jwb

well yeah, I only really read books from a handful of writers that i like. And it's not about even being stranger than reality. Just more interesting as the result of being filtered through the mind of someone with an interesting pov.

SGR

That's a fair perspective. Out of curiosity, who are some of your favorite writers/authors?

Chula Vista

This was my most difficult read in that I found myself constantly re-reading paragraphs immediately after first getting through them to make sure I fully got her points.
Very heavy stuff but also an incredible history lesson.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_God

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

The Batlord

Absolutely. 1000 pages go by real quick. It's nothing super literary, just an escapist book about a 16th/17th century English sailor who gets stranded on Japan and fumbles around the end of the feudal era just before the Tokugawa era unites Japan. I've actually finished it twice and started reading it countless times. It's the most fun book. The fact that it's over a thousand pages is actually not an impediment but a bonus, because you get that much adventure.

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The Batlord

I guess as a teaser the author was a British POW of the Japanese in WW2 and bases his ideas of samurai era Japan on crazy Imperial Japanese propoganda of what it was like so its racist and harrowing as hell but also oddly respectful cause he treats the idea with awe and respect and it's just super epic and adventurous. One of my favorite books of all time.

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jwb

Philip k dick is my favorite.

jadis

Have you read Notes from the Underground? It's a first person novella you can read in one sitting and it's ****ing great. Probably the first representation in literature of the resentment of being excluded from modern society, of being a "superfluous man" as they called it in Russia. Funny too

Trollheart

I haven't read that one but it's not typical of Koontz. I've read, let's see... Lightning, Twilight Eyes, Hideaway, Whispers, The Face, False Memory, Cold Fire, The Bad Place, Mr. Murder and am currently reading for Karen Dark Rivers of the Heart, one his best. This has at best three main characters (four if you include the dog) and others just come and go; there's no need to take notes. I don't find he writes that way so maybe Strangers is an exception, or maybe, since by your own admission you don't like or read novels, it's just not something you're used to, keeping a few characters in your head.



What you read depends of course on what you want to get out of the experience. I personally always read novels, not for information but for entertainment, to be taken out of the drab, humdrum world and cast into another. Nowadays I also read to see how others write, and to perhaps pick up tips or maybe just marvel at how well - or badly - they write.
Sorry sorry, I had to.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Chula Vista

What? Might want to go back and re-read things.

Lightning is an outlier for Koontz - I've read too many of his to list here. You didn't list Watchers - which is his best work imo.
Hollywood even made a god awful adaption of it.




Strangers is not only longer than most of his stuff (526 pgs.) but it's ridiculously overstuffed with main characters - who you have to deal with the minutia of each of their back stories before getting to the meat of the story.

Primary characters

Dominick Corvaisis, author
Ginger Weiss, surgeon
Ernie Block, U.S.M.C. (ret.), and his wife, Faye Block
Brendan Cronin, priest and curate
Jack Twist, former Army Ranger and P.O.W., professional thief
Jorja Monatella, formerly Rykoff, Las Vegas casino cocktail waitress
Alan Rykoff, Jorja's estranged husband
Marcie Rykoff, their young daughter
Sandy Sarver, diner waitress, and her husband, Ned Sarver, short-order cook
Leland Falkirk, U.S. Army Colonel
Parker Faine, artist
Stefan Wycazik, parish priest

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Trollheart

Seriously? You think that's a lot of characters? Have you ever read Moorcock, or Tolkien, or King, or even Martin? Come on: my own books have more characters than that. That's standard. I didn't list Watchers because I haven't read it: those were the Koontz books I could remember reading. I also read Odd Thomas and its follow-up but didn't enjoy them. I mean, above is hardly a cast of thousands is it? I guarantee not every one of those main characters is connected strongly to the plot. Each to his own, but I could easily follow and keep up with a small cast like that. It's harder to read Martin's stuff than it is to read Koontz.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018