Book Review: Elsewhere by Dean Koontz

Got to be honest, three stars is being a little generous… This doesn’t feel like Dean Koontz – at least not the Dean Koontz I enjoy. That Dean Koontz is the one who wrote Watchers and Lightning, Odd Thomas and Ashley Bell (lest you think I only like the early stuff). In books like those, I always fell into his stories straight away – the characters were always compelling people you really wanted to cheer for, even when they were a little off. This time the good guys felt a little flat and the bad guys a little formulaic.

And then there’s the plot… The Multiverse / parallel worlds idea is such a fabulous one that offers so many cool opportunities for originality that when it’s placed in capable hands like those of Koontz, it’s hard to imagine how it could fail to entertain. But somehow this time it did. The totalitarian society, the odious evildoer, the father-daughter team where the daughter is just a little too precocious for her own good stuff – it’s all been done before (including by Koontz) and using those tropes here felt like a missed opportunity when all possibilities in the universe (literally!) were on the table…

I didn’t love this one as a result. Despite a very cool beginning, it felt like work a lot of the time. I loved Harkenbach and the key to everything, but the way the story played out felt weirdly slow and monotonous to me and I floundered with it early on and never regained my footing. It was definitely not one of my favorites by the talented Mr. Koontz…

Thank you to Goodreads for my complimentary copy, which I won in a giveaway. I hate when I don’t like a book I won, it feels like a waste… I am grateful for the opportunity to give it a go though!