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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
Not one of my favorites of the Odd Thomas books by a long shot. Pretty unimaginative.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
A good book but don't let anyone tell you, you don't have to read this in order because it is referenced in the later books and I was confused. Interesting and dark but comes with the comfort of Odd being the one who can stumble his way into a resolution.
I will never, ever tire of Odd Thomas. One of my favorite literary characters of all time. I've always found this short interlude to be a charming story and one that I enjoyed very much. I can admit to being slightly jealous of all the interesting and wonderful characters that Oddie gets to meet along the way.
Entertaining, but it felt a little off to me, for some reason. Still, it passed the time!
I read this in a short time frame while sleep deprived and coming off reading two other books, so it's hard to tell if that affected my reading experience or not, but overall, I did not have a good time. This book was creepy and interesting at times, but I found myself rolling my eyes a whole lot. First off, as the title implies, this is not a main entry in the series, yet, we get an encounter with an alien species, something that is out of this world (no pun intended) and instead of making a fully fledged story from that, the author instead decides to cramp it into a lackluster novella.
Why do I dislike it so much? Two reasons - first, I'm now five books into the Odd Thomas series and I'm tired of this man having absolutely no character arc at all. What's worse is that I get the vibe that Dean Koontz is preventing a character arc intentionally. I can't stop myself from talking about what's wrong with this story without mentioning direct spoilers, so be warned. In the first book, Odd's love interest is killed which leads to Odd being in a very dark place. This makes sense, as Odd has an insane amount of trauma and the only two things that keep him going are his love interest and his belief that his ability is meant to be used to help people. So when the love interest dies, he is plunged into darkness. This makes sense! I get it! But it is now the fifth book, and these books take place over the course of two years, so it's pretty exhausting to read these books and not get the slightest sense that Odd is A) moving on with his life or B) learning anything from these adventures. He ends every book in the same place he started it in. Now, I don't think Dean Koontz is an idiot, like I said before, I think this is intentional and as someone who has struggled with depression, grief and trauma in the past, it is not unrealistic. However, this hinders the reading experience. If you read this story in isolation, you might not even pay much attention to this issue, but he has been the exact same person the past three books.
The second issue is much more egregious; Koontz manages to use a whole lot of words to say a whole lot of nothing. I read a lot of Dean Koontz in my infancy as a writer and I think that created some weird issues where I thought I needed to use flowery language and many words to describe something that can be summarized in one sentence. Now, I'm all for big words and complex sentences, but we don't need them on every line on every page. There are times when Odd, the narrator, goes completely off topic from the situation, which would be fine if it was RELEVANT TO THE STORY! There are times when he is in danger and his mind is wandering, regurgitating information that we were already given ten pages ago but with more flowery language and longer sentences. Now, this isn't a long story, it is only 250 pages, but if you cut out all the unnecessary sentences and weird preachy monologues, then the story would only be 100 pages. It's insane to me because I don't remember Koontz's writing being like this in previous books, but it's also been a few years since I've read a Koontz novel and I've matured a lot as a reader in those years, so maybe this is just something I'm noticing now.
There is a whole chapter that was useless. I finished it and thought, what was the point of that? Now, not every sentence has to be dripping with relevance, but this is a novella and time is short, and something that drives me insane is that there are parts where, for the sake of time, the author condenses important scenes or important dialogue to just brief summaries. For example, when we discover that ALIENS are behind the mysterious threat in this town, we are not told this by the character who has this knowledge himself, but rather we are told it second hand by another narrator in a brief three paragraph summary. The author couldn't spare ten pages for some good exposition but could dedicate a whole chapter to a character sitting around and worrying with nothing else happening? We just discovered A) aliens are real and B) they are behind the chaos in this town, yet that wasn't an important scene or interaction?
This is what Koontz wrote - "I don't like spectacles other than the most gentle displays of nature, such as color-splashed sunsets, and the more frivolous works of humanity, like fireworks. Otherwise spectacle is always twined with damage and nearly always with loss, the former partial and perhaps repairable, but the latter absolute and beyond recovery. We've lost so much in this world that every new loss, whether large or small, seems to be a potentially breaking weight on the already swayed back of civilization. Nevertheless, I'm riveted by the massive truck, a ProStart, shuddering across the brink of the first slope, angling down so sharply that for a moment it appears about to tip forward, stand on end, and slam onto its back. But quickly it rights itself and rushes seaward as though an eighteen-wheeler cruising overland, breaking a trail through the tall wild grass, is as natural as a white-tailed deer making the same journey."
This is what he meant - "Normally I don't like spectacle, but I found slight exhileration when the semi-truck crashed through the fence and broke apart."
Not twenty pages later we get, "All his barriers come right down, he doesn't care what's classified, and he pours out his heart to me. I use the word heart figuratively, because the truth is he doesn't have one. To avoid like a thousand-page talking-head scene, what I'll do is, I'll condense it for you.
My mother has been teaching me to be concise and all."
So, we get like five paragraphs of Odd rambling about something he could've described in a sentence, but not long after this, Koontz decides that the revelation of what's been causing the madness in the town and the revelation of aliens being real and the direct cause of the bloodshed isn't important enough to be given a proper scene? And you know what? Right after the sentence above, the narrator spends a page and a half talking about HER MOTHER'S HOMESCHOOLING TACTICS! What the hell!
What makes this so infuriating is that the two narrators are aware they go off topic and they don't care. These books are framed as memoirs of a real person, and towards the end of the story it is explained the reason why we got chapters with our other narrator is because she wrote and sent them to our protagonist after the events of the story, which is how we know what's going on with the other character. That's okay, I guess, I don't really care about that, but when they're talking about this character writing her chapters and sending them to the protagonist, they specifically tell her to ramble because it's more authentic. It's like Koontz recognized that this was an issue and instead of dealing with it he just slapped a lame-ass excuse on it.
The worst part is that this could've been such an enjoyable story if it wasn't for these issues! It's like Koontz is insecure his writing doesn't sound full enough so he has to filibuster for ninety percent of the book and it made the story one of the most unreadable things I have ever touched. I have other Dean Koontz books on my shelf and this story is making me consider throwing them all out and giving up on him forever.
You don't have to read this story to understand the rest of the series, so just skip it. It's not worth the brain cells you're going to burn reading it.
Why do I dislike it so much? Two reasons - first, I'm now five books into the Odd Thomas series and I'm tired of this man having absolutely no character arc at all. What's worse is that I get the vibe that Dean Koontz is preventing a character arc intentionally. I can't stop myself from talking about what's wrong with this story without mentioning direct spoilers, so be warned. In the first book, Odd's love interest is killed which leads to Odd being in a very dark place. This makes sense, as Odd has an insane amount of trauma and the only two things that keep him going are his love interest and his belief that his ability is meant to be used to help people. So when the love interest dies, he is plunged into darkness. This makes sense! I get it! But it is now the fifth book, and these books take place over the course of two years, so it's pretty exhausting to read these books and not get the slightest sense that Odd is A) moving on with his life or B) learning anything from these adventures. He ends every book in the same place he started it in. Now, I don't think Dean Koontz is an idiot, like I said before, I think this is intentional and as someone who has struggled with depression, grief and trauma in the past, it is not unrealistic. However, this hinders the reading experience. If you read this story in isolation, you might not even pay much attention to this issue, but he has been the exact same person the past three books.
The second issue is much more egregious; Koontz manages to use a whole lot of words to say a whole lot of nothing. I read a lot of Dean Koontz in my infancy as a writer and I think that created some weird issues where I thought I needed to use flowery language and many words to describe something that can be summarized in one sentence. Now, I'm all for big words and complex sentences, but we don't need them on every line on every page. There are times when Odd, the narrator, goes completely off topic from the situation, which would be fine if it was RELEVANT TO THE STORY! There are times when he is in danger and his mind is wandering, regurgitating information that we were already given ten pages ago but with more flowery language and longer sentences. Now, this isn't a long story, it is only 250 pages, but if you cut out all the unnecessary sentences and weird preachy monologues, then the story would only be 100 pages. It's insane to me because I don't remember Koontz's writing being like this in previous books, but it's also been a few years since I've read a Koontz novel and I've matured a lot as a reader in those years, so maybe this is just something I'm noticing now.
There is a whole chapter that was useless. I finished it and thought, what was the point of that? Now, not every sentence has to be dripping with relevance, but this is a novella and time is short, and something that drives me insane is that there are parts where, for the sake of time, the author condenses important scenes or important dialogue to just brief summaries. For example, when we discover that ALIENS are behind the mysterious threat in this town, we are not told this by the character who has this knowledge himself, but rather we are told it second hand by another narrator in a brief three paragraph summary. The author couldn't spare ten pages for some good exposition but could dedicate a whole chapter to a character sitting around and worrying with nothing else happening? We just discovered A) aliens are real and B) they are behind the chaos in this town, yet that wasn't an important scene or interaction?
This is what Koontz wrote - "I don't like spectacles other than the most gentle displays of nature, such as color-splashed sunsets, and the more frivolous works of humanity, like fireworks. Otherwise spectacle is always twined with damage and nearly always with loss, the former partial and perhaps repairable, but the latter absolute and beyond recovery. We've lost so much in this world that every new loss, whether large or small, seems to be a potentially breaking weight on the already swayed back of civilization. Nevertheless, I'm riveted by the massive truck, a ProStart, shuddering across the brink of the first slope, angling down so sharply that for a moment it appears about to tip forward, stand on end, and slam onto its back. But quickly it rights itself and rushes seaward as though an eighteen-wheeler cruising overland, breaking a trail through the tall wild grass, is as natural as a white-tailed deer making the same journey."
This is what he meant - "Normally I don't like spectacle, but I found slight exhileration when the semi-truck crashed through the fence and broke apart."
Not twenty pages later we get, "All his barriers come right down, he doesn't care what's classified, and he pours out his heart to me. I use the word heart figuratively, because the truth is he doesn't have one. To avoid like a thousand-page talking-head scene, what I'll do is, I'll condense it for you.
My mother has been teaching me to be concise and all."
So, we get like five paragraphs of Odd rambling about something he could've described in a sentence, but not long after this, Koontz decides that the revelation of what's been causing the madness in the town and the revelation of aliens being real and the direct cause of the bloodshed isn't important enough to be given a proper scene? And you know what? Right after the sentence above, the narrator spends a page and a half talking about HER MOTHER'S HOMESCHOOLING TACTICS! What the hell!
What makes this so infuriating is that the two narrators are aware they go off topic and they don't care. These books are framed as memoirs of a real person, and towards the end of the story it is explained the reason why we got chapters with our other narrator is because she wrote and sent them to our protagonist after the events of the story, which is how we know what's going on with the other character. That's okay, I guess, I don't really care about that, but when they're talking about this character writing her chapters and sending them to the protagonist, they specifically tell her to ramble because it's more authentic. It's like Koontz recognized that this was an issue and instead of dealing with it he just slapped a lame-ass excuse on it.
The worst part is that this could've been such an enjoyable story if it wasn't for these issues! It's like Koontz is insecure his writing doesn't sound full enough so he has to filibuster for ninety percent of the book and it made the story one of the most unreadable things I have ever touched. I have other Dean Koontz books on my shelf and this story is making me consider throwing them all out and giving up on him forever.
You don't have to read this story to understand the rest of the series, so just skip it. It's not worth the brain cells you're going to burn reading it.
Odd Interlude: A Special Odd Thomas Adventure by Dean Koontz
I'm not sure what I think of this book, it is spooky, hypnotic, mesmerizing, surprising, creepy, funny and weird. The plot is simple: Odd, Annamaria and the dogs (Raphael & Boo the ghostdog) arrive in Harmony Corners, something extremely strange is going on, Odd gets to the bottom of it and saves the day.
The beauty of this short tale is in the writing. Koontz weaves the story like he's creating a tapestry of words. I read huge pieces of it aloud to anyone that would stand still and listen! Not much development of characters but that's fine, there is enough swashbuckling action and fantastical out of this world 'stuff' to keep Odd fans happy until the next novel hits the shelves. 3 stars
I'm not sure what I think of this book, it is spooky, hypnotic, mesmerizing, surprising, creepy, funny and weird. The plot is simple: Odd, Annamaria and the dogs (Raphael & Boo the ghostdog) arrive in Harmony Corners, something extremely strange is going on, Odd gets to the bottom of it and saves the day.
The beauty of this short tale is in the writing. Koontz weaves the story like he's creating a tapestry of words. I read huge pieces of it aloud to anyone that would stand still and listen! Not much development of characters but that's fine, there is enough swashbuckling action and fantastical out of this world 'stuff' to keep Odd fans happy until the next novel hits the shelves. 3 stars
A pleasant interlude and a welcome divergence for those looking for something different, but I was mentally falling asleep for this one.
TL; DR: A strangely sci-fi heavy placeholder in the middle of the regular series, Odd Interlude maintains the tone of the mainline books, but without the same elegance.
I've said I enjoy the way Koontz writes and this continues here, but I do understand people's complaints of the tone.
Characters: Nice new characters, but due to a short story and other factors, there's no growth to be had and I can't get attached to anyone. I was a little disappointed with how little Annamaria appeared, as well as how much of a nonfactor she was in Odd's decision-making. It was just kind of awkward. It felt like Odd was less Odd, but other characters were more Odd. I'll elaborate more momentarily.
Setting: Strangely unsatisfying; this really only felt compelling to me in the final confrontation, otherwise it felt kind of weak, though this may again be the result of the novella aspect.
Story: It's ok I guess; this story was kind of doomed for me the moment aliens were mentioned. I know it's a fault of my own, but there is little that involves space or aliens that interests me. When any mention of space happens, my eyes glaze over and I start counting pages. It's not intentional, but it's not for me. Plus it just doesn't fit in Odd's world as I've imagined it.
Writing: Weaker than previous books and harmful to the tone of the series I think. As I said before, Odd doesn't feel like the same character here. It's strange and I'm not sure how to put it, but this is just a bit awkward to read. On the opposite side, we get another perspective that doesn't feel unique at all; it's almost as if it's just Odd's voice from a different character, and not nearly as comfortable to listen to.
This was definitely the weakest of the Odd saga I've read so far. I'm hopeful it picks back up, as I'm assuming Koontz is at his prime in long form storytelling, but a little disappointed here, unfortunately.
3.3 🌟
TL; DR: A strangely sci-fi heavy placeholder in the middle of the regular series, Odd Interlude maintains the tone of the mainline books, but without the same elegance.
I've said I enjoy the way Koontz writes and this continues here, but I do understand people's complaints of the tone.
Characters: Nice new characters, but due to a short story and other factors, there's no growth to be had and I can't get attached to anyone. I was a little disappointed with how little Annamaria appeared, as well as how much of a nonfactor she was in Odd's decision-making. It was just kind of awkward. It felt like Odd was less Odd, but other characters were more Odd. I'll elaborate more momentarily.
Setting: Strangely unsatisfying; this really only felt compelling to me in the final confrontation, otherwise it felt kind of weak, though this may again be the result of the novella aspect.
Story: It's ok I guess; this story was kind of doomed for me the moment aliens were mentioned. I know it's a fault of my own, but there is little that involves space or aliens that interests me. When any mention of space happens, my eyes glaze over and I start counting pages. It's not intentional, but it's not for me. Plus it just doesn't fit in Odd's world as I've imagined it.
Writing: Weaker than previous books and harmful to the tone of the series I think. As I said before, Odd doesn't feel like the same character here. It's strange and I'm not sure how to put it, but this is just a bit awkward to read. On the opposite side, we get another perspective that doesn't feel unique at all; it's almost as if it's just Odd's voice from a different character, and not nearly as comfortable to listen to.
This was definitely the weakest of the Odd saga I've read so far. I'm hopeful it picks back up, as I'm assuming Koontz is at his prime in long form storytelling, but a little disappointed here, unfortunately.
3.3 🌟
Paperback
Little too sci fi for me, but neat how it was originally a 3-part digital series and is pitched as #4.5.
Little too sci fi for me, but neat how it was originally a 3-part digital series and is pitched as #4.5.
Another Odd Thomas novel from Dean Koontz. This continues from the end of Odd Apocalypse where Odd and his newly acquired friend Annamaria stumble upon the seemingly peaceful town of Harmony Center and discover the creature that is terrorising the whole town. Since the creature can possess individuals very rapidly, the whole town becomes an army of puppets for it to leash upon anybody who threatens its absolute reign over the town. Odd has a very formidable opponent and has to struggle to find a way to defeat it.
Typical Odd Thomas novel and still has some appeal.
Typical Odd Thomas novel and still has some appeal.