Name: Forever Odd
ISBN: 9780007318230

Dean Koontz

The international Number One bestseller Dean Koontz’s most-loved character, Odd Thomas, is back. A gripping and powerful thriller – full of suspense, mystery and horror.

Forever Odd

Dean Ray Koontz

In the unique world of Pico, Odd--an unforgettable hero who lives between the living and the dead--takes a stand against evil in a battle where there are no innocent bystanders. 600,000 first printing.

Colton Ray

** spoiler alert **
           The problem I have with this series is that it has such promise. Odd Thomas is basically like The Sixth Sense meets Psych with some supernatural elements thrown in. The premise is so cool, but Koontz never delivers. Many of the same problems I had with the first OT book carried over to this one. Some of the corniness is toned down, but some of the cool aspects have also been lost as well. Stormy was killed off at the end of the first book, so the lovey-doveyness is gone. Most of the other characters make useless cameos (Fat-Man returns for a pointless chapter, as does the ghost of Elvis.) However, the majority of the book is just Odd running through dark underground sewers. There is no mystery to solve as in the first book; the villain is revealed about halfway through the book.

With this book, Koontz seems to have lost the elements that did make the first book fun. The bodachs - creepy pain ghosts - are nowhere to be found. The cozy diner scenes are gone. The book takes place almost entirely underground, so we get almost no glimpse of the community of Pico Mundo. Odd himself turns into nothing but a generic, grim action hero in a book-long chase scene. All the heart seems to have been drained from the book.

And Koontz's dialogue continues to be spectacularly bad to the point where it is a detriment to the story. The rest of the writing is strictly pedestrian. 

In a paper-thin plot that seems stripped from a cartoon, the villain is an evil, occult-obsessed dominatrix with two zombie henchmen. A wild mountain lion appears out of nowhere and eats her. I'm not kidding. 

Its funny how well the manga adaptations of OT went, considering how very American the series is, but this story especially felt like a rip-of of a bad anime episode. Everything was so cartoony and unrealistic that it was hard to take anything seriously.

I may move on to #3, but it won't be for a long time, when I have nothing else to read.

Odd Thomas never asked to communicate with the dead - they sought him out. As the unofficial goodwill ambassador between our world and theirs, he has a duty to do the right thing. When a childhood friend of Odd's has disappeared, Odd applies his talents to the task of finding the missing person.

Forever Odd

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