While at the American Library Association in Anaheim last summer I had the opportunity to listen to Dean Koontz. He was promoting his latest Odd Thomas novel Odd Hours. I have always equated Dean Koontz with scary and horror, but his talk had me laughing from start to finish. So does his Odd Thomas series. While dealing with the supernatural Odd comes across as an ordinary fellow with unusual acquaintances. He can see the dead, but he can’t talk to them. He can also see shadow people he calls bodachs. They get their energy by feeding on human suffering. Instead of ignoring the dead, he tries to help them, and maybe bring them justice. Odd also approaches life with a strong streak of the ironic.
Odd is an unworldly fellow of about twenty-one that has always lived in Pico Mundo, and worked as the grill man at the Pico Mundo Grille. His aspirations are to move up to working at the local tire store and marrying his life time sweetheart, Stormy Llewellyn.
Odd has several unique friends in Pico Mundo that are not dead, but they still provide several moments of entertainment. His four hundred pound friend with the six fingers on the left hand, P. Oswald (Little Ozzie) Boone used to have a plastic Holstein cow displayed in his front yard. That is until someone took the notion to blow it up. “The four legs, chunks of the blasted head, and slabs of the body were scattered across the front lawn, shrubbery, and walkway. In a particularly macabre touch, the inverted udder had landed on one of the gateposts in the picket fence, and the teats pointed skyward.”
Koontz wrote Odd Thomas shortly after 9/11/2001, and is the first book in the series. Like many books written during this time period terrorism plays a major role in the story, but I am not going to tell you what that role is.
I found Odd Thomas to be an engaging story, and the character great. The story is told in a light hearted way, but with dark themes running just below the surface. As evidenced by his myspace page, Odd has created a large following. I enjoyed the book and I am getting ready to read the next story in the series.
BGS 9/28/2008
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