Brother Odd is the best installment of the Odd Thomas series yet. Odd has gone off to a monastery/convent/school for disabled kids in the Sierra mountBrother Odd is the best installment of the Odd Thomas series yet. Odd has gone off to a monastery/convent/school for disabled kids in the Sierra mountains to sort out his problems in peace. He's accompanied by the ghost of Elvis Presley, who has developed quite a personality. While Odd is looking for peace, he doesn't find it. Bodaches, harbingers of disaster, start hanging around the children at the school. Odd tries to figure out what is going to happen and learns some lessons along the way.
This book introduces some great characters whom I hope to meet again. I highly recommend the Odd Thomas series even to people who don't like horror. The little bit of horror in these books is quite easy to take....more
I'm going to start by saying that I really enjoyed the most recent movie version of I Am Legend. I thought it was really well-done. I knew that it wasI'm going to start by saying that I really enjoyed the most recent movie version of I Am Legend. I thought it was really well-done. I knew that it wasn't anything like the book, but it was a good movie as it was. It's one of those movies that I'm glad I saw without having the book in my head to contrast it to.
That said, I enjoyed the book immensely too. It is very different than the movie, and that's okay. They can be different and each can be judged on it's own merits. I was a bit surprised to learn that I Am Legend was first published in 1954. It's definitely part of the genre of Cold War post-apocalyptic fiction. It's really interesting how much staying power the novel has. The setting is Los Angeles 20 years in the future, from 1954. Robert Neville is the last normal human in a town taken over by bacteria-infested vampire zombies. Matheson always calls them vampires, but they've got some very zombie-like tendencies. I really liked the way the story developed in this short novel and the ending took me a bit by surprise. It didn't seem dated at all, except for the record player. I love Matheson's use of language.
The narration of the audiobook was a bit annoying. The narrator had a tendency to get over-dramatic and it came off as silly. The words alone would have been dramatic enough with out the over-acting....more
I'm still not much of a series person, but I'm beginning to see what an author can do by re-visiting a character and setting. The character of Odd is I'm still not much of a series person, but I'm beginning to see what an author can do by re-visiting a character and setting. The character of Odd is developing quite nicely. He suffered a tragic loss in the first novel, but he's determined not to let that happen again. In Forever Odd, Koontz not only further develops the character of Odd, he expands on the history of Pico Mundo(Small World), California. Pico Mundo is a pretty typical California desert town and Koontz makes it very realistic.
I like that the Odd Thomas novels aren't typical horror. They are ghost stories with non-scary ghosts. It's the real world that's a scary place, not the supernatural. Koontz doesn't stoop to blood and gore. I love the insight we're getting into the ghost of Elvis Presley too.
Unlike the first book, which had a definitive ending as a stand-alone novel, Forever Odd spends the last chapter setting up the transition to the next installment of Odd's story, Brother Odd. I'll be checking that out of the library next....more
The Knights of the Cornerstone is a well-crafted and entertaining read that doesn't take a huge amount of brain power to work through. I liked the conThe Knights of the Cornerstone is a well-crafted and entertaining read that doesn't take a huge amount of brain power to work through. I liked the conceit of a small town on the banks of the Colorado River where California, Arizona and Nevada meet that's populated by modern-day Knights Templar. The book has a bit of everything: mystery, miracles, adventure and romance. I'd love to see a movie made from this book....more
**spoiler alert** When I was a kid growing up in northern San Diego County in the Sixties and Seventies, we used to make a yearly trek to Disneyland. **spoiler alert** When I was a kid growing up in northern San Diego County in the Sixties and Seventies, we used to make a yearly trek to Disneyland. We'd also make other treks to points north, especially Long Beach. Up until around 1974 or so, northern San Diego County was a pretty podunk place, but Orange County was even podunkier. Going up I-5 (or I-405), you saw hardly any civilization until you hit Anaheim or Long Beach. Even Anaheim would have been nothing if it weren't for the cheap motels and coffee shops lining Harbor Blvd. to serve the crowds visiting Disneyland. The rest was orange groves. On the coastal side, Huntington Beach was nothing but oil wells that we would call "grasshoppers". The town I live in now barely existed. Most of the homes in my community were built in the Seventies.
California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker does a good job of capturing Orange County life as I imagine it was in 1968. Orange groves are starting to convert to suburbia. Drive-in churches come into existence. The beach life includes plenty of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. I recognized a lot of the landmarks described in the story. Unfortunately, it seemed like Parker was trying to squeeze in every detail about 1968 Orange County. The main characters' parents are acquainted with Richard Nixon. The murder victim was a follower/friend of Timothy Leary. We even get to meet a folk-singer named Charles Manson! Sometimes, you just need to stick with the details that are significant, not try to include everything.
Despite its historical accuracy and rich setting, California Girl was a bore. It took way too long for Detective Nick Becker to solve the murder. Heck, I knew who did it about halfway through. The "twist" wasn't even a twist to me. Don't even get me going about the part where Nick and Lobdell go down to Ensenada, Mexico to take their suspect back to Orange County. That whole sequence was completely unbelievable and implausible. I just didn't buy it.
Although I rarely give authors a second chance if I don't like the first book I read by them, I will try to read another of his works. I met him last weekend at the LA Times Festival of Books and he was quite personable. I've heard that he's a good writer and he does live in Orange County. I suspect I just got a lemon with California Girl....more
Orange County, CA is home to at least 3 famous authors: T Jefferson Parker, Gregory Benford and Dean Koontz. In preparation for the LA Times Festival Orange County, CA is home to at least 3 famous authors: T Jefferson Parker, Gregory Benford and Dean Koontz. In preparation for the LA Times Festival of Books, I checked books by two of the three authors out of the library. I'm pretty sure I've read Gregory Benford before, so I skipped him.
Odd Thomas was recommended to me as a good introduction to Koontz's work. I was really pleased with the experience. I liked Koontz's writing style in this book very much and the story was excellent. Who can resist a ghost story that includes the ghost of Elvis Presley? This books was a great blend of horror, humor and pathos. Odd is a very endearing character. I like how Koontz kept the narrative very concise an didn't over-explain what was going on. He does the first-person POV very well and doesn't tell us stuff the protagonist doesn't know.
As far as horror writers go, I suspect that Koontz is a better writer than Stephen King. I will have to read a few more books by both authors before I say for certain though....more
I won an ARC of this book through Crown Publishing Group's Read It Forward program.
The California Roll: A Novel is a very clever novel. It's basicallI won an ARC of this book through Crown Publishing Group's Read It Forward program.
The California Roll: A Novel is a very clever novel. It's basically a cross between "The Sting" and "Paper Moon" set in modern-day Los Angeles. There were moments in the first few chapters when I laughed out loud. Sadly, the cleverness wore thin for me about 50 pages in and it never really picked up the momentum. Vorhaus' writing style reminded me a lot of Tom Wolfe's in The Bonfire of the Vanities, which I loved.
This is one case where I suspect my failure to fully enjoy this book was more my state of mind than the quality of the novel. It is a humorous novel and humor is always subjective....more
Loading...
