2024 read. Got a little tedious for me, but interesting premise. ( )

Who drugged Dean Koontz? This is a rather charming book, but it is not what one expects from Koontz. ( )

A little too far out for me. Parts are entertaining. ( )

'The Bad Weather Friend' has the joyous feel of an author letting himself off the leash and writing something that pleases his heart. It seemed to me that Dean Koontz, who is pushing eights and has more than a hundred novels in print, used this book to vent his detestation of the way being nice is seen as being weak and being a selfish asshole billionaire who looks down on the rest of humanity is seen as strength.

Here's a passage where the supernatural Spike is explaining to nice guy Benny what motivates the ultra-rich bad guys to do terrible things. He explains that it's not all about money and power. I think, once you've read this, names of right-wing Billionaires (sorry for the tautology) will come to mind.

"Some know they’re doing evil, but some don’t. In each case, they’re all the same—impatient, shortsighted, reckless fixers. Seeing themselves as fixers gives their lives meaning.”

“Fixers?”

“They’re people who can’t let anything be as it is. No matter how good the thing is, it’s never good enough for them. Everything they look upon seems either not quite right or wrong, and they’re convinced they know how to fix it. Most of the time, they utterly destroy it before rebuilding something less good from the rubble.”

“What sense does that make? If my car has a broken windshield wiper, I don’t blow up the car before starting repairs.
Koontz, Dean. The Bad Weather Friend (p. 286). Thomas & Mercer. Kindle Edition.

Dean Koontz delivers his message passionately but with flair, humour and a playful dash of gothic drama. 

His authorial voice addresses the reader directly in the same way that an early nineteenth or even eighteenth-century novelist would have. The author even passes on to the reader messages from Spike, one of the main characters, about how the novel should be read.

The chapter titles are a tongue-in-cheek version of the nineteenth-century way of setting the reader's expectation of what is to come. For example:

WAITING WHILE MS. URNFIELD EATS MORE STEAK TARTARE, BENNY REMEMBERS DR. FERNSEHEN LIEBHABER

The character names also go back to the humour of an earlier time. Ms, Urnfield is a horrible woman who is probably responsible for the deaths of many people so a name that reminds the reader of cemeteries works well. Dr, Fernsehen Leibhaber, whose name roughly translates to 'enthusiastic TV watcher' is a burnt out child psychologist who loses herself in reality TV and game shows.

The story has a quest structure that moves between two timelines. a contemporary one in which twenty-something nice-guy Benny is combating the forces of evil that have blown up his life, and one where Benny is a child surviving abusive parents, being homeschooled by a psychopathic grandmother and being confined in a remote private school under the control of a mad scientist.

In contrast to the early novel trimmings, the story brims with witty references to horror movies and thrillers and satirises the decadence of the compulsive display of vulgar wealth.

The characters in the novel are archetypes rather than people. Not the dull but worthy kind of archetypes beloved of didacts but flamboyant, wow-think-of-the-CGI-you'd-need-to-put-THAT-in-a-movie archetypes worthy of a Marvel movie.

To me, this felt like a novel where pursuing the quest of dealing with the bad guys while remaining a nice person was more important than the destination. This is just as well as the journey was much more exciting than the conclusion, as is often the case with fairytales. I mean, who really wants to read about the day-to-day of Happily Ever After?

I finished this book a few days ago and I'm still not sure what to make of it except that it was weird and fun and made me wish there were more Spikes in the world,

To help you get a feel for the experience of reading the novel, here are the (often bemused) comments that I made as I was reading it.

The notes I made as I read 'The Bad Weather Friend'

19.0%

"This is bizarre. It's unlike any other book by Dean Koontz that I've read. It's a dazzling concoction: a sort of Don Winslow meets Karl Hiaasen with a dash of Mark Twain thrown in. I've no idea where this is going or why it wants to get there but there's no way I'm putting this down now. I'm intrigued.*

47.0%

"This is weird in every way: how the story is told, who is in the story, what the story is about, and the reaction the writer seems to want from the reader. And yet, it works.
I couldn't say what it's working towards or why, but it keeps me turning the pages."

67.0%

"We left reality behind a long time ago and are now travelling through a cartoon landscape, done in primary colours that make the movie 'Barbie' look like Cinema Verité. Think Roald Dahl writing a Road Trip novel with Frank Baum.

Oddly, it's a soothing, mildly amusing experience. I'm wondering if any Minions will appear before the finale and whose side they'd be on. ( )