Cover Charge #1: The Case of Shelly V. Koontz
As a footnote to my review of Kill Bill Vol. 1, I was also in the mood to tear apart (literally and critically) Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. But it was San Diego State University property, so I opted for the critical brand of book-shredding as a cathartic consolation prize. Fortunately, Shelley's novel spawned a worthwhile book series from the mind of Dean Koontz that placed him (in my mind, anyway) on the level of a grand-scale writer like Stephen King, whose Dark Tower series I will get to some time in the future.
FROM April 19, 2004 (SW@ Ticket #2: Kill Mary Shelly, Vol. 1): Welcome to a world where color is colour and moving to a new house is quitting the establishment of one's previous residence--Romance-era English freaks!--oh, pardon me. Did I say that out loud? Good.
My slowly drooping eyelids endured fifty pages of description before I saw even one damn line of monologue ("Fuck dialogue," she said. "I'm just gonna have this character talk to himself for now"). The story finally got interesting on page 150, then boring again on page 151, with an agonizing 40 pages to go. A tale of steadily mounting horror? Hells no! A work of hallucinatory terror? Maybe if you're trippin' on mushrooms. Any fear or suspense I felt was lost in a stupidly poetic slab of confusing description. And the dialogue was just as bad. I wait impatiently for someone, ANYONE to start saying something, and when they do, I can't wait for them to take a cue from Chris Jericho and shut the Hell UP!
Good story structure, symbolism, character development, and all that mushy literature crap. But if Frankenstein wanted to create life, he should have just screwed his cousin, had kids, and spared us all the torturous bullshit of reading. If you take English 220 at SDSU, rent the damn movie.
D- (to be generous)
Cover Charge Update August 18, 2012: While working a strange rash of dissection murders, New Orleans Police Detectives O'Connor and Maddison stumble onto a world domination plot being perpetrated by the supposedly 200-years-dead (not to mention fictitious) Doctor Victor Frankenstein, whom they twice thwart (first at the end of City Of Night, then again at the climax of the Montana Trilogy) with the aid of Victor's "first," the Wretch featured in Mary Shelley's original tome.
First meant to be adapted into a USA Network series (kicked off by a TV movie based on the first book, Prodigal Son, starring Michael Madsen as Franken-crafted serial killer Jonathan Harker) that was cancelled in development following the film's release, Dean Koontz's Frankenstein touches on elements of Greek tragedy, like hubris coming before a great fall (case in point, the modern Frankenstein has changed his last name to Helios, the Greek sun god and giver of life, and fails twice for his excessive pride in himself and the supposed infallibility of science). Other pieces of social commentary stem from the Zombie film genre (I include the Terminator franchise in this group as well) or carry over from the original Frankenstein, like the humanity of monsters vs. the monstrous nature of humanity, mass mindlessness, the misappropriation of science, the God complex, denial of the self, over-reliance on technology, humanity's tendency toward self-destruction, any combination thereof, and anything else I forgot.
But this Frankenstein is all Koontz. The snappy dialogue, the building sexual tension between hero and heroine, the brilliantly profiled self-important villain without a conscience, the multi-layered plot that pulls you forward from book to book; it's Dean Koontz's undeniable writing voice read loud and clear.
What really elevates Frankenstein from just another book series to an enjoyable part of a larger Koontziverse are the tie-ins to his other works. During the lightning strike which animated the wretch (the self-named Deucalion, after the Greek precursor to Noah, and son of Prometheus), he was gifted with eternal life and the ability to travel within and between worlds on a quantum level, a concept first introduced in Koontz's masterpiece From the Corner of His Eye and later explored in the third book of his Odd Thomas series. Another crucial element is the potential for psychic power and quantum knowledge in autistic children, most prominently featured in The Door to December. There are other, more subtle nods to this developing literary universe that I'd have to look into. But for now, could we expect to see an Odd Thomas/Angel White/Deucalion crossover in Koontz's future? I hope so.
A+
As promised, next issue will be a re-release of the post that banning built: the Back In Order Boxed Set. Stay tuned, brace yourselves, and beware the barely bearable, brutal barrage of B's I have bestowed upon you. Buh-bye.
My slowly drooping eyelids endured fifty pages of description before I saw even one damn line of monologue ("Fuck dialogue," she said. "I'm just gonna have this character talk to himself for now"). The story finally got interesting on page 150, then boring again on page 151, with an agonizing 40 pages to go. A tale of steadily mounting horror? Hells no! A work of hallucinatory terror? Maybe if you're trippin' on mushrooms. Any fear or suspense I felt was lost in a stupidly poetic slab of confusing description. And the dialogue was just as bad. I wait impatiently for someone, ANYONE to start saying something, and when they do, I can't wait for them to take a cue from Chris Jericho and shut the Hell UP!
Good story structure, symbolism, character development, and all that mushy literature crap. But if Frankenstein wanted to create life, he should have just screwed his cousin, had kids, and spared us all the torturous bullshit of reading. If you take English 220 at SDSU, rent the damn movie.
D- (to be generous)
First meant to be adapted into a USA Network series (kicked off by a TV movie based on the first book, Prodigal Son, starring Michael Madsen as Franken-crafted serial killer Jonathan Harker) that was cancelled in development following the film's release, Dean Koontz's Frankenstein touches on elements of Greek tragedy, like hubris coming before a great fall (case in point, the modern Frankenstein has changed his last name to Helios, the Greek sun god and giver of life, and fails twice for his excessive pride in himself and the supposed infallibility of science). Other pieces of social commentary stem from the Zombie film genre (I include the Terminator franchise in this group as well) or carry over from the original Frankenstein, like the humanity of monsters vs. the monstrous nature of humanity, mass mindlessness, the misappropriation of science, the God complex, denial of the self, over-reliance on technology, humanity's tendency toward self-destruction, any combination thereof, and anything else I forgot.
But this Frankenstein is all Koontz. The snappy dialogue, the building sexual tension between hero and heroine, the brilliantly profiled self-important villain without a conscience, the multi-layered plot that pulls you forward from book to book; it's Dean Koontz's undeniable writing voice read loud and clear.
What really elevates Frankenstein from just another book series to an enjoyable part of a larger Koontziverse are the tie-ins to his other works. During the lightning strike which animated the wretch (the self-named Deucalion, after the Greek precursor to Noah, and son of Prometheus), he was gifted with eternal life and the ability to travel within and between worlds on a quantum level, a concept first introduced in Koontz's masterpiece From the Corner of His Eye and later explored in the third book of his Odd Thomas series. Another crucial element is the potential for psychic power and quantum knowledge in autistic children, most prominently featured in The Door to December. There are other, more subtle nods to this developing literary universe that I'd have to look into. But for now, could we expect to see an Odd Thomas/Angel White/Deucalion crossover in Koontz's future? I hope so.
A+
As promised, next issue will be a re-release of the post that banning built: the Back In Order Boxed Set. Stay tuned, brace yourselves, and beware the barely bearable, brutal barrage of B's I have bestowed upon you. Buh-bye.
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