Losing a Favourite

I don't know about you guys, but I have quite a few sentimental favourites from my younger days. Be it music, movies, books that I loved with a passion when I found it the first time, and some of it I still love today. But every once in a while you re-read a book, or re-watch a movie and thing "What was I thinking"

I guess this has to do with growing up, gaining experience in the world and maturing tastes.

I used to really love Dean Koontz as a fluffy fun read. I'd read some heavy exhausting books in between, but always returned to Mr Koontz. It felt comfortable, reassuring, and fun in his world.  His bad guys were really bad and the good guys were good. But the good always triumphed, in some way, and that was enough for me.

When I met my husband he had such a huge Dean Koontz and Stephen King collection, that I sometimes tease and say I married him for his books.

So what happened?

For the first time in about 7 years I picked up a Dean Koontz book. 77 Shadow street. I'm about 2/3rd s through and am still waiting for an original sentence. 

The characters are one dimensional.  The same crop of characters he always writes. He has every bad guy and every good guy he's ever come up with in one book, but it's still the same ones that he wrote about in other books.

Nothing new happens, but now it is thrown in with a healthy dose of sappiness  and pseudo spiritualism and refutable creationist philosophy . I'm struggling through this book, and wondering what did I ever see in his books? Why did I always look forward to reading a new Dean Koontz. I'm too scared to re-read an old favourite and find out it was always like this, and I just never saw it. Now it's corny and depressingly monotonous. 

I guess we sometimes grow out of our favourites when we grow. I'm gonna miss this one, but this is the last Dean Koontz book I will ever read. I'm a bit sad, but looking forward to new favourites.

It seems that unlike King, he has been stuck in the same formula for so long he just can't grow and come up with new ideas. The only change is the pseudo spiritualism is becoming more and more blatant and in your face. 

No Mr Koontz I am not a bad person just because I choose to put my faith in science instead of myth. There is more to people and life than your one dimensional portrayal of them. There is more to Good and Evil than that. 

In the black and white of the unforgiving Dean R Koontz universe, there is no space for the many facets of grey in this world. It saddens me to know that I'll never be able to curl up and enjoy one of his books again.