Book report: Velocity, by Dean Koontz
I guess that bestselling novelists can get away with this. By "this" I mean 416 pages of filler wrapped around a plot that makes no sense.
I picked this book up because I was looking for something escapist to read. I had enjoyed a couple of Koontz's thousand other novels. "Lightning" was a pretty good science fiction story. Maybe "enjoyed" doesn't really apply to his "Intensity" as much as "held on with both hands afraid to let go". Anyway, that's why I started reading "Velocity".
It begins with several dozen pages of a barroom windbag that, as near as I can tell, has nothing to do with the rest of the story. I can see how these bestselling authors can turn a fairly slim story into a brick of a book. Description. Lots of description. What the bar looks like. What the glasses look like. What everything looks like. When, later, a character walks up to a house, we get every bush and rock along the way. None of this has anything to do with the story. It's about building "atmosphere", a literary term that means "making sure that readers feel like they got their money's worth when they plunk down their $27 (hardcover)".
Eventually, the Plot starts when the main character (hey, it turns out to be the bartender – who knew?) finds a note on his windshield that says, "If you don't go to the police, I'll kill X. If you do go to the police, I'll kill Y. The choice is yours." Naturally, he doesn't go to the police, because if he did, the book would be over in chapter 2. This is an example of some kind of law of plot determinism, like in an Agatha Christie story when someone plaintively asks Hercule Poirot if he'll take the case. My money is on "yes" or else it's a real short story.
So, with a setup like that, you'd expect a lot of internal angst about what to do and philosophical musings on the nature of free will. Not so much. He does drink beer and whittle. Otherwise, he's pretty much a puppet, guided from scene to scene as if on a ride through the amusement park's haunted house. You know how characters sometimes come alive and take charge of the story, going in directions that the author never expected? That doesn't happen here.
There is a lot of creepy stuff, because Koontz likes to get us in the mood to be creeped out further. There's a fiancée in a coma who is really chatty and sounds like the oracle at Delphi in the ominousness of her delirium. I bet that happens all the time. There's the friend who spends his time shooting at targets made of Disney characters he himself has drawn. Hint: this is symbolic. Oh, you could tell? There's some weird artist who has constructed a disturbing piece of public art, part of whose artiness is that it will be publicly destroyed at a known date and time. Guess when the plot will come to a head? Yes!
I gave up on this story when the main character didn't check in the second corpse's shirt pocket for something. He should have. He knew that there should be something in that pocket. Something vital for unraveling the mystery and bringing the murderer to justice that any real person on the planet would have checked for. He didn't. I realized at that point that this book was about showing us a series of disturbing scenes, not about real people acting in real ways.
In a way, "Velocity" works as escapism, because I did escape it successfully.
Highly not recommended.
I guess that bestselling novelists can get away with this. By "this" I mean 416 pages of filler wrapped around a plot that makes no sense.
I picked this book up because I was looking for something escapist to read. I had enjoyed a couple of Koontz's thousand other novels. "Lightning" was a pretty good science fiction story. Maybe "enjoyed" doesn't really apply to his "Intensity" as much as "held on with both hands afraid to let go". Anyway, that's why I started reading "Velocity".
It begins with several dozen pages of a barroom windbag that, as near as I can tell, has nothing to do with the rest of the story. I can see how these bestselling authors can turn a fairly slim story into a brick of a book. Description. Lots of description. What the bar looks like. What the glasses look like. What everything looks like. When, later, a character walks up to a house, we get every bush and rock along the way. None of this has anything to do with the story. It's about building "atmosphere", a literary term that means "making sure that readers feel like they got their money's worth when they plunk down their $27 (hardcover)".
Eventually, the Plot starts when the main character (hey, it turns out to be the bartender – who knew?) finds a note on his windshield that says, "If you don't go to the police, I'll kill X. If you do go to the police, I'll kill Y. The choice is yours." Naturally, he doesn't go to the police, because if he did, the book would be over in chapter 2. This is an example of some kind of law of plot determinism, like in an Agatha Christie story when someone plaintively asks Hercule Poirot if he'll take the case. My money is on "yes" or else it's a real short story.
So, with a setup like that, you'd expect a lot of internal angst about what to do and philosophical musings on the nature of free will. Not so much. He does drink beer and whittle. Otherwise, he's pretty much a puppet, guided from scene to scene as if on a ride through the amusement park's haunted house. You know how characters sometimes come alive and take charge of the story, going in directions that the author never expected? That doesn't happen here.
There is a lot of creepy stuff, because Koontz likes to get us in the mood to be creeped out further. There's a fiancée in a coma who is really chatty and sounds like the oracle at Delphi in the ominousness of her delirium. I bet that happens all the time. There's the friend who spends his time shooting at targets made of Disney characters he himself has drawn. Hint: this is symbolic. Oh, you could tell? There's some weird artist who has constructed a disturbing piece of public art, part of whose artiness is that it will be publicly destroyed at a known date and time. Guess when the plot will come to a head? Yes!
I gave up on this story when the main character didn't check in the second corpse's shirt pocket for something. He should have. He knew that there should be something in that pocket. Something vital for unraveling the mystery and bringing the murderer to justice that any real person on the planet would have checked for. He didn't. I realized at that point that this book was about showing us a series of disturbing scenes, not about real people acting in real ways.
In a way, "Velocity" works as escapism, because I did escape it successfully.
Highly not recommended.
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