Story for the Week
I seem to have outgrown male novelists of a certain age…aka, the horror and suspense writers I used to love when I was younger, aka Stephen King and Dean Koontz.
If you had asked me 30 years ago who my favorite author was, I would immediately respond with Stephen King. Ask me about his books today, and I will tell you the last one I rated above 3 stars was eight years ago. 🫣 I own his newest releases, but I’m almost afraid to read them because I’m worried I’ll be disappointed.
You can Google King and Koontz and ascertain what they have in common from a demographic perspective. From a writing perspective, King tends to author long novels…in some cases reeeeeaaaaaaaly looooooooooong novels. I typically shy away from books under 300 pages because I feel like they lack enough character development for me. Of his 70+ books, King’s three longest novels (The Stand, It, and Under the Dome) all come in at more than 1,000 pages. That’s a lot of character development.
I read in a King interview that he wants to scare his readers, but if he can’t scare them, he’ll just gross them out. I don’t typically get scared by a book. I read Helter Skelter while working overnight security alone in college (Can Someone Fall in Love with Horror?). But I can see what King means in the books I’ve read. The top one that comes to mind is Pet Sematary. It definitely ranked up there on the gross-out scale. On the flip side, there were gross parts in Misery (which translated even better on the big screen when it was made into a movie), but I wouldn’t classify it as high on the gross-out scale.
Koontz tends to write shorter books than King, but he’s written about 50% more than King. One could argue (and in fairness, one could be wrong, but I doubt it) that Koontz spends less time writing and editing each book than King. I mean, I would think it takes longer to write 1,000 pages than 400. But hey, I’m not a novelist.
A commonality I have found with both writers is the desire (need?) to work in vulgar language, and that’s become a turn-off for me as I’ve gotten older. I don’t appreciate vulgarity for vulgarity’s sake—not that I did when I was younger, but it didn’t bother me as much. I don’t disapprove of vulgarity if it works within the story. It seems these two authors (of a certain age) throw it in at the most bizarre moments, and it’s almost like a slap in the face when it comes because it’s so unexpected.
I have not lost my interest in horror or suspense. I have read and reviewed plenty of great horror and suspense books over the last several years. Nevertheless, I find myself enjoying more the ones that are based in reality versus the supernatural—the ones that would make a great Criminal Minds episode. It’s probably the reason that I loved King’s Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, and End of Watch) and why I’ll probably still read Holly at some point.
I’ve always been a devotee of King. I don’t think I’ll ever completely lose that. Koontz, however, might go on the “do not read” list after this last one. 😬
Book Review
⭐⭐
2 Stars for The House at the End of the World by Dean Koontz
416 pages
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Publication Date: July 18, 2023
Purchased on Amazon.
Publisher’s Description
In retreat from a devastating loss and crushing injustice, Katie lives alone in a fortresslike stone house on Jacob’s Ladder island. Once a rising star in the art world, she finds refuge in her painting.
The neighboring island of Ringrock houses a secret: a government research facility. And now two agents have arrived on Jacob’s Ladder in search of someone―or something―they refuse to identify. Although an air of menace hangs over these men, an infinitely greater threat has arrived, one so strange even the island animals are in a state of high alarm.
Katie soon finds herself in an epic and terrifying battle with a mysterious enemy. But Katie’s not alone after all: a brave young girl appears out of the violent squall. As Katie and her companion struggle across a dark and eerie landscape, against them is an omnipresent terror that could bring about the end of the world.
************
Main Characters:
- Katie – 36-year-old widow who lives alone on Jacob’s Ladder, intent on keeping “the Promise” she made to her late husband
- Libby – 14-year-old daughter of two government employees who work on Ringrock; they live on the separate island Oak Haven
- Michael J. – a seemingly domesticated fox that takes up residence with Katie when something infiltrates Jacob’s Ladder; she has seen him around the island near her house and has named him Michael J. Fox
I was excited when I saw the option to purchase this book with my digital credits on Amazon. I haven’t read a Dean Koontz book in a long time, but he had always been a favorite. Whew…not anymore. Coming in at 416 pages, this is at least 100 pages too long and probably still wasn’t worth the time I put into it.
The story revolves around Katie and her solitary life on Jacob’s Ladder, the island she bought after her husband died. Katie prefers to be alone. Her groceries get delivered directly from the mainland. She pays someone to drive her Range Rover every couple of weeks because it’s stored on the mainland, and she rarely ventures to the mainland herself. Her expectation is to live out the rest of her life alone on Jacob’s Ladder.
One day, she notices activity near Ringrock, another island situated near hers, and discovers two government agents searching her island for someone or something. As the situation escalates due to a supernatural government secret, Libby makes her way by boat to Jacob’s Ladder in the middle of a storm in need of Katie’s help. The two are in for the battle of their lives and need to get to safety before the government sets off the nuclear weapon placed beneath Ringrock years before just in case anything went wrong.
The premise of the book was interesting. We’ve all heard stories about Area 51, the Nevada Test and Training Range where conspiracy theorists believe the government hides UFOs and alien life forms. In fact, the movie Independence Day has a whole storyline about a secret facility housing aliens that even the President doesn’t know about. What if something dangerous escaped from a secret facility in a secluded place? How long before the secret gets out? And what do you do with the handful of people who know about it?
What killed this book for me was the pace and the writing. This book was slooooooooooow. Maybe Koontz was trying to make the point that Katie lives a solitary existence, but for the first 100 pages, we don’t really learn much. Katie lives her day-to-day. We hear ad nauseum about “the Promise” Katie made to her husband. Yes, it is always capitalized, and it’s mentioned at least two dozen times exactly that way—keeping the Promise, fulfilling the Promise, why is the Promise so important. When we finally find out what it is 156 pages in, I was SO over it, and it was not worthy of the emphasis (spoiler alert: Live life).
And Michael J. Fox, the domesticated fox that Katie takes in…I do not understand why he is even in the book. He is in everything, and I don’t know why he couldn’t have just been a dog or not even existed at all.
To make matters worse, I don’t remember Koontz’s writing style being this…laborious. He mentions that Katie manages through personal catastrophes by focusing intently on quotidian tasks (his words, not mine), and then goes on to describe how she continues dinner preparation.
“The ingredients for the potato-and-onion dish are in the refrigerator and need only to be assembled in a pan to be cooked nearer mealtime. Later, she will slice the filet mignon against the grain and sauté it in butter and brown Madeira sauce.
“Now she whips up the filling for walnut-and-kumquat crepes. She puts six ounces of soft, unsalted butter in a metal bowl. One cup of sugar, three large eggs, three tablespoons of cognac. She opens a can of kumquats in syrup, finely dices six fruits, and adds them to the bowl. She pulverizes six ounces of walnut meat and beats all the ingredients together. She covers the bowl with plastic wrap and puts it in the freezer so that, when congealed, it won’t immediately liquefy and spread when the crepes are baked.”
WHY?!?!
And I think Koontz decided to use every 25-cent word he knows:
- “…the machines deliquesce into the blackness.”
- “Focus intently on quotidian needs….”
- “She almost recoils from it and leaves it to bring down the house upon itself and deliquesce into death….” (yes, he uses this one twice)
- “…Another must be in the bathroom, umblicated to a power outlet….”
- “Gazing into her coffee as if she is a master of elaeomancy and can read the future in the characteristics of a liquid surface….” (Even my Kindle couldn’t define that one. I mean, he literally could have just said “Gazing into her coffee as if she can read the future in the liquid….”)
- “The day is humid, unseasonably warn, birthing swarms of flies as if by the discredited science of abiogenesis.” (By the point, I made a note asking if he wanted people to hate him.)
Rolling Stone once called Koontz “America’s most popular suspense novelist,” according to the author bio. I didn’t find this suspenseful (or enjoyable) at all.
If you enjoyed this post, please comment below. Subscribe for regular updates, and share it with your friends. If you’re interested in starting a conversation, send an email to booksundertheblanket@gmail.com.
As an Amazon affiliate, I earn a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using the links on my site.
