A Very, Very Slow Alien Story
Author: Dean Koontz
Total strangers across the US are being seized by fervid nightmares and phobias. There is a man (and later a child) obsessed with moons, an author with a fit of terror-induced sleepwalking, a surgeon with fugues, a lonely motel owner increasingly terrified of the dark, a priest who has lost his faith and dreams of red moons, and many others. The connection? They were all itinerant travelers at a remote Nevada motel on the same night. Their terrors will slowly bring them together over a course of weeks as they try to solve the mystery: what really happened that night in Nevada, what did they see, and why are they all going mad?
I read one Dean Koontz book as a teen (The Taking) and fell in love. I bought or was given a bunch of his other books, and they have steadily been gathering dust on my shelves for fifteen years, give or take. It was time to crack one open, to read more of this famous author. I had high hopes after my first experience. I grabbed Strangers at random (it was on the most reachable part of my shelf) and without even reading the back cover, I jumped in. At first, I enjoyed it, was impressed and immersed, but as the 700+ pages began to slowly unspool, I lost focus, then interest, and finally enjoyment.
Now I’m a fan of big books (and I cannot lie!); I’ve read all the Game of Thrones novels and my favorite author is Charles Dickens. An overly written, unnecessarily long book is one of my most favorite things. But, that being said, even I have a limit, and Strangers reached that limit, beat it mercilessly, and drug it for a few hundred pages, and then, when I was at my most exhausted with the story, the characters, and life, it added a few more hundred pages of characters acting stupidly, paramilitary dudes with attitude, and a conspiracy as old as tin foil hats. So yes, I do have limits.
That’s not to say that Strangers doesn’t have its redeeming features, even some ingenuity and style. It does. There is potential and lots of characterization (albeit the good guys are too saintly and the bad guys too late night sci-fi channel). The problem is really the length and the pace. At first, the developing disorders are terrifying. Watching an aspiring surgeon devolve, fearing a brain tumor or other trauma, has a real-world gut punch that is relatable. Watching a mother slowly fall apart as her child becomes more and more inexplicably unstable – again, emotional. But after several hundred pages, the shock value has grown old and the build up to action went beyond what was needed. By the time action came, I just could not care anymore.
**Spoiler warning!** The denouement is interesting, if a bit hokey (aka evil, suicidal general with a taste for sadomasochism has been done, and done, and done as has the misunderstood alien and big bad government cover-up thing). **End Spoiler.**
The time it takes the reader to get to the conclusion just isn’t worth the reveal, and frankly, the reveal just isn’t that amazing. It’s been done before, done better, and done without killing nearly as many forests.
Koontz obviously has talent and imagination. Strangers is by no means all bad, and a vicious edit could probably craft it into something far more enjoyable and impactful. This is one of the very few times I’ve found myself reading a book and wishing for an abridged version. Not recommended. Too much of a time investment for too little reward.
– Frances Carden
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