Pros: Great premise, some nice dialogue, generally good characterisation.
Cons: Very odd tone in places, pedestrian storyline spoils strong opening.
The Bottom Line: A very erratic effort overall, with some great high points, even if these are sadly not sustained or built upon. Still worth a read, though.
smadakcin's Full Review: Dean Koontz - Life Expectancy
The only thing worse than a bad book, I feel, is a book which should have been so much better. For all the distaste a real stinker of a story can cause, it's quickly forgotten, whereas the remnants of the nearly-novel seem to linger for some time, an unsatisfying aftertaste of something that appeared so appealing. And that's enough of that tenuous analogy.
Dean Koontz's Life Expectancy suffered from exactly such a problem, for me. I'd originally come across the book on this very site, and though I didn't do anything about it then, my urge to read it re-appeared when I came across it when looking for nothing in particular in a bookshop. The premise is a fantastic, tantalising one; setting out with the end of one life and the start of another in quick succession. The dying man, one Josef Tock, awakes from the grip in which death was increasingly applying to him, and makes a series of prophesies concerning his soon-to-be-born Grandson, whom he is destined to miss by minutes. The first set of his ten predictions concern his birth; he precisely the child's size, weight and time of entry to the world. However, it is the second five which are to be of most consequence.
Five dates he names, each signifying a terrible day in the life of young Jimmy Tock. Having made his prophecy, he dies, and the child is born, instantly fulfilling the first five predictions, giving his parents cause to believe the likely accuracy of the second set. Thus Jimmy's life begins, and must continue, taking in all five days. What lies beyond, and of what nature is the evil that stalks him?
For me, this is a gripping, teasing premise; one can't help but read on, if only to reach each of the five days. Sadly, however, it was gradually downhill from here.
Although I've heard of Koontz, I'd never previously read any of his work. Doubtless others would better be able to fill me in, but I was under the impression that he was a horror/thriller writer, and had certain expectations of his style. Of course, it would not necessarily be a negative to find contrary to what I expected, but the author's writing nonetheless confused me somewhat.
The humour that characterises the opening part of the book, before the first day, works well; it brings life to the Tock family unit which is so important to the story, and adds an element of depth to the characters as you see them bounce off each other. However, when this tone continues into the first of the terrible days, things work less effectively. Throughout the book, Koontz litters the narrative with dry asides to the reader and little quips that sit rather uncomfortably alongside what are meant to be dates of "terror and violence, malice and perversion". Add into that the at times far-fetched actions of the hand of evil, and this, just occasionally, reads like a bad Dan Brown satire.
As I say, this is a great shame. Alongside the excellent set-up, there are many good things about the story itself. The main characters, at least in the Tock family, are exceptionally well defined, and Koontz does a fantastic job of quickly filling out his protaganists, really giving us a sense of what's going on in their minds. The little interchanges between family members are always fairly amusing, and Jimmy and his wife play off each other especially well, even if it's a fraction unclear what exactly she sees in him. The villains of the piece are slightly less developed, which can be pity, particularly in the case of the "big" baddie, who only makes a fleeting appearance at the end.
Aside from these minor grievances with tone, the plot is the biggest problem with Life Expectancy. Maybe it was just over-expectation on my part, but when the blurb spoke of "an Evil so pervasive", I couldn't help but conjure up some pretty grand images. Sadly, none of these are even nearly realised; the terrible days featured here involve some very run-of-the-mill stuff, with a very unremarkable twist thrown in towards the end - one which isn't so much predictable as simply unnoteworthy. I can't say as I remember even raising an eyebrow; it just doesn't really affect the book in any meaningful way. Frustratingly, the only really decent perpetrator of evil is only given a cameo role, in and out too late to impact upon events too consequentially.
I'm probably making the book sound a lot worse than it actually is, to be honest. It is an entertaining read for the most part, and it kept me going enough for me to whip through it fairly greedily, even if much of this was driven more by a hope something rather more epic would ocur than anything else. The exhanges between the characters are well written, and the story is well narrated by the central protaganist, and despite its shortcomings, this wouldn't put me off reading Koontz again. Indeed, I'd like to see if the style he exhibits here is characteristic of him as a writer, or merely a bad choice of tone in this one effort.
Yet, as I mentioned in my first paragraph, the disappointment I felt having finished the book was made all the greater by the hopes it generated with its own opening. All in all, it's far from a bad read, but it simply could have been so much more.
With his bestselling blend of nail-biting intensity, daring artistry, and storytelling magic, Koontz returns with an emotional rollercoaster tale of f...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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