Elsewhere

Dean Koontz can be counted upon to set us up with a good story that revolves around the age old conflict of good vs evil. He hasn’t let us down with his newest offering Elsewhere. We have a mother who went missing seven years ago. She just up and left. There’s a dad, Jeffy Coltrane and his daughter Amity. They live a simple existence in a small town. The dad repairs vintage Bakelite radios and resells them at auctions for huge profits. Everything’s simple – until –One of the homeless men living in the woods nearby gives Jeffy a package to hold for him with the warning to not to open, don’t look inside. “Better you don’t know. It’s the incessant need to know more and more and yet still more, to know everything this is the fast track to destruction.” Inside this box, he said was the “Key To Everything”, even valuing it at seventy-six billion dollars. Yes, Billion-with-a-B. Furthermore, claiming the fate of humanity now lay in Jeffy’s hands. And he left.This is NOT A SPOILER. It’s the start of the book. Of course we all guess that Jeffy opens the box. It’s in an attempt to hide the contents, the key to everything, from the black op helicopters and SUV’s that show up the next day. An agent claiming to be from the NSA searches the house and asks if they know Dr. Edwin Harkenback. Yep, they’re looking for Spooky Ed. The story is unraveling just as predicted.Well, at this point you get the gist of where the tale is starting. And Dean usually finds a place for an iconic loving dog but he seems to be missing here. But there’s Snowball. Is he a red herring or a white mouse? We have a good man, a good daughter, a good mouse, a missing mother, a dastardly black ops operative and Spooky Ed of unknown background. Let the adventure begin.

Every thought, every emotion, every twitch each character experiences is detailed in page-long paragraphs: "He got the bread out of the blue bag, he put 2 slices in the toaster, he pushed down the "toast" button, all the while wishing his vanished wife was with him, her blond hair, her twinkling eyes... the toast popped out and he put it on a plate and buttered it, then he sliced both pieces in half, and took it to the table where he carefully set it down next to the bowl of cereal and the blue coffee mug, which needed a refill. He picked up the coffee pot and poured hot coffee into the half-empty mug...." Ay-yi-yi. Get on with the STORY. Cut out the interminable filler and you might have a pretty interesting short story about traveling to parallel universes.

I love Dean Koontz and was excited to read Elsewhere. I found myself skipping paragraphs and gave up after reading a third of this book. If you are a Koontz fan give it a try maybe this one just wasn’t meant for me.

I expected a lot more from Dean on this book. I actually had to look at the copyright because I thought this might have been one of his first books rather than one of his latest endeavors - it was that amateurish. The plot was unoriginal, the characters hackneyed and poorly developed. It was so formulaic that I could predict almost to the chapter when he would rescue a character by introducing a Deus ex Machina, or when the villain would (not unsurprisingly) survive a supposedly fatal event. The prose was tortured and cumbersome. There were no surprises. There were no unexpected plot twists. The ending was a foregone conclusion less than halfway into the book. I was hoping for something in the vein of Odd Thomas but instead ended up feeling oddly left out and unfulfilled.

This novel left me feeling hopeful for the future, which was a welcome feeling taking into account the state of the world right now. It also piqued my curiosity about the science used in the plot. ELSEWHERE combines all the elements that make Dean Koontz a must-read author for me: an elegant writing style, a killer, quick-paced plot and an awesome sense of wonder that stays with you throughout the novel. I immediately sympathized with Jeffrey 'Jeffy' Coltrane and his daughter, Amity, and their desire to have Michelle, the wife and mother who left 7 years ago, back in their lives. I wanted them to win and the bad guy to lose. I had a great time holding my breath when they got into a tight spot, and breathing a sigh of relief when they got out of it. Koontz's imagination has no bounds and I was absolutely astounded by the descriptions of the elsewheres (you'll know what I mean when you read the book). I even loved the secondary characters. The villain was appropriately nasty and the good guys were believably decent and heroic. ELSEWHERE would make a great sci-fi movie!

Amazon keeps misrepresenting digital books. This one says it's 350 pages or so but it's double spaced - so maybe 150 pages - not a novel. This is a YA short story and definitely not worth 10 bucks. I wouldn't have paid .99 cents if I knew what I was going to get. Once again I feel ripped-off and frustrated by Gorilla marketing in the middle of a pandemic. I just wanted something new and decent to read. No such luck. Just move on. DK has sold out to corporate publishing. Getting his last licks in before he passes-on; just like SK. What a loss. You can see he (DK) still has the skills to produce great fiction but instead he's focused on the easy money. Some legacy Koontz is building for himself.

Loved this book, as I love all of Mr. Koontz' books. Characters are compelling and storyline was thrilling! Thumbs up!

I am a huge fan of Dean Koontz and 2 of my All-Time favorites were written by him. Unfortunately, this isn't one of them...The story seems rushed, the book too short. Even though the main characters are richly developed, the other characters aren't. Michelle, the mother, almost seems like an afterthought, and she is one of the main anchors of the whole story....Don't get me wrong....This is a good read and worth the time to read, but this is not Dean Koontz best effort...

Most of the Dean Koontz books I've read I did so back in the '80s and '90s, and since it's been such a long time, and I've piled on so many years, I thought it would be nice to revisit one of my all time favourite authors by reading his latest offering, Elsewhere.Well, I guess it's comforting to know that nothing has really changed, it's the same old Koontz I loved from way back when.Similar characters, situations and developments. But you know what, that's just fine by me. I think I was expecting him to have changed as a writer, to have developed, but why should he? He's highly successful and is obviously writing about the things he loves to write about, and I for one commend him for it.If you're a Koontz fan, you know exactly what you're going to get from this book. If you're new to Koontz then strap in and simply enjoy the roller-coaster! This is one of his more streamlined offerings, where it's almost all about driving forward the action and very little time spent on the characters or world. No, this is by no means a perfect book. It's not going to crack your mind open and jam in some existential offerings that will change your thinking for life. What it will give you is a very enjoyable and speedy read, and sometimes that's all a book needs to give you.

I stopped reading Dean Koontz about 20 years ago - mostly because of two utterly terrible books, one being One Door Away from Heaven. Prior to that I’d read everything he’d written and mostly enjoyed it.I saw this advertised and was intrigued to give him another go. Whilst it’s readable, it’s quite weak. The story is good, but overall it feels like it was written as YA fiction, perhaps in the hope it would be picked up by Netflix. The characters are underdeveloped and the ending is rushed. I found the parts written from the perspective of the 11-year old girl particularly bad: repeatedly using the phrase ‘really and truly’ doesn’t make it sound youthful Dean. Seriously, that phrase is used on almost every page.I’m currently re-reading an older Koontz novel and the difference in writing styles is staggering. The older novel has more depth, more suspense and the writing is just... better.So there you go.

Dean Koontz at his very best ... apart from the wonderful technicolour prose his readers have come to expect, there is no jumping to new characters/scenarios with each chapter ... which makes other authors so difficult for readers who consume novels in 60/90 minute bites!As always, Dean makes the unbelievable quite plausible & lots of the characters are heart-warming & totally engaging.

Again, the author creates a thriller which grasps the attention of the reader from the first page. Characters are well rounded but a little too sentimental. The plot is contrived to be didactic, spending too much time on authorial intervention means it's patronising at times. Perhaps in this time of the pandemic we could all do with the hope this offers?

I love time travel novels. Most reviews were positive and it has one awards, which is why I bought this book.It started OK but then just after the free sample pages, the story fell apart for me when the carachters actions suddenly had to go beyond plausible to keep the plot together. (ie, it became impossible for him to press a button whilst also walking)The plot remained simple and thin. The language and style was not in any way thought provoking or complex. He tried to develop a backstory on the carachters but they were simple and cliché.The good thing was, it ends quickly.