Watchers by Dean Koontz

Watchers by Dean Koontz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dean Koontz was one of my favourite writers for a couple of decades, and Watchers was one of my favourite books - hence the old 5-star rating. Heck, I've had several print copies of this book (including a replacement for the copy my dog ate), so that I could share the magic with friends.

It's almost 20 years later, and upon a re-read, the problematic aspects of the book are far more obvious, the storyline isn't as engaging, the characters are rather flat (Nora's a bit of a bore, though the utterly obnoxious handyman sounded a little too realistic for my liking, based on social media interactions), the situations are seriously dated (they made sense almost 20 years ago, but need some serious updating).

But then, who cares about the human characters when there's Einstein and The Outsider? Einstein! World's smartest dog! The book does do a decent job of showing exactly why The Outsider hates itself - and Einstein - so much. There's no subtlety in the depictions of how "normies" view "others", although amped up to a degree that makes The Outsider more than just different and actually malevolent - albeit sympathetic in the final climactic scene.

So, for Einstein and The Outsider, the five stars remain, even though the book is just no longer my cup of tea; my tastes have changed and that's okay. This book was great for what it was, when it was written; viewed through today's lens, it's nowhere close to as impactful, but I won't throw away my well-read copy because it still speaks to some of the best times of my life.

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Baby Laughing Hysterically at Newfoundland Dog

Man, I miss my big old Bastian! This is just how he acted when Deafboy's nephew B was a toddler. They'd sit and share jelly tots and other tiny sweets - one small hand and that giant slobber mouth! One day I'll get another ... life's too short not to share it with such amazing animals.

Your inner child's superhero

Nicole Wakelin of Total Fan Girl recently wrote a piece about her favourite childhood superheroines - Isis, Wonder Woman and The Bionic Woman. It was quite a reminder for me - I've been reading a lot about Wonder Woman via Twitter and the various geek girls, and of course, Bionic Woman was recently remade (not that I saw the series, but there was a honking big billboard hanging over William Nicol as I turned into Republic that couldn't fail to catch the eye).

It's been a long time since anyone has mentioned Isis, though. I spoke about the show to MadCat who, unfortunately, was too young to have seen it. I remember the frustration of having to go to piano lessons with heather, and knowing that I'd miss the beginning of the show. I loved Isis' strong makeup and magical prowess! Even then, I knew that my folks didn't approve, so I kept as quiet as I could about my enjoyment of the show so I didn't have to deal with the "satanic!" mumblings.

My other favourite shows at that time were Battle of the Planets (G-Force) and Thunder the Wonder-horse. I loved watching Princess and the tension between Jason and Mark. The fact that Princess rode a kick-ass motorbike and wasn't above kicking ass herself were another eye-opener to the fact that females didn't always need to be rescued, but could do the rescuing themselves. "Transmute!"

Then there was Thunder the Wonderhorse (which was dubbed, sadly), which pleased me for other reasons, like the fact that in some part of the world (Texas), kids could ride horses to school in a tarred-road town. And, of course, I was a horse fanatic, back in the day. I often dreamed of having a Thunder of my very own.

Perhaps it was all tied up with my obsession with Westerns back then, particularly Louis L'Amour and JT Edson. I even wrote school compositions featuring the Sacketts and the Floating outfit. Yes, my inner child's superhero is a cowhand. Is there any kind of cowhand superhero out there?