Ponder Post: Relentless

At the start of Dean Koontz's thriller Relentless I was initially a bit put off by the forced cleverness in the banter between two parents Cubby and Penny and their genius son Milo and enigmatic non-collie dog, Lassie. I adapted to the writing style and off-the-wall characters, however, and pushed onward. The premise of the novel is that book critic Shearman Waxx has panned a recent work of author Cubby and the penalty for poor writing goes far beyond just publishing a bad review. Ink on paper punishment is apparently insufficient. Non-idle threats and actual acts of violence against the author and his family ensue. This pattern had been practiced by the critic before but there was never enough data to prove his guilt as perpetrator of the violence.

If you are able to tolerate the violence and cruelty in the HBO TV series Game of Thrones to get to the deeper meaning of the story beyond, then I suppose you are also capable of reading between those types of monstrous depictions in Relentless, also. But wait. I just finished the entire book and I found that the "deeper meaning beyond", if there was one, was so hazily hidden, it was like it never emerged from the fog that enshrouds most of the later hunt-or-be-hunted scenes in this book.

I had just recently defended Dean Koontz's works to a friend by saying I liked how no matter how bad the evil, there was a permeance of good triumphing in the greater scheme of things. This book had too little of the "greater good", the "good" arrived too late in the story and, ultimately I was not really sure what the good was. The good seemed to be more of a philosophy than a grace.  I doggedly continued to forge ahead in the book, anxious and hopeful for the revelation of Koontz's characteristic message, "Aha, there is a God. Yes, there is evil in the world but good will statistically triumph." I am all for fantasy and suspension of disbelief, but the ending of this was totally unsatisfying. It was more like the author had painted himself into a corner and had to succumb to levitation to get himself out of it.

I finished Relentless because it was indeed a page turner action-wise, and each chapter was very short. The philosophy of short chapters somehow coaxes me into starting yet another. In my opinion, this is not one of Koontz's better works. I would have been wiser to devote my reading time elsewhere.