire. Many feel that he has some sort of gift in a psychic vein but those same people are slightly scared of Odd and those that associate with him, they don?t know the half of it. Odd Thomas sees dead people, but then by god, he does something about it, the dead come to Odd to seek retribution if they have been killed unfairly, they point him in the right direction to bring justice to their ...  Read the complete review

Odd Thomas is a 20 year old young man with the head and experience of a 50 year old. During the course of his average day as a fry cook at the Pico Mundo Grill, he sees dead people and bodachs. Dead people I think you might know about, but bodachs are black, smoky animals that only he can see and they start to sniff around humans when a major "violent" catastrophe is about to befall them. The dead people are simply hangers on who can't move to the next world for whatever reason. They can't talk but can try and communicate in other ways. Odd's most continuous visitor is Elvis no less, who loves to hang around him and ponder. When Odd ...  Read the complete review

I'm not going to dwell overly on Koontz's proliferic rate of production, his miserable home life as a youngster, his wife Gerda, or his dogs. That's been done to death. Instead, let's concentrate on this remarkable character, 'Odd' Thomas, of Pico Mundo, SC, USA. The first in the thus far 4 - book Odd Thomas franchise, this offering is an introduction to an individual invested with other - wordly faculties in an ordinary setting. The thing about OT (for brevity) is that he 'sees' dead folks, amongst other things, although 'seeing' when applied to the deceased is a sense worthy of further investigation. (They can't talk to him, though.) Especially when one of ...  Read the complete review

Reading Dean Koontz, for me, is an addiction. Like anything that keeps you coming back for more almost against your will, I find there's a mixture of great satisfaction and substantial regret about the process. Perhaps regret is too strong a word - I'm not sure I've ever regretted reading a book - but time and again, I find myself tempted to overlook the disappointment that was his previous novel and pick up his next one. Consistently, his ideas are wonderful, the way he sells his book within the first few chapters tantalising and making it impossible to put down. Unfortunately, his endings are also too often the muddy, unsatisfying result of a plot that has lost its way ...  Read the complete review