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General Category >> General Board >> Two Minute Review: Odd Apocalypse
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Message started by Gary A. Markette on Sep 5^th, 2012, 9:07am

Title: Two Minute Review: Odd Apocalypse
Post by Gary A. Markette on Sep 5^th, 2012, 9:07am

Well I finished it. Koontz still tells a terrific story and creates interesting, memorable characters. He knows his craft and rarely falters in structure, technique, or pacing. He writes well--perhaps the best of all the perennial "best sellers." That said, Odd Apocalypse mildly disappointed. Despite Koontz's best efforts, I don't like the AnnaMaria character at all. I find her needlessly enigmatic and extremely annoying. Wisely, he keeps her pretty much in the background in this work, but the book still stumbles. Way too many deuses ex machina, Dean baby. His extremely likeable main character gets out of a whole bunch of increasingly dangerous situations with unlikely, last minute, lucky assists. A few such might be believeable, more than a few stretch psychic distance, and the plethora here detract from the story. And the story itself is a bit overblown; its main themes (time travel as a way to eternal youth; remarkable, undiscovered technlogy attributed to a famous-but-controversial genius; endangered child) weave their overdone way through the Benny Hill-ish chase scenes. I almost imagined "Yakety-Sax" in the background.

Mr Koontz: Jettison AnnaMaria, focus again on Odd and his ghostly companions (Alfred Hitchcock looks like a good choice), Jettison AnnaMaria, get Odd back to Pico Mundo, Jettison AnnaMaria, get him out of trouble without straining the reader's patience with dumb luck, and did I mention Jettison AnnaMaria?

All: This book is worth reading. Just don't expect the quality of Watchers or even that of the first three Odd Thomas books. It's better than Odd Hours, but not by much (mostly because Odd Hours also featured AnnaMaria.) Two and a half smiles :) :) 1/2 :)