Books like False Memory

False Memory is a disturbing book.In one of the scenes in the beginning of the book, Martie Rhodes (the main heroine) is walking her dog and suddenly some mysterious disturbance falls upon her. What does Martie do ?"When she realized that the dog had finished his toilet, Martie slipped her right hand into a plastic petcleanupbag, using it as a glove. Being a good neighbor, she neatly collected Valet’s gift, turned the bright blue bag inside out, twisted it shut, and tied a double knot in the neck.(...)Performance of this familiar, humble task restored her mental balance. The little blue bag and its warm contents anchored her to reality. The weird incident remained troubling, intriguing, but it no longer frightened her."A gift ? And yes guys, it's a page long description of collecting fresh, steaming dog waste. Dogs are adorable creatures as most of us know but I've yet have to met a dog owner who finds solace in holding a warm bag full of his pup's poop. But hell, I'm not a bestselling American novelist so what do I know.I have a love/hate relationship with Dean Koontz. While I really liked some of his books I utterly loathed some of the others. Some people have ups and downs; Dean Koontz has his peaks and trenches. However there is something that drawns me to the guy's books, even if he just can't create characters that are something more than an extra employed to play his/hers part, who don't speak but relate what Koontz thinks, and his sometimes ridiculoysly bad overuse of metaphors and similes. He's propably one of those guys that require a special clause in their contracts after they rise to fame: that no editor is to touch their work. And False Memory could benefit from good editing; oh yes, it could have.First of all the thing is so long. My copy borders on almost 800 hundred pages. When a book is of that lenght the writer needs to maintain the suspense the whole way through, to keep the reader's interest - and Koontz doesn't. Since the title of the book is False Memory and it deals with people suffering from various phobias it's quite obvious what's going on - if you take into account that it's a Koontz book, who despises the academia and Hollywood. BrainwashingHe dealt with the theme before, most notably in 76's Night Chills which is two times shorter because he wrote it on a typewriter. The antagonist is revealed in approximately 1/4 of the book, and then the suspense dies.So what is left in False Memory ? nothing of any originality, if you've read Koontz before. Does a perfect couple with a dog running away from the evil psychopath on the loose sounds familiar ? Exactly. Add to it his standard bashing - the male lead talks to his dog how news are bad, well because, they are bad. And the main antagonist is a member of the academia and the son of a prestigious Hollywood director.On top of all this, it;s worth mentioning that Koontz is the master of writing himself into a paper bag and the invening retarded solutions for his characters to get them out of trouble he himself has gotten them into. False Memory is no exception; the evil doctor mets the end of his fate from the hand of his former patient, who despite being insanse is sane enough to devise a masterplan cunning enough to lure him out and shoot him, and then even ensure a lawyer for herself. Does this man take his readers seriously ? I don't know. And then he gives additional 10 pages of a picture-perfect ending. And that's the worst thing that plagues almost all of his books - the reader is unable to immerse himself in the narrative, because he;s always aware of Koontz's infulence over the story. He is the protagonist, he is the antagonist, he is the plot, he is the conclusion. There's no reality to this work - there's only constant awareness that we're reading fiction, and it's cheesy fiction. That's a bad thing; a bad thing indeed that is.So, did I dislike False Memory ? No. It's not the atrocity like From the Corner of His Eye or One Door Away from Heaven, where Dean called Wallmart and bought himself a whole set of thesauruses and sat down to write The Great American Novel - twice. But I can's say that I liked False Memory either; it's just a book that left me indifferent. I've read the story but didn't care for it; I don't regret the time spent on it but I don't feel it was all that well spent either (thankfully I read fast; and if things get really boring you can always skim). It's just another book that will find its place on my Koontz shelf. The real question is, why do I keep coming back for more after being disapponted again and again and knowing deep down that Koontz propably won't stop swimming in the sea of sugar and sweetness and never write a book that jumps out of his canvas ? Well, this propably can be answered by sentimentality, as he was one of the first guys who introduced me to horror fiction. And like a child to it's father I return and return, though it seems that the old man is getting senile.