I'm about a third of the way into Odd Thomas, and I can't stress enough how much Koontz's writing style irritates the hell out of me. I've committed to the series and all, but JFC I don't need to know what every person in a hundred yard radius is wearing and what they smelled like. I don't need a breakdown of every plant and insect in the environment.
I get that he likes establishing a scene. Every scene. Like it's a script treatment for a photoshoot. But I wish the man would actually get around to telling the fucking story.
I'm half tempted to go back after I've finished the first book and red pen the entire thing for shits and giggles to distill it down to the narrative story-wise and see how short I can make the novel without his penchant for chewing every scene for everything it's worth.
To put it in video game terms if you've never read Koontz, imagine the first DMC game, and make every single fight an 8 to 20 stage QuickTime event. That's what reading this book is like. On some level I can appreciate his attention to detail, but I wish he'd tell the story instead of describing every minute detail of it in grueling detail.
He would have been an amazing biography writer, but applying the same style to a work of fiction is obnoxious on many levels. I mean I get it, but I'd rather advance the plot than thread count the garments of every guest at a dinner party.
That being said, he certainly has a cadence I can't compare to any other author even if his technique invokes Dickens, but Dickens had the excuse of being paid by the word, Koontz doesn't really have that same excuse.
Koontz would tell a great story, but he can't seem to stop himself from describing the story instead.
I'm curious if you'd enjoy Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles. The books are quite detailed and the world stage is set, but sometimes, the chapters and pages are just a bit much. Still very addicting, like a triple-decker toasted bacon, lettuce, avocado, and tomato sandwich. Super delicious, but just takes a while to get your mouth around and often needs some dissecting with a fork and knife.
I'll consider it, but I'm already hell bent on slogging thru the Odd Thomas books, and at the very least, I'm going to need to finish something else on my Kindle as a pallette cleanser before reading what you're already telling me is going to be an equally as frustrating author.
A third of the way into Odd Thomas and I swear I can cut this book down to 15 or 20 pages, and it's still only about 6 hours short of midnight on the first day of the story. Admittedly, there is a certain staccato or cadence to his prose that I have difficulty in comparing to another author, but still, I don't need a weather report everytime he steps through a doorway. ---
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