Joubert's Full Review: Dean R. Koontz - One Door Away from Heaven
As he ages, Dean Koontz has followed Stephen King from horror and supernatural fantasy genre work to more mainstream offerings. The beauty has been in watching both authors use their keen ear for dialogue and extraordinary sense of pacing (for Koontz, anyway) to create conflict and suspense. Neither will ever be accused of writing concise, taut fiction, but both know how to keep the pressure dialed up.
In One Door From Heaven, Dean Koontz tackles tough subjects : substance abuse and bio-ethics. He also briefly dives into aging issues, but skims the surface by merely describing the symptoms while creating a sympathetic character. He misses by not tackling aging as harshly as he goes after the other subjects.
Koontz could not quite leave fantasy alone this time either and introduce the reader to Curtis, a seemingly normal boy who is really something else entirely. He is essentially a mix between a sitcom kid and an extra from Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land. One Door From Heaven is really Curtis' story, which he shares with Lelani, a brilliantly poised young girl and Micky, a recovering addict.
The Plot In Exactly One Hundred Words
A young crippled girl named Lelani and her dysfunctional, strange family are traveling the country, looking for aliens. Along the way, they meet Micky who quickly believes the brilliant Lelani's belief that her stepfather plans to kill her soon. Micky gets some unexpected help from a detective and her grandmother, but the presence of Curtis complicates things. No one knows exactly what to make of Curtis and the strange dog he travels with. Ultimately Micky has to face down her own demons, conquer her substance abuse issues and face down Maddoc, Lelani's stepfather, as he tries to kill them both.
What Works Well
There is a lot to like here. Aunt Gen's hallucinations that she is a character in a series of old movies is smart, sneaky and sweet. Lelani's fierce dedication to her brother is also a tearjerker. There are some Hallmark synthetic sympathetic sub-plots, including Micky's relationship with Aunt Gen. The real relationship that shine is the surrogate mother/daughter relationship that develops between Lelani and Micky. One Door Away From Heaven is worth reading just to experience their shared joy.
Other special moments include the hilarious alien groupies. Picture the storm chasers in the movie Twister and substitute little green men for an F5.
Finally, the bioethics issue beating at the heart of One Door Away From Heaven raises so many other issues: stem cell research, genetic engineering and more. This is muddy water for any novelist to navigate, and Koontz handles the issues better than many he has touched on before. He may have written on these or similar issue in past novels, but never as well as he does in One Door.
What Doesn't Work Well
As s long-time Koontz fan, I could have done without Curtis' dog although I know almost immediately what was happening. No spoilers here. Koontz proves once again how much he likes and respects his canine characters, but he really overdid the puppy love this time.
I also had an issue with the antagonist scientist's name being Maddoc. Yes, it is a cute joke, but not at the level of REDRUM in King's The Shining. This was just comic book level stuff, not graphic novels, but comics, you know, like Archie.
Finally, Maddoc's wife and Lelani's mother is a constant morality play that seemed unnecessary and distracting most of the time.
The Bottom Line, Dog Earred Pages and All
One Door Away From Heaven features a little something for everyone. Does that mean it is good? Not necessarily. The book has good to great moments, and taken as a whole is adequate, but Koontz has done better and others who have combined genres like this have done so much more seamlessly.
Five Things To Remember From This Review
1. There is some strong character development, especially in Micky and Lelani.
2. Koontz remains unafraid to tackle big issues.
3. The scope of his social agenda elevates the entire work a notch.
4. Even some important issues, like ageism, are treated in a way that the reader quickly builds sympathy to Koontz' point of view.
5. There are definitely some Koontz standard elements here. Woof.
The number-one bestseller from America s most popular suspense novelist ( The New York Times ) is now in paperback. Following a missing family to the ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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