One Door Away From Heaven

Rating:
Summary: Hideous!
Review: I'm begging you, do NOT read this book.

I've read most of Koontz's books since the mid-80's, and this is the last straw. This was such a hideously bad book that I will never again read anything he writes. I suspect the reason his books always rocket to the top of the best-seller lists is because people are afraid to try anything new, so they stick to the Koontz's, Grishams, Clancys, and Kings out of fear of possibly being let down by another lesser-known author. Why take the chance, when we KNOW we'll be let down by Koontz?

"One Door Away from Heaven" could've been 150 pages, to much better effect. Instead, it dragged on for 680 mind-numbing pages before finally reaching its dull conclusion. I found myself skipping entire chapters and not worrying about being "lost" when I resumed with the next chapter, because all the chapter did was take lengthy flights of fancy into various character's heads.

Is Koontz experiencing a midlife crisis? Why oh why is he shoving this canine-based spirituality at us? Humans are to re-discover God by means of mind-melds with dogs? Well, halleludog!

And WHAT is with the METAPHORS and SIMILIES? Ever page contains 2 or 3 comparisons, everything from feeding a dog (as previously mentioned) to the state of an old barn. Overuse of these literary tools results in a complete loss of effectiveness, and Koontz overuses the heck out of them.

Here, why don't I write a review summary in the same manner as Koontz writes his books:

- The book is heavy from too many pages, like the weight of a thousand rusty disused decommissioned slightly grey-ish battleships sitting in a harbor where a gentle ocean breeze caresses the brow like the touch of a lover long gone.

- Reading this book will cause your eyelids to droop, like the sagging, wrinkly, flyblown hide of an African bull elephant who is experiencing a lack of food due to a protracted drought on the Serengeti.

- Purchasing this book results in painful regrets, much like what one feels after licking a cold metal pole on a winter day because Bobby said you would be a chicken otherwise, but you did it and now you're stuck and lordy it hurts.

Horrid book! Bonfire material at it's finest.

Rating:
Summary: Koontz is losing it...
Review: As a long-time koontz fan, I can't tell you how very dissapointed I am with his more recent titles. I think I have no choice now but to either continue re-reading his old stuff or find a new author to look out for. His continued brilliance of characterization cannot compensate for such lackluster story-telling.

Rating:
Summary: Good story, flawed premise
Review: I found the first half of this book quite riveting. It had suspense, interesting characters, and a number of interlinked plotlines. Micky Bellsong, an ordinary woman with problems, was a welcome relief from Koontz's usual rich, talented, beautiful and boringly repetitious heroines. Then half way through we learned the villain's motives and I nearly threw the book away in disgust. Not because they are inherently unbelievable or because the issues raised by bioethics do not provide a rich and fertile subject for a book of this type, but because Koontz handles them so poorly. He obviously feels strongly about these issues and he allows his personal feelings to get in the way of both story and accuracy. In particular, the scene where Micky is learning about the villain on the Internet reads like a personal diatribe and sits oddly with the writing style of the rest of the book. The views of Koontz's "bioethicists" are actually those of a select group of utilitarians, and to present them as synonymous with the vast and complex field of bioethics is inaccurate, misleading, and quite frankly insulting. And whatever one may think of utilitarian ethics, Koontz's out-of-context quotes do not do them justice. Peter Singer, whom Koontz singles out for particular attack, has addressed and rejected this type of eugenic scenario on the basis that it would be incompatible with equal consideration of interests and with maximising the amount of happiness in the world, both important tenets of utilitarianism. I was irritated too by Koontz's assumption that any reader with an ounce of intelligence or compassion must share all his views. So overall, a good, exciting story which brought all its separate threats together very neatly at the end, but marred for me by the misleading and biased impression it gave readers of a complex scientific and philosophical field.

Rating:
Summary: Big disappointment
Review: I see that I'm not alone in thinking this is not one of Mr. Koontz's better books. It is too drawn out - I kept saying when is this going to get interesting? I am a huge fan, so I did bother to finish it. I agree, the older Koontz is better stuff.

Rating:
Summary: DON'T BUY THIS BOOK!
Review: Koontz has never met a word he doesn't like and he uses them all TWICE in this garbled miasma of philosophy, bioethics and alien intervention. The typical Koontz formulae are here - boy (alien though he may be), dog, evil doctor and his consort, crippled girl, well-meaning but inept friend, her confused but grandmotherly aunt and a private eye on the order of Magnum. There are so many characters that you never get involved with any of them and so many wordy proclaimations of intent and motivation that you want to scream "WILL YOU PLEASE GET ON WITH IT!"
Actually, the story has potential and in the hands of a better writer (like Stephen King or Peter Straub) this could have been a pot-boiler. Unfortunately, Koontz chooses to engage in so much explaination of motive and hand-wringing self-flagellation that the reader loses interest in the story. I hung with it as a source of amusement, not because of Koontz's [poor] attempts at humor, but because I found it amusing to count the number of metaphors Koontz uses to describe every human endeavor, from gassing up an 18-wheeler to feeding a dog. I did find myself skipping page after page devoted to the same theme, but producing no new information.
You should read this book just to see how bad writers try to introduce philosophy into what should be entertainment. Koontz should decide whether he wants to be Stephen King of Barbara Cartland. I think he wants to promote some message, but it is lost in the verbage.

My only consolation is that I did not buy this book, but checked it out of the local library. Evidently I was not the only one who found it odious - a note was scribbled on page 303 saying "THIS BOOK [is bad]". ...

Rating:
Summary: Not His Best
Review: It took me longer to read this novel. He went into great depth about a lot of things that I found boring. He kind of rambled on throughout the novel. He's telling the story about 4 different people (main characters) and he keeps switching back and forth between those, which I found distracting. Also he went into too much depth about those 4 characters before they finally got together. I really like his older novels better.
It's still an entertaining book and it's still Dean Koontz.
You read it and decide.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, Simply Wonderful
Review: I realize that people who read Koontz's previous work simply because of it's suspense and action will probably be disappointed with the direction his more recent books have taken. However, for those of you who have more expanded tastes I definitely recommend this one. There is a great deal of suspense, especially in the chase of the boy who is "becoming" Curtis Hammond. There is also a diabolical enemy made in the chararcter of Preston Maddoc. However, what stood out the most for me in this book was the spiritual message and hope for the human race that was instilled in me. The characters are all extremely interesting and have all dealt with struggle and tragedy most of their lives only to be given hope be a crippled girl with the most tragic past and the most wonderful sense of humor and outlook on life and a mysterious boy who is more than he seems. I also liked the way he worked in a real threat to the compassion of man-kind that has disturbed him (and me) utilitarian bioethics, which I assure you is very real. I have heard some reviewers saying that Leilani's life is too troubled to be the life of a nine-year-old girl. These people are living in a fantasy world if they think that every child is raised with love and caring and that the world is not filled with adults who treat them like playthings and take away their precious childhood before they are ready. Another plus in this book is that there is no disturbing description of rape which is in so many Koontz books.

Rating:
Summary: On the wrong heap
Review: Being a complete stranger to Dean Koontz oevre, I was thoroughly misled by recommendations of other readers. Placing this author anywhere near the likes of Stephen King is doing a bit of a disservice to people with a minimum of taste. I don't want to get into the kind of hidden agenda and personal hang-ups that seem to motivate this writer, as they are really his problem, but they concoct a story that never once manages to create even a hint of credibility or interest. Some of the worst fears of Puritan and Paranoid America are being fed here & to the members of his parish this might well be entertaining; is there no way to seperate these kind of authors from the serious writers?

Rating:
Summary: A good book that ends badly....
Review: I enjoy reading Koontz just for the fact that I know that once every four months he will have a new book out. Unfortunately, this book seems to have the sloppy writings of a man who has other ideas on his mind but can not but them down on paper.

For example, hellish creatures and our government are pursuing one of the main characters, a young boy. At the beginning of the book, Koontz grips the reader with some very intense moments, but, by the end of the book, we are lead to believe that the boy has "become" enough so he is no longer pursued. What happened to the pursuers, the government? Koontz just drops the ball and lets it roll wherever he wants. Characters are developed for no better reason than to fill space.

And he has one of the best diabolical bad guys to date in his writing, Preston, and by the end of the book you feel robbed. The book could have been great, but he needed to get that check and finish up By the Light of the Moon so it becomes a disappointment.

Personally, I have enjoyed some of his newer work such as False Memory and From the Corner of His Eye. This was disappointing.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not TUGTI-Koontz's Best
Review: "One Doorway Away From Heaven" [ODAFH], is not, in my opinion, one of the best works to date from Mr. Koontz nor is it the worst to date.

The reason I adore Mr. Koontz's works so highly, is because in 95% of cases he has gripped me in the first few pages. He always manages to describe the characters over the course of the story instead of spending clumps of pages in description as many other authors do.

In ODAFH, he seems to do the same in a seemingly longer manner. Read if you will, but I was ½ way through the novel before I was hooked. As per the norm, however, I was unable to put the book down.

I still have hopes the TUGTI-Koontz (The Uber God That Is) will finish the Christopher Snow series. Maybe Orson will meet up with his Cousin Einstein.

As is I look for a large print version of my favorite book, "Watchers".

All in all, I would have voted this 2½ stars had that option been given to me.

Regards,
Scott