Intensity (Group Read - September 2015)

[Tony]

No idea Diane...bug in the webpage!

[Karen B.]

Dustin, *counting down the hours and tapping my foot*

just kidding; hope you are enjoying your reading.

[Charissa]

We're done, it's you we are waiting on. Or did you forget?

[Tony]

I can't stand the tension, Dustin! The Intensity of it all! :-)

[Barbara]

Poor Dustin !!! I wish I had more time to read.....I do get such a kick out of reading everyone's reactions to DK books....I read them as soon as they are released!! It has been a while since I read Intensity.....take your time Dustin!!! Lol

[Diane Lynch]

Tony wrote: "I can't stand the tension, Dustin! The Intensity of it all! :-)"

I see what you did their! LOL

[Charissa]

By the way, thanks Diane I tried my best, can't believe that I missed that thank you earlier. Oh, and don't tell Dustin to take his time, Barbara. He's already taken forever. We're going to be late for the October Book of the Month.

[Diane Lynch]

Charisse their's only 1 hour and 15 minutes left until 9/30 becomes 10/1 where I live. I don't know what time zone Dustin is in. I doubt it's still yesterday though. We haven't seen any activity from him at all. At what point do you think we should be concerned? IDK. I hope he's able to
Handle the intensity of the book!(comment stolen).

[Karen B.]

Well we must move forward anyway. Actually Dustin is a good role model for the rest of us ... that reading is for fun and there really are no deadlines to having a good read. (Unless you're a teacher and rushing to get the chapter finished before the next day's class *LOL*)

[Tony]

I guess if I've learned anything from Koontz and Intensity it's that reckless caring for strangers isn't a bad thing at all.

Hope you're OK over there in Colorado, Dustin!

[Charissa]

Well, I would say now, Diane. This doesn't seem quite right. I hope it wasn't too much for him.

[Diane Lynch]

Dustin can you see this?! It's a new month. Did you finish last months read? We won't kick you out of you didn't. We need our leader. Are you being restrained in some way that's preventing you from communicating? We are on to your situation. The wrongdoer must release you!

[Charissa]

I think we blew his mind, or he blew his mind. Maybe it was the wrongdoer that blew his mind.... Should we call somebody?

[Diane Lynch]

The question is who to call. Police, medical, or Ghostbusters. Seriously he isn't usually inactive for this long to my knowledge. What to do. It's a quandary. We should have a plan for future missing moderator situations. After all moderators are real people with real problems. Hmmm!

[Diane Lynch]

Once again my comment posted twice so now I have to copy URL to get to real Goodreads to delete one. Why is this happening?!

[Diane Lynch]

We last heard from Dustin on 9/28 at 11:41 so we can do a missing person report. I don't know if his Goodreads group qualify as saying he's missing since he's only virtually missing. Why do we do? Poor Dustin. I miss him.

[Karen B.]

relax ... I am sure he is busy reading.

[Tony]

I'm sure he'll come back Untouched and Alive. :-)

[Diane Lynch]

Ok. We'll just wait and keep a good thought. I wonder If r was Was their a moderators conference of field trip. All the more moderators get to discuss hot topics and vent about their groups. I hope Dustin is enjoying himself wherever he is. I am posting this once. It may appear twice.

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl, Colorful Colorado]

Well, I was going to say I was tied to a chair and it took me a while to free myself.... but really I just had to work some long shifts at the chocolate factory this week and couldn't make it back here to comment :-)

Thank you for your concern, just know that while I try to check in each day or two, there will be some times when I'm really too exhausted to catch up on Goodreads.

I finished Intensity on October 1st.

[Diane Lynch]

Thanks Dustin. This was the first time I experienced you missing for awhile. I was truly concerned. We missed you. Chocolate factory for real?!

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl, Colorful Colorado]

There are some vivid scenes in Intensity that stay with the reader. Some of those scenes have randomly flashed through my mind this last week.

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl, Colorful Colorado]

One of the important themes in this book seem to be names. There is quite a lot of explanation about the origin of character's names and what words can be spelled by mixing up the letters of their names.

[Charissa]

If it is real, where's our chocolate? Did you not think about us while we were suffering over your absence? That long in a chocolate factory ought to leave you feeling real good. If you did think about us, I got dibs on the dark chocolate. If not...be very afraid....

[Diane Lynch]

Dean Koontz often puts a lot of energy into characters names. The name is it's own plot.

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl, Colorful Colorado]

Synesthesia. The word had stuck with her from a psychology text, more because she thought it was a beautiful arrangement of syllables than because she expected ever to experience it herself. Synesthesia, a confusion of the senses in which a scent might register as a flash of color, a sound actually might be perceived as a scent, and the texture of a surface under the hand might seem to be a trilling laugh or a scream.

-INTENSITY, Dean Koontz

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl, Colorful Colorado]

Diane wrote: "Thanks Dustin. This was the first time I experienced you missing for awhile. I was truly concerned. We missed you. Chocolate factory for real?!"

Yes. It will happen again :-) Summer is our slow season at the factory and things can get pretty crazy. People need their chocolate. I am going on my fourth year there and it works well for my personality.

[Diane Lynch]

Charissa wrote: "If it is real, where's our chocolate? Did you not think about us while we were suffering over your absence? That long in a chocolate factory ought to leave you feeling real good. If you did think ..."

Oh I'm in on the dark chocolate with Charissa. Work. The other 4 letter word. Dustin you were on vacation from us at work. Let work know that doesn't work for us.

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl, Colorful Colorado]

Charissa wrote: "If it is real, where's our chocolate? Did you not think about us while we were suffering over your absence? That long in a chocolate factory ought to leave you feeling real good. If you did think ..."

I have to eat chocolate everyday. It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it so it might as well be me. Stop in anytime you are in Boulder and surprise me. I work right down the street from the Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory and the Leanin' Tree Museum of Western Art.

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl, Colorful Colorado]

FYI: From the Corner of His Eye is our October Group Read and ummm yep - I will probably be reading later in the month again because although I own my own copy of the hardcover and audiobook, I have some library books I've got to get through.

Lightning is our November Group Read

[Diane Lynch]

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "Diane wrote: "Thanks Dustin. This was the first time I experienced you missing for awhile. I was truly concerned. We missed you. Chocolate factory for real?!"

Yes. It will happen again :-) Su..."

What's the brand name of the chocolate (if you can share it)?

[Karen B.]

Dustin, I don't know if you saw my post earlier but I met a man who had synesthesia and wrote a book about it. His wasn't as strong as some people have it. It was fascinating.
I hope you realize we were teasing you. Yes, I want to know too ... what brand of chocolate.

[Diane Lynch]

Karen B. wrote: "Dustin, I don't know if you saw my post earlier but I met a man who had synesthesia and wrote a book about it. His wasn't as strong as some people have it. It was fascinating.
I hope you realize w..."

This man has synesthesia all the time? His nervous system is wired wrong? In extreme situations yor body reacts to defend itself. Tunnel vision is one example. Your mind focuses on only what's directly in front of you. Chynia had this as a reaction to danger. I didn't even think someone could have it all of the time.

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl, Colorful Colorado]

Karen B. wrote: "Dustin, I don't know if you saw my post earlier but I met a man who had synesthesia and wrote a book about it. His wasn't as strong as some people have it. It was fascinating.
I hope you realize w..."

Yes. I know you were just teasing me :-) It's fine & somewhat amusing.

I must have missed your earlier comment. Interesting.

Chocolate: Where I work is called Concertos in Chocolate. We've been in business since 1999 and only have 7 employees. So, when we get a lot of orders at once we have to put in long hours. We sell at Whole Foods and Pharmaca in the Western United States among other places. We do European style chocolate and everything is hand-made so it's rather expensive. Even with my employee discount, I can't afford to buy chocolate for people very often. If you any of you are ever in Boulder, stop in and I'll give you some free chocolate and possibly a tour if I can :-) My title there is Operations Manager so I basically do everything besides make the chocolate. I run the retail shop, packaging, packaging supervision, product rotation, production lists, order fulfillment, shipping, quality control, cleaning etc. About the only chocolate work I do is catch chocolate on the conveyer belt - think a smaller version of what Lucy and Ethel were doing :-) now you know everything about my chocolate job.

[Tony]

Diane - Synesthesia is something you do have all the time. My wife has it - she sees days of the week as a circle around her and hears music visually, for instance.

The composer Rimsky-Korsakov had it - he once told an orchestra they "weren't playing brown enough."

My wife didn't realise that everyone didn't have it until we were talking about it one day. I named it for her because I'd read about it in Intensity (Thanks Dean!).

[Diane Lynch]

Tony your wife has it all of the time?

[Tony]

Yes, she was born with it (A fair number of us are, but we filter it out early). There are different types as well...people who see words as colours, smells as noise, etc.

I've even experienced a bit myself...if I'm almost asleep and someone flicks a light switch, I hear it and see it as static, like an old TV.

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl, Colorful Colorado]

Thanks for sharing Tony. Fascinating. Everyone perceives the world differently and this is another example.

[Syd]

Karen B. wrote: "For some reason I find this book a little harder to get into than I usually do with a Koontz book. Usually I am hooked within the first 10 pages or so."

Thank you, me too. It was very slow and so much thinking and remembering with very little action. Very creepy and sinister but I still found myself screaming, "Do something already!"

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl, Colorful Colorado]

INTENSITY will be featured as a Mini Group Read soon. Anyone is welcome to join us as we read this book. There are two discussion threads for INTENSITY - this is the newest one from 2015. You may also find the older thread from 2010 interesting.

Thank You!

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl, Colorful Colorado]

NEW 2017 Discussion thread for INTENSITY:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...