I guess as a teaser the author was a British POW of the Japanese in WW2 and bases his ideas of samurai era Japan on crazy Imperial Japanese propoganda of what it was like so its racist and harrowing as hell but also oddly respectful cause he treats the idea with awe and respect and it's just super epic and adventurous. One of my favorite books of all time.

Philip k dick is my favorite.

Have you read Notes from the Underground? It's a first person novella you can read in one sitting and it's ****ing great. Probably the first representation in literature of the resentment of being excluded from modern society, of being a "superfluous man" as they called it in Russia. Funny too

I haven't read that one but it's not typical of Koontz. I've read, let's see... Lightning, Twilight Eyes, Hideaway, Whispers, The Face, False Memory, Cold Fire, The Bad Place, Mr. Murder and am currently reading for Karen Dark Rivers of the Heart, one his best. This has at best three main characters (four if you include the dog) and others just come and go; there's no need to take notes. I don't find he writes that way so maybe Strangers is an exception, or maybe, since by your own admission you don't like or read novels, it's just not something you're used to, keeping a few characters in your head.



What you read depends of course on what you want to get out of the experience. I personally always read novels, not for information but for entertainment, to be taken out of the drab, humdrum world and cast into another. Nowadays I also read to see how others write, and to perhaps pick up tips or maybe just marvel at how well - or badly - they write.
Sorry sorry, I had to. :laughing:
:shycouch:

What? Might want to go back and re-read things.

Lightning is an outlier for Koontz - I've read too many of his to list here. You didn't list Watchers - which is his best work imo.
Hollywood even made a god awful adaption of it.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/By4g5fuAmRg/hqdefault.jpg


Strangers is not only longer than most of his stuff (526 pgs.) but it's ridiculously overstuffed with main characters - who you have to deal with the minutia of each of their back stories before getting to the meat of the story.

Primary characters

Dominick Corvaisis, author
Ginger Weiss, surgeon
Ernie Block, U.S.M.C. (ret.), and his wife, Faye Block
Brendan Cronin, priest and curate
Jack Twist, former Army Ranger and P.O.W., professional thief
Jorja Monatella, formerly Rykoff, Las Vegas casino cocktail waitress
Alan Rykoff, Jorja's estranged husband
Marcie Rykoff, their young daughter
Sandy Sarver, diner waitress, and her husband, Ned Sarver, short-order cook
Leland Falkirk, U.S. Army Colonel
Parker Faine, artist
Stefan Wycazik, parish priest

Seriously? You think that's a lot of characters? Have you ever read Moorcock, or Tolkien, or King, or even Martin? Come on: my own books have more characters than that. That's standard. I didn't list Watchers because I haven't read it: those were the Koontz books I could remember reading. I also read Odd Thomas and its follow-up but didn't enjoy them. I mean, above is hardly a cast of thousands is it? I guarantee not every one of those main characters is connected strongly to the plot. Each to his own, but I could easily follow and keep up with a small cast like that. It's harder to read Martin's stuff than it is to read Koontz.

Jeez cripes Troll, READ posts better before replying.

It's a lot of characters FOR KOONTZ. I only brought it (and Swan Song) up cause someone mentioned not liking The Stand cause it had too many characters.

You should check out Watchers. Having been through at least a dozen or more of his books, it's his best book by far.

To be clear, it's not that I don't like The Stand for having too many characters, it's because the perspective and narration switches between all those characters every chapter or so. I have no problem with a lot of characters, but when the perspective switches between all of them frequently, it became difficult for me to keep track of things.

Same exact issue with both Strangers and Swan Song - at least for the 1st half of the books or so.

To be fair, it's not me who needs to read it's you who needs to check what you write. You just presented a list of characters, said they were from his book, and didn't clarify that that was not the standard MO for the writer. Your post reads "wow! Look! This is a lot of characters!" NOT "Wow! Look! This is a lot of characters FOR THIS WRITER!" Besides, if that's the point you're making then you're proving my own point, that that was an exception, and that what I said was correct: normally, he doesn't use a ton of characters in his story. Like I say, in DRotH there are about four main ones. Plenty others come and go, but the only ones you need to keep an eye on are Roy Miro, Spencer Grant, the dog Rocky (though he's always with Grant anyway) and Valerie Keene, who only shows up as an actual character from part two of the book. I never had a problem keeping up with any of his character list in other novels of his. Therefore I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, exactly.
Perspectives and timelines, on the other hand, can be hard to keep straight in your head. It's like, is this now or then? Is this him/her talking or someone talking about him/her talking? If that's not handled correctly it can be very confusing.