The protagonist of One Door Away is a little boy named Curtis. Curtis has a sentient, sapient dog with whom he enjoys non-verbal communication. Curtis and his dog are on the lam.
Indescribably horrid creatures from somewhere off-planet murdered the boy's parents. Now they pursue the boy, seeking to kill him for reasons beyond his ken. Curtis and his ˜sister' (the dog) evade the hunt by moving fast, on foot, through vast, empty sections of Utah, Idaho and other Western states. When they manage to hitch a ride they move faster still, but ˜the hunters' always find them.
˜The hunters' (many, many of them) move cross-country in gee-whiz combat vehicles which carry some sort of cloaking device that allows them to look like anything whatever. The one described on p. 363 ˜seems to be a fortress on wheels.' It has ˜compact buttresses, ramparts, terrepleins, scarps, counterscarps, bastions made aerodynamic, condensed and adapted to rolling stock.' The human eye perceives it as a Chevy Corvette.
The hunters track their quarry with some Star-Trek, high-tech gizmo that detects the ˜fingerprint' of the boy's energy emissions. It can see around corners. It can see through buildings. It can see in the dark. It can see for miles and miles and miles and miles aaaaand miles (Thanks, Pete!).
With all of those hunters and all of that hifalutin' hardware deployed to run down a little kid and his dog, the plot of Koontz's novel begs a few questions: "If the hunters got gizmos like that, how did the kid manage to get away from them to start with?" "Why can't the hunters identify the boy's hiding place (wherever that might be at any given time) and catch him while he's asleep?" "And why (as on p. 363) do the hunters think the boy is in the motor home when in fact the boy is hiding 40 or 50 yards away from the motor home?
The answer to all such questions is obvious, and it is just this: One Door Away from Heaven is a stupid book that only stupid people could enjoy.
Coasting Home
In fairness, I note that if One Door Away from Heaven is a stupid book (and it is), Along Came Jones is an equally stupid song. Yet The Coasters' song is good entertainment while the Dean Koontz novel is not. That is so because the song is a joke that wants to be laughed at while Koontz's lousy novel is a joke that wants to be taken seriously. The one joke is cute and offers a good time on the dance floor; the other insults our intelligence and peddles pop-stand bigotry packaged as a higher moral code.
I understand Mr. Koontz has a lot of fans. He sells books by the millions, having written dozens and dozens of novels of which I have read only this one and have never written any. On the other hand, if I was a Dean Koontz fan and if One Door Away from Heaven is in any way like other Koontz novels, I believe I'd sit down with myself and ask me some serious questions about what I put into my head. More plainly: If I was a Dean Koontz fan, I don't believe I'd tell anyone.
No stars on this one, people. One Door Away from Heaven isn't just a stinker, it's the whole latrine.
Indescribably horrid creatures from somewhere off-planet murdered the boy's parents. Now they pursue the boy, seeking to kill him for reasons beyond his ken. Curtis and his ˜sister' (the dog) evade the hunt by moving fast, on foot, through vast, empty sections of Utah, Idaho and other Western states. When they manage to hitch a ride they move faster still, but ˜the hunters' always find them.
˜The hunters' (many, many of them) move cross-country in gee-whiz combat vehicles which carry some sort of cloaking device that allows them to look like anything whatever. The one described on p. 363 ˜seems to be a fortress on wheels.' It has ˜compact buttresses, ramparts, terrepleins, scarps, counterscarps, bastions made aerodynamic, condensed and adapted to rolling stock.' The human eye perceives it as a Chevy Corvette.
The hunters track their quarry with some Star-Trek, high-tech gizmo that detects the ˜fingerprint' of the boy's energy emissions. It can see around corners. It can see through buildings. It can see in the dark. It can see for miles and miles and miles and miles aaaaand miles (Thanks, Pete!).
The answer to all such questions is obvious, and it is just this: One Door Away from Heaven is a stupid book that only stupid people could enjoy.
Coasting Home
In fairness, I note that if One Door Away from Heaven is a stupid book (and it is), Along Came Jones is an equally stupid song. Yet The Coasters' song is good entertainment while the Dean Koontz novel is not. That is so because the song is a joke that wants to be laughed at while Koontz's lousy novel is a joke that wants to be taken seriously. The one joke is cute and offers a good time on the dance floor; the other insults our intelligence and peddles pop-stand bigotry packaged as a higher moral code.
I understand Mr. Koontz has a lot of fans. He sells books by the millions, having written dozens and dozens of novels of which I have read only this one and have never written any. On the other hand, if I was a Dean Koontz fan and if One Door Away from Heaven is in any way like other Koontz novels, I believe I'd sit down with myself and ask me some serious questions about what I put into my head. More plainly: If I was a Dean Koontz fan, I don't believe I'd tell anyone.
No stars on this one, people. One Door Away from Heaven isn't just a stinker, it's the whole latrine.
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