Watchers
Dean Koontz
Berkley, 1987
ISBN: 978-0-425-10746-9
Dean Koontz is probably more of a figure than an author for a lot of horror fans these days. He’s ubiquitous, his books are everywhere and a lot of readers know his name. But I don’t think he gets the readers like he used too. He’s the number two guy (in terms of sales, let's keep it classy) behind the king, you know, Stephen King. He’s the guy who’s books clog every horror section in every used bookstore I ever have gone to. And where King’s writing book is On Writing, Koontz’s is Writing Popular Fiction.
So, Koontz is unabashedly a “popular fiction” author. He’s a writer who’s tried a lot of things, usually on the back of what’s selling but that’s not a knock. Besides horror, he’s written suspense, Science-Fiction, crime novels, and action-adventure novels. And he’s written a helluva lot too, again like King. It’s really hard not to compare the two, but they are incredibly different writers. King is popular, yes, but there’s an incredible amount of substance behind his popular fiction.
Koontz is just well-executed popular fiction. Cotton candy to a steak. And you know what? That’s fine. Sometimes I want cotton candy (bad analogy, I hate cotton candy) and sometimes a steak sounds gross. Koontz is a professional. A seasoned professional who can ply his trade with skill and sometimes a little more than that.
Watchers is generally considered to be one of his better novels. I had never read it because I had seen the weird Corey Haim adaptation in my younger days probably on TBS and didn’t think a lot of it even at an early age. I’d probably love it now, that’s how nostalgia for a time-period works. The novel Watchers has a lot of the ear-marks of the popular stuff of the era. It’s got a macho ex-Delta Force army man, a genetically altered super-monster, evil assassins and government conspiracies. Mash all those up in your mind and play it like an 80s B-Movie and you have a decent idea of what this book is.
Oh, and there’s a real smart dog.
The dog, Einstein, is human-smart and the coolest character ever. And a good boy. Einstein and Travis, the ex-army man’s relationship, was actually the most enjoyable part of the novel. Which is saying a lot as a guy who really digs genetically altered super-monsters. Koontz would often have dogs in his novels and it’s clear that he’s a dog guy.
This is a page-turner. It's a novel that’s been genetically engineered to keep you flipping the page. The narrative is pretty quick and the characters are honestly nice stock-type characters that you know from a hundred other things and sometimes that’s nice. It’s also a fat book, something I generally avoid (hey, I got reviews to write, man) but this was worth it. It’s just a pleasant thrill ride, something to read to pass the time with a smile on your face.
Phantoms by Koontz was one of the first “adult” horror novels I read after my Fear Street primer and it set me on my path. It was checked out of the middle school library and thoroughly enjoyed. Koontz may not be gnarly or cutting edge or even, like objectively “good” but there’s a place for books like these and he does them very well. And good news, if this review got you hankering to read it, go to your local used bookstore, there will be fourteen copies of Watchers on the shelf.
Roy Nugen is an award-winning writer, producer, property master, plus actor. He comes from a family of musicians, engineers, wildcatters, cops, lion tamers, and carpet salesmen. Evil Dead II changed his life and he once partied with Lloyd Kaufman.
He has written 15 short films including Bag Full of Trouble, Potboiler, Handle With Care, Death in Lavender, Hole in the Ground, and the feature film Arrive Alive, many of which have played across the country. He has been the property master on 17 short films and 2 feature films.
Roy is also a prolific book reviewer and collector of vintage pulp paperback books. You can read his reviews on his blog Bloody, Spicy Books and multiple magazines including Paperback Fanatic, Hot Lead and Sleazy Reader. He has also written afterwards for novels and for various websites. He lives in the only city that once arrested L. Ron Hubbard with his wife and cats.