I SEE DEAD PEOPLE (Odd Thomas - Dean Koontz)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Odd Thomas - Dean Koontz
Date:	24/10/04 (224 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reasonably entertaining, Typical Koontz

Disadvantages: Fairly superficial

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 in Pico Mundo, Southern California, Odd is a chef at the Pico Mundo Grill. He is something of a cult figure renowned for his apparent psychic ability.

The story commences with Odd having chased down the murderer, Harlo Landerson, finding himself unnerved by a subsequent visitor to the grille. Relatively few people realise the extent of Odd’s abilities, one of which is to see curious creatures called Bodachs who appear to feed off death. Page 34 introduces them as “…fluid in shape and without discernible features, yet suggestive of something half man and half canine…unseen by all but me.” These strange creatures appear to be an alarm system alerting Odd to potentially dangerous people who may be planning violent crime including murder. On this occasion, a stranger in the restaurant attracts quite a horde of Bodachs earning himself the unfortunate nickname of “Fungus Man” to Odd.

This new interloper proves troubling for Odd so he decides to find out where he lives. Unable to hold himself back and having discovered the abode of Fungus Man at Camp’s End, Odd decides to take a look around only to be immersed in a dark, sinister atmosphere. Here he finds filing cabinets with documents containing folders committed to subjects like Ted Bundy and Osama Bin Laden.

How he knows, Odd isn’t sure but Bob Robertson (Fungus Man) turns up outside a house where he is visiting, loitering outside with malicious intent. Suitably intimidated, Odd escapes and meets up with his girlfriend, Stormy Llewellyn at St Bartholomew’s Catholic church in the historical district of town. Doggedly, Fungus Man finds him there and a game of cat and mouse develops with our hero fretting that he has embroiled his partner in the spiralling threat.

A combination of premonitionary dreams, a strong gut feeling and a sureness built around years of similar situations has now convinced Odd that Fungus Man is planning a mass murder on a scale that will dwarf other atrocities that have occurred in times gone bye. Desperate to head this maniac off at the pass, Odd tours the town trying to get a feel where an attack may start. Satisfied that all appears well he returns home only to discover a man murdered in his bath. Turning the prostrate body over he sees the still corpse of Bob Robertson staring back “His gaze fixed intently on a distant vision, as though in the final instalment of existence, he had glimpsed something more startling and far more terrifying than just the face of his killer.”

The massive presence of Bodachs in the town together with an engulfing feeling of terrible danger leaves Odd more confused than ever. Something big is going to happen and soon…and his girlfriend may be caught up in it too.

As ever when analysing a writer that you’ve been reading for years, it’s difficult not to be biased in favour of the author. In Koontz’s case, he is responsible for many books and movies that have given me pleasure in times gone bye. Here again, that short, punchy style with chapters typically between 4 and 8 pages will keep the reader interested. His is almost a machine style of writing, rattling off sequences that make the story fluid and eminently readable. Obviously influenced by the concept established in the movie “The Sixth Sense”, the author is keen to exploit the notion of “I see dead people” even using the phrase to introduce chapter 4. Whereas the “Sixth Sense” is a dark, moody tale brilliantly told using Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment, Odd Thomas simply doesn’t hit the same heights. Of course, that would have been asking a lot such is the quality of the movie.

Those familiar with Koontz’s work will instantly recognise a world of small, white-washed towns sited in a desert where the sky is clear at night with a million stars looking down on the macabre world of Koontz’s amoral villains. Here we have the strangest of motives together with a cast of innocents being led to the slaughter like sheep in a pen full of wolves. It’s typical Koontz that he can extract that feeling of impending doom whilst weaving in his twists and turns too throw the reader off balance. Odd Thomas builds to an explosive, dramatic conclusion whilst the charming sub-plot about the pure, developing relationship between the main character and his girlfriend contrasts completely with the dark events going on around the protagonists.

Koontz is good at creating monsters. Often sociopaths, he simply takes a premise and exploits it to the nth degree making a hero of, in our case, the pensive Odd Thomas.

Despite all this, I find myself bored of this kind of approach. Reading Odd Thomas felt like reading so many of the author’s other books. I find myself yearning for more depth such was the superficiality of the story and many of the characters created. That comic element is present with a homage to the dead Elvis Presley and Terrible Chester, the angry cat described like a vengeful version of the Cheshire Cat a la Lewis Carroll but even this isn’t enough to salvage my desire to read any more of the author’s future books.

All is not lost though. As far as this book goes, fans of DK will probably feel it ranks along side most of his other work and from that perspective it’s good enough. Those more generalist will find it an entertaining yarn with a horror theme. For me, it’s very middle of the road (i.e. ordinary) so I’m off to discover other horror writers with more imagination that will re-discover the genre and win it back from the clutches of the omnipresent Dan Brown and the thriller set.

Thanks for reading

Marandina

Notes:

This is based on the hardback version which originally retailed at £17.99

ISBN 0 00 713072 4

388pp and published by Harper Collins

The paperback is available through Amazon and other online retailers whilst Tesco have been selling copies for £3.79.

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