Having failed to read nineteen books in 2019, I'm going to have another go with, guess what, twenty books in 2020. When I finish one, a thumbnail review here will follow.
1-6/20: The Nameless books by Dean Koontz
The blurb: If our memories make us who we are, who is a man without any? Nameless has only a gun, missions from a shadowy agency, and one dead aim: dispense justice when the law fails. As he moves from town to town, driven by splintered visions of the past and future, he’s headed toward the ultimate confrontation in this propulsive series of short thrillers.
The review: you might not remember, but when Stephen King's The Green Mile was first published in 1996 it was as a serial, six books released at monthly intervals between March and August. I loved that, bought each and devoured it in a hurry, then spent the rest of the month waiting for the next instalment. Well, Koontz's Nameless series is similar: six novellas linked by a common character, a common theme and a persistent arc. Unlike King's serial, the Nameless titles work as standalone short stories too, to be read in isolation... but there is a satisfaction to be had from reading them sequentially. Having said that, to make them work as standalone stories there's a necessary degree of repetition, sometimes word for word. Curiously, this doesn't grate - indeed, it becomes something of a trope that you start to look for, and pat yourself on the back for spotting.
Anyway, the books. You've read the blurb, so you know the premise. The titular hero is not only nameless but, for a character in their mid-thirties, only has two years of back-story. He is almost literally a blank slate. This ought to make him hard to like, but there's enough in his actions throughout these titles to endear him to the reader. This reader, at least. And the fact that he's basically a modern-day Equalizer helps too, especially as he seeks out those in need of his help, rather than waiting for them to reply to a newspaper ad.
It's an intriguing premise, certainly good enough for Amazon who, I think, are delivering these as exclusive e-books to help push their Prime Reading offering. But what of the writing? Well in the past I had, somewhat unfairly perhaps, thought of Koontz as a kind of cut-price King. Good, but not quite as good. And these novellas have done nothing to change that view really - I rattled through them quickly enough, and certainly enjoyed them, but I can't quite rave about them. Why? Well, for most of these stories Koontz adopts a prosaic, almost journalistic style that suits the dark subject matter and the anonymous (anti-)hero very well. It keeps the pages turning nicely, but it's not prose you could love. And then, periodically, Koontz suddenly drops in a paragraph of purple prose that seems at odds with the clinical writing on either side. This jars, somewhat. It also only seems to happen when the author is trying to make a grand point, about people in general, or life today. It feels a little pompous, like the writer, or at least the omnipotent narrator, is taking himself too seriously. And since this happens in all six books, it's a little hard to overlook.
Maybe I'm being a little hard - these are good stories, well told. I enjoyed reading them, despite the often bleak themes, and my opinion of Koontz's work has gone up after reading them. I just wish I knew what he was trying to achieve with what I came to think of as the grand diversions.
The bottom line: if you like Koontz (or King) already, you'll like these too. They won't change the world, but would make intriguing films or, better still, a mini-series. Maybe another one for Amazon...
Since everything online is rated these days: ★★★★☆☆
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