Massive, massive, MASSIVE disappointment.
Obvious spoilers ahead.

The premise for this book is amazing; a boy named Bartholomew loses his sight at the age of three, when surgeons remove his eyes to save him from fast spreading cancer, and then, though eyeless, regains it at the age of thirteen.
Thinking that it could be a fun, fast paced daredevil-like story, with quantum theory involved, I was setting my hopes high. Boy, was I let down.

When a reader opens the book he reads how Barty loses his sigh More...

Alright, I went on a "Koontz binge" last spring, and of all the stuff of his that I read, From The Corner Of His Eye has got to be one of the WORST, most godawful pieces of "literature" (using the term loosely) that I've ever read.

I grew quite used to Koontz's style of writing... plastering excessive detail onto every description, taking five pages to detail the wallpaper on a house, etc. So when I read the jacket for FTCOHE and it said the story was about a boy who loses his sight and then rega More...

In a Dean Koontz book, if there's someone he describes as particularly good, gracious, or appealing; you can be sure that something very bad is about to happen to them.

There's plenty of that in this book, which tells a number of stories, all tied together by the actions of the villain. There are good number of biblical references, with most characters having a biblical corollary; especially Bartholomew, one of the heroes of the story, who has as his namesake one of the lesser known Apostles.

In t More...

Favorite Quotes

She lived for others, her heart tuned to their anguish and their needs.

His blue eyes were seas where sorrow sailed.

Not one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy, or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s-syndrome child. Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both More...

Although I enjoyed this book, for the most part, it's got major flaws.

If you're familiar with Dean Koontz, you know that sometimes (well, most of the time), he overdoes it. Describes things in entirely too much detail, takes 5 pages to explain something that could be told in 3 paragraphs, etc. He does not sway from that in this book. In my opinion, it could have been cut by about 200 pages and still told the story just fine.

The story centers around 2 characters, mainly: a boy named Bartholomew, More...

From the Corner of His Eye by Dean Koontz is overal a great book. I thought the authors writing style was phenonmenal using substantial vocabulary. Dean Koontz other style of books seem similar to eachother but theres minor differences making each story unique. This book draws readers into a spellbinding world created by terror, love, hate, and mystery. I recommend this book to anyone who has either read some of his previous books before to get an understanding of his writing. In the book ther More...

From The Corner Of His Eye Bantam Books, 2000, 729pp., $7.99

Dean Koontz ISBN 0553582747




Imagine being in labor, with your husband lying dead beside you. “Urgency gripped the paramedics. The rescuers’ equipment and the pieces of car door were dragged out of the way to make a path for a gurney, its wheels clattering across pavement littered with debris.” You don’t know if your kid has survived the accident or if he will be as normal as all the others. As you look out from the back of the ambulance More...

I guess I would give this a 1.5 if I could. It's readable but you kind of regret spending the time on this. Maybe if it was half the size it wouldn't have pissed me off - but 768 pages? And I felt like it was doing some preachy religious allegory crap at me. What the hell is your point with this book Dean Koontz?

I feel like there were huge holes in the plot on this one and it was just the weakest thing I had read by him. There really wasn't the pay off you want when you get to the end either. A More...

I was disappointed by this one. Koontz's initial idea was brilliant, and I love the quality of his prose. I enjoy the way he writes because it's so vivid and detailed; at his best moments he paints with words. However, at his worse moments he comes up with great ideas but does nothing with them. Ultimately, he does not achieve an interesting narrative with this book. I liked the characters for the most part but the story was just kind of lame to me. I found the villain disgusting but not necessa More...

The premise behind Koontz's new novel is the same that buoyed Michael Crichton's TimelineDthat there exist multitudes of alternate universes, each varying only slightly from the next. Whereas Crichton used the idea to generate high adventure, however, Koontz employs it to create powerful emotion tinged with spiritual wonder. That emotion, which rocks characters and will shake readers, marks this as one of Koontz's most affecting novelsDand he's written a lot of them. But there's else in this fit More...

JC could stand for Jesus Christ, and one might get that impression at the novel’s beginning. We think we sense a sweetness in Junior Cain’s character, until it takes an unexpected turn.

Junior Cain isn't a religious man. Instead he bases his life on a particular set of volumes, a particular philosophy. We are treated to his attempts to follow this philosophy throughout his adventures. He is a man on a quest for self perfection while believing that life is for pleasure, ungoverned by the concept o More...

After reading no fewer than 20 Dean Koontz books in high school, I came back to him last week and read this one. Mainly, just to see if I still liked his patented horror-lite formula.

It wasn't bad.

Flaws:

Schmaltzy and earnest at times. Characters were often flimsy stereotypes, e.g. the Latina woman. Her supposedly broken English sounded more like Jar-Jar Binks than your average Latino.

Predictability: he purposely foreshadows pretty much everything that happens in the book. I don't know why you' More...

Any book that starts with

Bartholomew Lampion was blinded at the age of three, when surgeons reluctantly removed his eyes to save him from a fast-spreading cancer, but although eyeless, Barty regained his sight when he was thirteen.

is bound to spark curiosity. And the fervent hope that the remaining pages will be just as interesting.

It is January 6, 1965.

Agnes Lampion is in her Bright Beach, California kitchen: in labor and baking pies. Her husband, Joey, is frantic to get her to the hospital. B

More...

Weird, complicated, spooky. Dean Koontz is such an amazing author that it's actually good he didn't create movies from his books. The movie versions are always less enjoyable.
Junior's disgusting idea of love for Naomi was even more creepy because there are twisted people in this world who tend to think along the same lines. That's one of the things about Koontz. His freaky characters come so close to the horror lurking in the world of today. I recommend reading From the Corner of His Eye just t More...

NOTE: I am a HUGE Dean Koontz fan, but I'm also objective. Within the horror/suspense genre, Koontz generally writes two types of novels: 'government conspiracies', or 'madman chasing an innocent man/child/woman/dog/couple/ all of the above.' The gov't ones are fine, as a matter of fact, it was "Strangers" that got me hooked on DK. But there's only so much you can do with 'black ops' and 'the government within the government.'

While "From the Corner of His Eye" DOES have a madman chasing innocent More...

From the Corner of His Eye

by Dean Koontz

Bantam, 729 pages, paperback, 2001; reissue of a book
originally published in 2001



Dean Koontz is probably, right now, the most underestimated
writer at work in the field of fantastic literature. The reasons
are not hard to fathom. Unlike most authors, who go through the
learning process before they ever see print, Koontz had the
misfortune — although of course it must have seemed far from
that to him at the time — to find publishers for his early,
clumsy attempts More...

“Like the cold and fragile ectoplasm of summoned spirits, the gossamer architecture pressed against their faces, and much of it clung tenaciously to their clothes that even in the gloom, they began to look like the risen dead in tattered gravecloth.”

Thus begins the latest novel from bestselling author Dean Koontz, who has brought us such great tales as Fear Nothing, Watchers, Intensity, and Dark Rivers of the Heart. In From the Corner of His Eye Koontz transcends his revered storytelling, reachi More...

You ever wonder where Koontz comes up with these stories? Most of them are brilliant, engaging plots with lots of twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat. Some of them are plain strange and make you wonder what he was smoking when he sat down that day...and why he wasn't sharing.

This book had the benefit of being both brilliant in many ways, and of being one of the stories that makes you scratch your head and wonder.

I loved the separate yet slowly intertwining stories of all the More...

That Dean Koontz is an amazing writer of supernatural stories is a known fact. What makes this book special is the mix of several themes that work in superb harmony - a psychotic killer, quantum physics and faith. I've always wondered about parallel universes and in this book, the author has tried to put a structure to it through the theories of Thomas Vanadium and the abilities of Bartholomew, Angel and Mary.

Koontz uses Enoch Cain's obsessed journey to find Bartholomew as a background to highl More...

One technique that an author has at his disposal when writing to get a reader involved early in their book, "The Hook", is Pathos. We feel sympathy for a character because of some tragedy that has befallen them. We want to learn more about this character and how they might champion this terrible ordeal. Pathos is effective. Pathos often sells books.
Pathos sucks when mishandled.
Take one blind boy, no let's not make him just blind: Let us make him have no eyes! Yes this will get people to feel More...

I read the book for just one reason - to read for myself what Dean Koontz's prose is like. If he can sell so many books, there has to be a good reason.

His prose offers nothing new, but his characterization is good - the "good guys" and "bad guy" are excellently drawn. Koontz tells the story from each of their perspectives in a natural, easy way. Although the villain is one sick character, Koontz manages to present him as more or less believable instead of as a caricature or a monster.

One thing More...

Dean Koontz has turned the villain stereotype completely on its head in this book. I won't write in any spoilers but the identity of the villain blew me away when I read the revealing scene. That hasn't happened to me in a long time!

Two characters, in particular, who would seem, on the surface, to have all the makings of villains are actually the good guys, so once again stereotypes are turned upsidedown.

The only regret I have is that the blurb on the back cover did not convey what the book was More...

It's been a while since I read this book, but it definitely left an impression, so I felt the need to further elaborate on my rating. This is the only Dean Koontz book I ever read, since he doesn't write the kind of stuff I normally read. But at some point I found myself with nothing to read, and my mom pulled this from her library and suggested I read it.

If I was going off of how much I actually personally enjoyed this book, I would probably give it two stars. This story is down and out creept More...

This is the second Koontz work I've read and I enjoyed it quite a bit more than the first. The novel includes a variety of richly-imagined characters and incorporates supernatural plot twists into the otherwise realistic plot. Although, I would classify this in the suspense thriller genre rather than as science fiction. I think the plot description on the back cover is quite misleading - the story seems to focus much more on the "relentless killer" than any of the other characters and events men More...

This was a great read. The villain took me by surprise initially, but his character, or lack of it gradually revealed. I can only assume the author was deliberate in portraying evil as being devoid of substance, the criminal mind as falsely inflated and seeking fulfillment through empty endeavors. Whilst chilling, there is nothing that glorifies or justifies badness in this book. The community of good guys are perhaps a little too good, but not sickly sweet. The exploration of quantum physics is More...

It is hard to swallow a character that is incorruptible and perfect. Generous and selfless. A character that gives of herself even though her life is wrought with pain and loss. It is damn near impossible to accept 12 additional characters that are similarly saint like. But what's even more ludicrous is this group of caring people finding each other and then living together in perfect harmony. Even the most righteous person is going to sick of your annoying habits. These characters are so paper More...

A lot of the time I usually want 'more' from a story-- wether it be more to the climax, more to the epilogue, more character depth or just more story. I love a follow up after the main story is over and I especially love a happy ending. Sometimes if it's not a happy ending I'll imagine a new one that is. This book gave me both-- follow up to a happy ending-- but too much if you can believe that. Maybe because the story was so driven and after everything came to a head and the follow up arrived- More...

I really wanted to like this book much more than I actually did. The story was good, with some pretty interesting twists. Koontz did a good job weaving in a bunch of differnt characters whose lives eventually became connected (not to mention all of the other possible worlds where there lives may or may not be connected.) There were even some funny parts. But the main problem was that almost all of the characters were SO annoying. Junior Cain was supposed to be super evil, but he was also a total More...